The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
THE CAMELLIA, AZALEA, AND RHODODENDRON.
These three noble evergreen shrubs agree well together in the same house, and a few of the hardier kinds of heaths may be grown with them. They differ in their several requirements it is true, and therefore we must appropriate to each a separate paragraph; but the differences are few and small and easily bridged over by careful management. It is so desirable the amateur should experience something in the nature of sympathy for his vegetable pets, that we embrace every opportunity of indicating idiosyncrasies, or say, their constitutional peculiarities, and to these indications, however partial or imperfect they may be, we invite the especial attention of the reader. The three plants now to be considered are so nearly hardy that they may be grown well in an airy house without the aid of artificial heat, but we do not recommend such an extreme procedure. If, however, there is heat sufficient to exclude frost, they will be safer, and will attain to a finer condition both of leafage and bloom than if unaided. They are all characterised by a profuse production of flowers in the winter or early days of spring, followed by a free growth of new wood on which the flower-buds of the next season are formed; and then they take a decided rest, making no more sign of activity than the slow swelling of the flowerbuds preparatory to the next display of their glorious colours. They need less air and light than heaths; and camellias are somewhat famed for their enjoyment of old conservatories, the roofs of which consist of heavy rafters and small squares of very dirty glass while the floors are quagmires, and the walls are clothed with the vegetation that belongs to damp and ruin. We must confess that we have seen gigantic camellias covered with flowers “thick as hail,” in houses so dirty and dark that it was like visiting one’s grave to enter them, but we have seen them equally thrifty and a deal more comfortable in smart constructions of the present day, which admitted a flood of light from above and presented the temptations of a bright mosaic pavement underfoot to enhance the enjoyment of an inspection of the flowers. In its native land the camellia grows in woods, and hence a certain degree of shade is favorable to its prosperity; but we do not need heavy rafters and a century of dirt to modify the sunlight, because that can be accomplished by some cheap and respectable shading, the employment of which will really add to the comfort of the camellia house when the sun is shining brightly. Camellias, azaleas, and rhododendrons make their new growth quickly, and usually show a bristling of the tender green of the rising shoots before the latest of their flowers have expanded. The appearance of this sprinkling of bright green is a signal to the cultivator that now they require a little extra warmth, and a somewhat humid atmosphere and protection against drying winds and any sudden change of temperature. That they should be carefully supplied with water at this time is of course a matter of some importance. As for that, the watering is a matter of importance at all seasons, though few believe it to be so, for nine tenths of the camellias and azaleas that perish ignobly in private plant houses, are the victims of thirst, as we shall explain presently. Amateurs do not sufficiently keep in mind the great difference between hard and soft wooded plants in respect of ill usage and neglect. We may forget a lot of geraniums and find them half dead in consequence, but if we prune them close and give them a little water, they will soon throw up a forest of new shoots, and in a little while flower again and look as buxom as ever. But if we forget our heaths and camellias and azaleas, it is no such easy work to restore them, and the very first step taken towards their restoration may result in making an end of them completely.
The Camellia Japonica is well adapted for the winter garden, and is in the most proper sense of the term a “conservatory plant.” To do it complete justice it should not be associated with other plants, and hence the right way to enjoy it is to provide a camellia house. If a house is built expressly for camellias, it need not be so fully lighted as for quick-growing, soft-wooded plants; and those who grow
CAMELLIA GIARDINO SANTARELLI.
camellias in houses that admit of full daylight, must adopt some effectual method of screening them from the sun from the 1st of March to the 1st of September. Hartley’s rough plate will be found invaluable for the top lights of a house in which camellias are to be grown, as this excludes sunshine, yet admits the ordinary daylight without interruption. As a rule a lean-to is preferable to a span-house for camellias, and if there is no method of shading adopted in the original plan of the structure, the roof must be furnished with a roller blind, or tiffany must be put up in loose bag-like folds, thus—
Or the inelegant plan of smearing the glass with size and whitening must be adopted. This last is a rough and ready way of shading which costs nothing beyond the time of preparing it, and is very effectual. Our camellia house is in rather too sunny a situation, and we have rendered the employment of temporary shading unnecessary by stippling the glass lightly with pale green-coloured paint.
