Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/81

Rh will form a nice little plant by the end of the summer. Those who have not convenience for forcing may have a fine display early in the season by simply keeping them in the greenhouse from the time they are potted until they come into bloom. Of course they should be placed in an out-of-the-way corner until the young growth begins to push, and then they should be placed in a position near the glass.

.&mdash;The camellia-flowered varieties make superb conservatory plants if well grown. The seed should be sown in March, in a gentle bottom-heat, and the plants should be potted off singly as soon as large enough to handle, and as fast as they fill their pots with roots should be shifted on to larger and larger pots, until they are required to flower, and then there must be no more shifting. Very nice plants may be grown in five-inch to nine-inch pots, and they are better grown singly than several in a pot. The compost should be rich; the plants should never have the least check through cold or want of water, and if they show flower-buds while they are yet too small to be allowed to flower, pinch them out, and keep the plants growing by shifting on.

belong much more to the stove than the greenhouse, but they are such universal favorites that we dare not exclude them from this work. With the aid of a hotbed a number of fine begonias may be grown in a greenhouse, but if there is no hotbed, the selection must be restricted. The ornamental leaved kinds, such as Rex, may be kept under the stage all winter in their pots laid on their sides, and if quite dry, will be ready to start into a free growth with the aid of a moist heat in spring. The sorts that flower in winter, however, are of no use for the greenhouse, as they must have, in the dead season of the year, the comfort of the stove. However, as a few good sorts are nearly hardy, and the tender ones are accommodating, we can fairly include begonias amongst greenhouse plants. To make plants is a very easy matter. The stemless kinds are propagated by means of the full-grown leaves, in the same way as the ornamental-leaved varieties are. But all that have a shrubby habit are readily raised from cuttings of the young wood in the spring. The cuttings should be taken off about a couple of inches in length from the fresh healthy tips of the young shoots, and inserted firmly in sand