The Garden Under Glass

148 THE GARDEN UNDER GLASS we do away with a lot of congestion in the greenhouse during the spring months. The other dass of plants alluded to are tender subjects such as geraniums both zonal and ivy-leaved, heliotrope, lobelia, ageratum, fuchsias, and such as need to have cuttings taken of them either in autumn or spring. Geraniums are best rooted early in the autumn in a cold frame and brought into a warmer structure when the frames have been found too cold. They should be potted separately in 3-inch pots in February. The other subjects are rooted from cuttings taken in the autumn to supply stock, the main batch of cuttings being taken in February and March. Lobelia may be left in boxes, but heliotrope pays for potting up separately in pots. A warm propagator is required for rooting these cuttings in the spring. Yet another dass of plants for bedding are raised from seeds sown early in the year. These are stocks, asters, antirrhinums, nicotiana, salpiglossis, alyssum. and such subjects which, while being easily raised from seeds to flower during the summer, are able to be transplanted from boxes. Often it pays to work the plants along in pots, but it takes up a considerable amount of space and also of time. Certainly stocks grown in pots for planting out give splendid results. I have had as many as sixty-three flower-spikes at one time on an East Lothian stock grown along in a 5-inch pot and planted out. Seeds of all these plants should be sown thinly in a warm house, and the young plants should be pricked off before they become crowded. The notes on this subject, as well as on hardening off, to be found in the section devoted to Greenhouse Work, will bear perusal in connection with this subject. Annuals are also raised in lines in a frame over a very mild hotbed, and are thus kept out of the greenhouse. It may here be said that the making up of a hotbed frame