The camellia house need not be very freely ventilated; during the early period of the year they do not need much air, and though they can scarcely have too much during summer and autumn, ventilators and doors may then be left open night and day, or the plants may be set outside to ripen the wood and perfect the flower-buds. Old greenhouses that are dark and defective of ventilation, and therefore unsuitable for such plants as the erica and epacris, may be made good use of for the culture of camellias. Though camellias may be grown in unheated structures, it is far preferable to heat the house with hot-water pipes or a tank, so as to be able to raise the temperature to 60° during the severest frost, as we sometimes have the coldest weather of the whole year just as the first batch of camellias is coming into bloom and in any case there should be the means of keeping out frost, which is never a benefit to the plants, though they can bear half a dozen degrees with impunity if the wood is ripe.
We prefer to keep camellias under glass the whole year round, and feel inclined to pronounce vigorously against putting them out of doors at all. But if it were imperative to keep them always under glass, many persons having but limited glass room would have to give them up altogether, and the
CAMELLIA JAPONICA.
Imbricated show flower, one third less than natural size.
plan of removing them to the open air is a very good compromise between the best and worst methods of treatment. Take them in doors the last week in September. If the house is still otherwise occupied put them in pits or frames, so that in some way or other there is glass over them. All they need for some time is to be kept regularly watered, never wet and never dry, safe from frost, but not to be stimulated by heat till it is required to push them into bloom.
As the flowering season approaches it is necessary to clean the foliage. However clean it may appear, we prefer to set a lad to work to sponge every leaf with tepid water; it is astonishing how exquisitely bright and green the leaves look after the process. As they are washed set them aside and remove a little of the top soil in the pots, not more than an inch, and supply its place with two inches of rotten manure and leaf-mould well chopped over. Remove the plants into a house where they will have a temperature of 45° by night and 55° by day. After they have been there a week, raise the temperature to 50° by night and 60° to 65° by day, and make it a rule never to flower a camellia in a higher temperature than 65°. As the flowers open remove them to a house a few degrees cooler, or lower the temperature of the house they are in about 5°, which will prolong their beauty and prevent them growing too soon, for they cannot grow and bloom properly at one and the same time.
Camellias will grow tolerably well in peat and sand if carefully looked after, but nothing is so good as turfy hazelly loam, mixed with a fifth part of leaf-mould, or thoroughly decayed hotbed manure and an equal proportion of sharp sand. When potting them, press the soil firmly round the ball, for if it is put in loosely the water will run through it, and leave the ball wherein the roots are perfectly dry, and the latter will perish accordingly. To give a general rule for the size of the new pot, we can only say that it should not exceed two sizes larger than the one the plant is taken from. When large camellias are shifted into tubs, it is a good plan to put a ring of clay on the surface of the soil in the tub to mark as nearly as possible the line of junction of the old soil and the new. The water should be poured within this circle, so as to wet the roots of the plant and keep the new soil as nearly dry as possible. When a year has elapsed remove the ring of clay and allow the water to penetrate the whole body of the soil, as by that time the roots will have pushed into the new stuff, and increased vigour of the growth above will show that the ring of clay contributed in a material degree to the success of the tubbing.
CAMELLIA PLANTED OUT WITH ARRANGEMENTS FOR AERATING THE ROOTS.
When camellias become sickly a portion of the old soil should be removed, and the plants repotted in the same sized pot again, filling in with fresh soil. If it can be managed, the pots should be partially plunged in a bottom-heat of 70°. The best time for shifting healthy plants into larger pots is just after they have completed their growth, and a few weeks before they are placed out of doors. They must not be disturbed materially at the roots, or a large portion of the buds will probably drop off. Weakly plants, or those that are leggy and require cutting back, should be taken in hand just as the young growth begins to push. After the branches are pruned in, the plants should be frequently syringed, and then, when the young growth is about half an inch in length, the plants should be repotted, much of the old soil being removed from the roots. After this, they should be kept close until the young roots begin to take hold of the fresh soil. After a gradual hardening off, they can be turned out of doors for the summer, along with the others. All the plants ought to be examined every spring, and any shoots inclined to grow straggling cut in. By this simple method they are always handsomely shaped, without the harsh necessity of a grand cutting back every three or four years, which can only be done at the expense of a season’s bloom. After the flowers are over in the spring, a moderate syringing overhead will keep the foliage fresh and clean.
