Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/125

Rh are fairly up they must be carefully pricked out into boxes or pans, and when they have grown a little be potted separately in sixties. From first to last, alter they leave the seed pans, they should be grown in turfy loam, with about a fourth of rotten hotbed manure added. There is nothing better for them than loam from the stack, as described in Chapter VI. It should be well chopped up, but should be rather lumpy. Keep them close after potting, but give them air as soon as they have begun to grow again, and as soon as they have filled the 60-size pots with roots shift them into five-inch pots. They must be wintered in a greenhouse, very near the glass, and be very cautiously watered, until the days begin to lengthen rapidly. Beware of the sudden bursts of sunshine that occur in the spring and shade them slightly, or they will suffer, and beware, also, of using any more fire heat than is necessary to protect them from frost.

If the plants are strong shift them into eight-inch pots in February, and be especially careful in watering for a few weeks afterwards. As the flower-stalks make their appearance support them with neat sticks. Plants intended for large specimens for the following year should have their flowers removed immediately the size, shape, and colour of them can be seen, be kept cool all the summer, and shifted into larger pots in autumn, early enough to fill the pots with roots before winter. More care in watering is necessary the second winter than the first. These will probably require tying out before the flowers make their appearance. It must be done with care, for the side shoots easily snap off, and then the shape of the plant is completely spoilt.

When grown from cuttings the treatment is the same as seedlings after the cuttings are rooted. They are easily struck in a cold frame if taken off as soon as they are large enough, and kept close and shady. The cuttings should, of course, be taken from the very best varieties and from plants which have not been allowed to ripen seed. Shade when the plants are in bloom; and, lastly, on the first sign of there being a single green-fly on them give the house or pit a thorough smoking with good tobacco paper. On no account let the green-fly or red-spider get ahead, for they soon ruin the plants, and it is an extremely difficult matter to destroy them; for they shelter themselves underneath the leaves.

The “shrubby” section is chiefly valued for bedding