Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/147

 Rh they must have no check. The temperature must average 50° by night and 60° by day, and a little air must be admitted every day, and all day, unless the weather is very bad; but it must not reach the plants until it has acquired the warmth of the house. The plants must have more water than others of the same kinds that are at rest, and as the days lengthen in spring it will be prudent to assist them with very weak manure water, but this must not be given if they are evidently robust and healthy. They should flower freely from October to May, and plants in 32-size pots should be two feet high and two feet through, and as gay as flambeaux at Christmas. There are many varieties for forcing pelargoniums in the market, but probably in our time we shall not see one to surpass, or even equal. Gauntlet for early work.

&mdash;If we may be excused pronouncing eulogies on this important section of the great family of geraniums we will endeavour to make amends by concentrating in a few pages as much sound information on their management as pot plants as any less experienced pen would require a volume to unfold. So, good amateurs, we begin by remarking that the first step towards success is to make a good selection, for only about a tenth part of all the zonals in the trade lists are worth the trouble of pot culture. If you will have such sorts as Christine, Tom Thumb, Stella, and Indian Yellow, you will waste all your time in growing them, for good as they are when bedded out, they are quite incapable of acquiring a respectable appearance as pot plants. The achievements of cross-breeding in this branch of floriculture are truly wonderful, for not only are the finest of the newer varieties characterised by flowers of great size, of a perfectly circular outline, the petals of which overlap, so as to produce a solid disk; but the inequality of the petals has been abolished, and they rebuke and confound the botanists by presenting symmetrical flowers on plants that are designated pelargoniums. With such fine varieties as Sir Charles Napier, Richard Headly, Ianthe, and Mrs. Sach, the amateur may labour in hope that, in due time, he shall be repaid, if he faint not.

When zonals are to be grown into specimens, it is a good plan to plant them out the first season, and allow them one year’s growing in the open ground, to form a good foundation of stout wood. They should be put in good unmanured ground,