In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year / Showing the Most Successful Treatment for all Plants Cultivated in the Greenhouse, Conservatory, Stove, Pit, Orchid, and Forcing-house

by gardener William Keane

GREENHOUSE AND CONSERVATORY.

Proceed as diligently as possible with the repotting of such of the hardwooded greenhouse plants as require it, so as to start them in good time to acquire a vigorous growth.

Cacti.—The chief point in managing these plants is to allow them an alternate period of rest and growth. To be grown in a mixture of lime rubbish and loam,

with a little cowdung, and in well-drained pots. In summer to be fully exposed to the sun, and well watered; and from October to March to be kept perfectly dry.

Calceolarias (Herbaceous).—To be shifted into larger pots in a compost of equal quantities of decayed turf, leaf mould, good sandy peat, old cowdung, and silver sand, with plenty of drainage and moss on the crocks. To be kept close for a week, after which air may be freely given, avoiding currents of cold air.

Heaths.—Every vigorous shoot that is taking the lead to be stopped, to produce a more uniform and compact plant.

Lilium lancifolium.—To be potted either in a good peat, with a little silver sand, or in a light sandy loam, using also some silver sand. The bulb to be placed two or three inches deep from the top of the pot to allow room for the stem-fibres to penetrate the soil.

Pelargoniums.—The plants potted last month to be stopped back. The house to be kept rather close for a week or ten days, to assist them to push out their eyes. Those intended to bloom in May, that have not been stopped since cutting down, will be putting up their trusses, on sunny days syringe them lightly, and shut the house up warm, with the sun upon it, about three or four o’clock in the afternoon.

STOVE AND ORCHID-HOUSE.

Keep a lively growing temperature here during the day, with a plentiful supply of moisture. Syringe, and shut up early, with 80° or more, allowing a fall of 20° during the night. Shake out and repot in succession the stove plants that have been previously recommended to be headed back, and encourage a free growth by plunging them, if possible, in bottom heat. Smaller pots to be used until they have filled them with roots, they may then receive one bold shift that might probably be sufficient for the season.