Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/216

198 pictorial features. The Variegated American agave is a noble conservatory and terrace plant. A. applanata, A. horrrida, A. filifera, A. ensiformis, and A. schidigera are distinct and fine. Agaves are usually starved out of character owing to the prevailing notion that they can live on sunshine alone. Of light indeed they must have plenty, but they must also have a good body of soil to root in, and during the growing season plenty of water. A mixture consisting of turfy loam three parts, and one part each of sharp grit and leaf mould will suit them all, and the drainage must be perfect. If they can be allowed to make the whole of their growth in the open air, say from the first of June to the first of September, they will be the handsomer and healthier for it, but they will do very well under glass all the summer if allowed plenty of light and air. During winter they should be kept quite dry and have enough heat to secure them against frost. If by any accident the leaves are wetted in winter raise the temperature of the house to dry off the moisture, for if it is allowed to lodge for any length of time black spots will result and these will in time become ugly holes. Propagation is easily effected by means of suckers. Young plants must have regular shifts to promote growth, but large specimens may be kept in the same pots or tubs for several years. If pots sufficiently large can be obtained they are to be preferred to tubs, and it will be well to remember that overpotting is no advantage, and the size of the pot, may, as a rule, be determined by its ability to carry the plant without toppling over. Large plants should be repotted every three years at least, and the simplest way to do is to tie the plant carefully and securely and then to cut it through just above the roots and then plant the top with its short stump in a well prepared pot of fresh soil one or two sizes smaller than the pot or tub it was taken out of. If this is done in the early part of June, the plant may be put out of doors in a sunny place, and will make new roots directly and be well established in the new pot long before winter. The next year it may be shifted into a pot one size larger: the next year it need not be shifted and the next it may be shifted again, and it may be cut off as before and potted in a comparatively small pot.

The flowering of an agave is an important event, and one may wait so long for it that “they say” it flowers only once in a hundred years. This is a fiction founded on fact. In