Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/278

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.&mdash;Pelargoniums that have been pruned back and rested should be repotted as soon as they have broken regularly. Put them into the smallest pots into which their roots can be got, so as to allow of a series of shifts till they are once more in their blooming-pots. Young plants and greenhouse shrubs should be well hardened now before going to their quarters for the winter. Let camellias and azaleas have plenty of sun and little water. Summer-struck geraniums, achimenes, and fuchsias, may be got into bloom now, to keep up a display till Christmas. Shift all forward stock required to bloom early. Cinerarias should now be strong and must have no check; see that they are kept clear of fly, for they are very subject to it. A cold pit is the best place for them. Sow now, for decorating the house in early spring, Clarkia pulchella, Nemophila insignis, Ergsimum Peroffskianum, nothera roses, Collinsia bicolor, Veronica syriaca, and Chinese primroses. Whatever needs potting pot at once. Late shifts result in death during winter. All plants winter best when their pots are full of roots.

.&mdash;It is most important to have the growth of all hard-wooded plants well ripened when there is plenty of sun-heat. If any subjects requiring to be repotted have been neglected, there must be no time lost to give them a shift to enable them to make new roots before winter sets in. A border under a south wall is a good place for plants that require to be well roasted before being housed. Bedding plants should be got into small pots as fast as they make good roots in the borders, or can be spared from the decorative grounds, if worth keeping. Keep the houses gay with balsams, cockscombs, fuchsias, liliums, gladioli, coleus, amaranthus bicolor, heliotropes, and plants with fine foliage. Wherever wormcasts are seen in pots, turn out the balls, and the worms can then be picked out with a stick. Sometimes a dose of manure-water will cause the worms to struggle up to the surface. Plants in conservatory borders which are now past their best to be taken up, and, if worth keeping pot them, and place on bottom-heat for eight or ten days, as they will winter better if the pots are full of roots. Winter-flowering begonias to have a good shift in a compost of turfy loam and leaf-mould. Pot off a lot of bulbs at once for early bloom, and plunge them in coal ashes, and give very little water. Keep all houses open as much as will