The houses, mostly white with coloured roofs, are generally built of wood and iron, and have glazed porches, gay with fuchsias and pelargoniums. Government House, grey, stone-built and slated, calls to mind a manse in Shetland or Orkney.
The flowers, which are generally arranged in a cymose inflorescence, are hermaphrodite, hypogynous, and, except in Pelargoniums, regular.
Zonal pelargoniums, fuchsias, shrubby calceolarias, dahlias, carnations, &c., to retain on the cutting some of its leaves, so as to supply the requisite food for storage in the callus.
This is the case with many of our roses, dahlias, begonias, pelargoniums, orchids and other long or widely cultivated garden plants.
Pelargoniums, cinerarias, calceolarias, cyclamens, camellias, heaths, roses and other specialities might thus have to themselves either a whole house or part of a house, the conditions of which could then be more accurately fitted to the wants of the inmates.
Some plants, like pelargoniums, can only be kept handsomely formed and well furnished by cutting them down severely every season, after the blooming is over.
The root-pruning of pot-plants is necessary in the case of many soft-wooded subjects which are grown on year after year - pelargoniums and fuchsias, for example.
- This term is chiefly applied to those summerflowering plants, such as ivy-leaved and zonal pelargoniums, petunias, dwarf lobelias, verbenas, &c., which are employed in masses for filling the beds of a geometrical parterre.
Metallica are much employed; Gazanias; Heliotropes; Iresines; Lantanas; Lobelias; Mesembryanthemum cordifolium variegatum; Pelargoniums, of which the various classes of zonal or bedding varieties are unapproachable for effect and general utility; Petunias; Phloxes; Polemonium coeruleum variegatum; Pyrethrum Parthenium aureum, the well-known Golden Feather, especially useful as an edging to define the outline of beds upon grass; Tropaeolums, especially some of the varieties of T.
Plant out, during the last week, dahlias, hardy pelargoniums, stocks and calceolarias, protecting the dahlias from slight frosts.
Sow seed of herbaceous calceolarias; shift heaths, if they require it; cut down pelargoniums past flowering, and plant the cuttings.
Plant cuttings of bedding plants, and of bedding pelargoniums in boxes for convenience of removal.
Put in cuttings of bedding pelargoniums in boxes, which may stand outdoors exposed to the sun, but should be sheltered from excessive rains.
Pelargoniums, pinks, monthly roses and all the half-hardy kinds of flowering plants should be planted early, but coleus, heliotrope and the more tender plants should be delayed until the end of the month.
Hyacinths, tulips and other spring bulbs may be dug up, dried and placed away for next fall's planting, and their places filled with bedding plants, such as coleus, achyranthes, pelargoniums, and the various white and coloured leaf plants.
Cuttings of bedding plants may now be made freely if wanted for next season, as young cuttings rooted in the fall make better plants for next spring's use than old plants, in the case of such soft-wooded plants as pelargoniums, fuchsias, verbenas, heliotropes, &c.; with roses and plants of a woody nature, however, the old plants usually do best.
Roses, carnations, camellias, azaleas, pelargoniums and the hardier sorts of plants will do better if placed in a cold frame or pit until the middle of November than they would in an ordinary greenhouse.
