Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/149

Rh them if we wish to appear votaries of fashion. Those that are required for winter decoration should be planted out from the end of May to the end of August, and be carefully stopped, as requisite, to promote a dense bushy growth. After potting

keep them cool and airy, and otherwise treat them as advised for the zonals that are required for winter flowering, but with extra caution as to watering. It is common enough to meet with starving bits of tricolors that have been in pots for years and incline to grow smaller rather than larger; but if they were first cut back, and then planted out from the latter part of May to the middle of June, and taken up in September, they would become respectable plants in the course of one season.

In propagating tricolors, cuttings should be taken as early in the summer as they can be obtained, as they root slowly, and must be potted early to ensure their well-doing through the winter. If propagated in quantity, a bed should be made in a cool greenhouse by mixing equal parts of sharp sand and cocoa-nut fibre refuse, as in such a mixture they root quickly and make better roots than in any other kind of compost. The amateur in tricolors must learn to bud and graft them on the stems of seedling zonals, for all of them grow more vigorously