BEDDING PLANTS. 
213 
them in good health ; and, as soon as the sun’s influence is felt, 
they start into a rapid growth, and may then be separated and 
encouraged. To attempt their propagation to any extent by 
means of spring cuttings is quite useless ; they seem to require 
two or three months to form even a callus to the stem, inde¬ 
pendent of the time taken up in the growth of roots. 
Of scarlet geraniums there should be several sizes; the tops 
and lateral branches of old plants, struck now by placing three 
or four together in small pots, form nice little plants by the 
spring, if they are not drawn in winter, while their parents, 
being taken up in October and carefully nursed, without pruning, 
will afford some large specimens for filling the backs of beds and 
the middle of large masses. Neither one nor the other should 
feel the knife in the dull season ; for, if the old plants are cut 
then, they are immediately attacked by mildew on the wounded 
part, and the gradual but certain loss of the plant ensues. As 
regards the young plants, though they suffer less in this respect, 
the removal of the points of their shoots throws them back in 
flowering full a month, and thus I would rather turn out long- 
legged plants, which may be laid down, and will soon become 
furnished with new leaves and branches, and are certain to begin 
blooming at once, than have shorter specimens, which require 
half the summer to get them into a flowering state. 
Fuchsias should always be provided in autumn. An examina¬ 
tion of the plants should be taken in hand without delay; and, 
wherever growing shoots can be obtained, of a few inches in 
length, they should be taken off with a heel, and struck in 
sandy peat, and ultimately may be potted separately, or allowed 
to stand in the manner of geraniums. Such plants as these 
should never be stopped, that is, their terminal shoots should be 
preserved entire; or, when placed in the open ground, they 
assume a dwarfed appearance, by no means so elegant as a 
pyramidal shape, nor so well calculated to exhibit the flowers. 
Hydrangeas, gaillardias, bouvardias, and such other things, 
are all better when struck in autumn; and, in fact, where con¬ 
venience for striking cuttings and nursing the young plants in 
spring is at all limited, it is decidedly preferable to depend mainly 
upon those preserved through the winter; though, where the 
