The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life RationallyLoudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Cooking; Country life; Home economics
I will now say a few words on the _greenhouse plants_ that you will
want for planting in the open ground in your flower-garden. Petunias
may be all raised from seeds with the other half-hardy annuals; as
seedling plants both grow and flower much more vigorously when planted
out into the open ground, than plants that have been raised from layers
or cuttings. Célsia or Alonsòa urticifòlia may also be raised from
seeds; as may Thunbérgia alàta, and its white variety. Phlóx Drummóndi
is almost always raised in this manner; as are the beautiful climbing
plants, Lophospérmum scándens and its varieties, Maurándya Barclayàna,
Cobœa scándens, Eccremocárpus or Calámpelis scàbra, Rhodochìton
volùbile, the beautiful canary-bird flower (_Tropœ'olum peregrìnum_),
the most splendid of the ipomœas, and several other well-known plants.
Geraniums, or pelargoniums, as they are now more properly called,
being half-shrubby plants, require to be raised by cuttings. These are
generally taken off the points of the shoots in autumn; and, a good
many being put into one pot, they are plunged into the hotbed till
they have struck root, and then gradually hardened and placed on the
back shelf of a greenhouse, or in a cold frame, till the spring, when
they are removed to separate pots till they are wanted for planting
out. Some gardeners do not put themselves to the trouble of potting
them, but keep them in the same pots in which the cuttings were struck
till they are wanted for planting out; but this is a slovenly mode of
culture, as, when the plants are kept so long in one pot, they become
drawn up, and never have the compact bushy appearance that they have
when they are properly transplanted early in spring. Verbenas may be
either preserved by cuttings or layers, or raised afresh from seed.
The usual way of propagating them, however, is by layers, as they
strike root readily at the joints, if the joints are covered with a
little earth. All the other greenhouse plants which you may want to
grow for planting out may be treated in the same manner as those I have
mentioned.
A _cold frame_ is a bottomless box of the kind described for a hotbed,
but formed of brick or stone instead of wood. These frames have a glass
sash at the top, but contain no manure; and they are generally sunk in
the soil, that the warmth of the earth around may aid in protecting the
plants they contain from the frost. These frames, if they have only one
light, are generally five feet in width; that is, from the back to the
front; but, if they have two or three lights, the width is generally
seven feet, as these are the dimensions of the frames used for hotbeds
in kitchen-gardens. The greenhouse plants that are to be preserved in
the cold frame are merely set in their pots close together, and, the
glass sashes being then closed, mats and other coverings are laid on to
keep out the frost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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