ed osmundine and trim off decayed or 
broken roots. Do not injure any living 
roots, they are rather brittle. 
Use best grade of Osmundine available. 
Shake out dirt and remove stems. Moisten 
the fiber. If standard pots are used they 
should be 1/3 full of drainage materials, 
preferably broken pot. Pans do not need 
so much drainage material. The osmundine 
should be punched down firmly with a 
sharpened stick, avoiding injury of roots. 
Plants will thrive much better if the os- 
mundine is made very hard and firm. The 
surface of the osmundine should be below 
the rim of pot. 
In the greenhouse, we keep our night 
temperature at 65° to 70° in the summer 
and try to keep it under 90° in the day 
time. It may be 10° cooler than this in 
winter. The relative humidity should be 
about 80%. When the humidity is this 
high the plants will not be injured at 90° 
or even a little hotter. But if air is dry, 
they will be injured. A hygrometer is use- 
ful but one can approximate conditions 
with two themometers one of which is en- 
closed in a cotton wick or cloth kept moist. 
In the temperature range between 80° 
and 90° the difference between wet and 
dry bulb reading should not be over 5° or 
6°. 
A hygrometer is not a necessity as the 
relative humidity can usually be kept suf- 
ficiently high by dampening the floor of 
greenhouse and all surroundings. Many 
place cinders, coke or even gravel on the 
benches under pots and this is kept wet. 
In the house or greenhouse, moist evapo- 
rating surfaces must be maintained to 
furnish humidity and this will also cool 
the air. In our smaller greenhouse we have 
kept the humidity sufficiently high in 
winter by a pan of water on stove. 
Spraying the foliage of plants 2 or 3 
times on hot days has a two fold value. It 
cools the plants and increases the humidity 
of surrounding air. But do not spray the 
foliage on cloudy days, It is seldom ad- 
visable in winter. 
The rule for pot watering is to water 
only as they become dry, never when al- 
ready damp. This will be usually once a 
week to ten days in winter, sometimes 
longer, and about twice a week in hot 
weather. 
Shading of the greenhouse glass is im- 
portant. In ones home a muslin curtain 
may be shade enough. One must study the 
plants to know how heavy the shading 
material must be. If the plants are a lush 
dark green they have too much shade. The 
growths will be soft and few blooms will 
be produced. Their flowers will not keep 
well as the texture will be soft. 
If the foliage appears to have consider- 
able yellowing the light is too strong. But 
if foilage is a healthy light green the 
plants are receiving enough sun and the 
production of flowers is favored. Small 
seedlings must have higher humidity and 
more shade than mature plants. Don’t al- 
low them to dry out. Keep tempeature 
uniformly at about 68° to 70° at night. 
Don’t allow them to be exposed to the 
limit of endurance that mature plants 
have. They can stand a closer atmosphere 
than mature plants. 
But mature plants need plenty of air as 
their food is taken from the air. Stuffy 
houses are bad for them. 
I have been asked: “Can I grow Cattleya 
orchids as house plants?” Cattleyas are 
ideal greenhouse plants but few houses 
afford the proper conditions for growing 
them successfully. If the heat, sun ex- 
posure and humidity can be controlled to 
fit their needs as here explained, it can and 
has been done. A customer wrote us that 
he had never before seen a Cattleya, when 
a disgusted friend gave him a sick plant 
in a pot of decaying osmundine. He remov- 
ed the plant and gave it a good cleaning 
with soap and water and re-establish it 
The plant began to grow and in two years 
it flowered. It missed flowering the third 
year but flowered again the fourth. 
A glassed in porch can be made as cor- 
rect as a greenhouse. Or a Wardian ¢ase 
can easily be built. This is simply a rec- 
tangular box made with 3 or 4 glass sides; 
a solid bottom and a hinged top. Have a 
galvanized pan made to fit the bottom and 
fill this with coke, charcoal or nut gravel 
partially covered by water. Have a secure 
shelf built just above pan on which to set 
plants. Keep lid propped open from 1%” to 
2”. Hang thermometer inside the case. If 
the case is on a stand with “easy going’ 
rollers it can be moved about for proper 
light exposure. Please do not ask for War- 
dian case blue prints or plans. Make your 
own. 
While a glassed in porch can be made 
at slight expense into a real conservatory 
or a Wardian case be built, it would be 
nice to have a small hobby greenhouse. 
Our first house was not much larger, 
as it was only 12’ x 18’. But it accomodated 
several hundred Cattleyas. We heated this 
successfully first with a coal oil stove; 
later with an ordinary gas stove and at 
last by a small greenhouse gas stove con- 
trolled by a thermostat. In every case our 
plants flowered beautifully. One should 
always have a gas stove with thermostat 
control adjusted by the Gas Co. 
If you would like to build a small al- 
uminum greenhouse write to Wilbur G. 
Wood, 1621 Irving Ave., Glendale 1, Calif. 
Mr. Wood built our house and we think 
we have the best house in east Los Angeles 
County. 
Cymbidium Orchids 
Culture. Cymbidiums are terrestial or- 
chids, easily grown in pots in a compost 
whose composition may vary widely. It 
may be about % very sandy loam and 
small gravel or crushed clay pots and % 
peat or leaf mould (preferably oak) or a 
combination. Some growers use part os- 
mundine others sphagnum moss. Coarse, 
fibrous Danish peat is better than Cana- 
dian. 
Cymbidiums like a liberal pot room. 
Single bulbs need at least a 7” standard 
pot and a clump of 4 needs at least a 10” 
or 12” pot. The pot should have at least 
the bottom one third filled with drainage 
material, small pieces of broken pot or nut 
gravel. 
They need half sun exposure. A lath 
