Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/277

Rh shading of tiffany or hexagon net; the latter will also be useful to exclude bees and wasps, for flowers on which bees have settled perish sooner than those they have no access to, owing to their disturbing the pollen, and causing a formation of seed-pods. A method of prolonging the bloom of flowers, and, in the opinion of some, increasing their beauty, is to get some dissolved gum arable and a camel’s hair brush. The brush is dipped in, and the centre of every flower touched with gum, where it forms a bright bead, and prevents the distribution of the pollen. Of course the flowers should be touched soon after they open, or Nature may have accomplished her end before the preventive is brought into operation. Pelargoniums done blooming should be cut in and allowed to break before repotting. They should be kept rather dry, so as to break slowly, and when potted into small pots put in a cold frame, and kept close till they begin to make fresh root, when they must have plenty of light and air. Cinerarias done blooming may be propagated by side shoots and suckers; if the plants are turned out on a border, and heaped round the collar with sandy loam, they will throw out suckers, which may afterwards be slipped off with a portion of root attached. The time is now arriving for clearing out the house, and giving it any necessary cleaning and repairs; and cold frames should be provided in good time to receive those plants that are not to be turned out of their pots for the summer.

.&mdash;Shift all greenhouse plants required for late blooming, and grow them on to a good size before allowing them to blossom. Cinerarias for winter blooming must have good culture and shifts as required, and camllias may be shifted if necessary, but if well potted in the first instance they will flourish in the same pots for three seasons in succession, and to overpot them is to do them injury, from which they may never recover. Ericas generally require to be pruned and cleared of seed-pods and dead flowers. Put out all the ventricosas in the open air in a north aspect, and shelter with spare lights during heavy rain. All those with woolly leaves to be put in cold pits, and kept shaded at midday. Any not shifted in the spring cut in at once, and as soon as they break repot them. Repot leschenaultias. Every kind of hard-wooded plants may be repotted now if out of bloom.