The most common complaint of the amateur camellia grower is, that just when the plants should be coming into flower the buds drop unopened and the work of a season is lost. The beginner must be prepared for this; and moreover, must be prepared to be told that the shedding of the buds is due to mismanagement. Between the completion of the new growth and the opening of the flowers, camellias are, we say, “at rest.” The term is perhaps misleading, for to the uninitiated it conveys the idea that neglect will do no harm, and hence it happens that, in the later days of summer, camellias are allowed to go dust dry. It may be that sufficient rain occurs to wet the surface of the soil for a couple of inches in depth, no trouble being taken to examine and sound each individual pot, to ascertain if the soil is wet quite through. The leaves, from their leathery texture, show no signs of the suffering the plants are undergoing until matters become desperate. If the watering-can comes to their relief before the leaves flag, it is thought that no injury is done; vain delusion for in a month or two, the buds fail off wholesale, and no end of wonder is excited as to the cause, for the plants may then be in the most favorable condition with respect to moisture at the roots.
Before they are put out of doors they should be freely exposed to the air. A shady position, away from the drip of trees, should be selected for their quarters, and each pot stood upon a couple of bricks, to prevent worms getting in through the bottom. The plants should be regularly looked over and watered when required, but without over-doing it, for it is quite as easy to ruin their health with too much water as it is by drying them up.
The principal points in camellia growing are to pot them in sound fibry soil, to have the drainage perfect, to afford sufficient moisture at the roots without any excess, and to avoid all sudden changes and checks. When the pots are full of roots, and it is not considered desirable to repot the plants, a watering with weak manure water will be of immense assistance to them.
We have said nothing thus far, as to the desirability of planting camellias in open borders, but that is the right way to furnish a camellia house. Prepare well-drained borders or stations with a foot depth of rough material, such as broken bricks or tiles and two feet depth of good hazel loam full of fibre chopped up to the size of a man's fist and mixed with a sixth part of old bricks broken to the same size. In such a border camellias will grow grandly if the atmospheric conditions are right. The subjoined rough sketch shows how camellias are planted in the house of a cultivator who supplies Covent Garden Market with the double white camellias from October to February. The border is prepared as above described, but in making it a number of two inch drain-pipes are inserted round the station for every tree. The result is that air is admitted to the rubble and finds its way to the roots, and while the plants benefit by the access of this necessity of life, the soil is kept sweet and may be flooded with water occasionally without any fear of undesirable results.
To propagate camellias is strictly a nursery business, and our advice to the amateur is not to think about it. But a few words on the subject will be consistent with the purposes of this work. Camellias are multiplied by seeds, cuttings, and grafts; seeds should be sown in well drained seedpans filled with a mixture of equal parts peat, leaf-mould, and silver sand. Cover them an inch deep and pack them away in a moist warm place and never allow them to get quite dry. They will be two years in germinating and it is no use to endeavour to hasten the process by artificial heat. Cuttings are to be prepared from the wood of the season when nearly ripe and every joint will make a plant if the leaf is not removed. Insert them firmly in sand and keep them cool and slightly moist for three weeks, then put them in a moist heat of 70° and they will soon make roots and must be potted
INARCHING THE CAMELLIA.
off in sandy peat and kept growing in a temperature of 50° to 60° the first winter. The easiest mode of propagating is grafting by approach, or, as it is more commonly called “inarching.”
This may be performed during summer or autumn, after the wood is ripe, or early in the spring before the plants begin to grow. We prefer the spring, because there is then a long season of natural heat to perfect the union, and the scions may be sooner cut from the parent plants.
Place side by side the two plants that are to be operated on. The stock is not to be beheaded until after the graft has grown, and both stock and scion should be in a state of vigorous health. Select on the named variety a branch that may be easily drawn aside and bound to the stock, and mark where they can be made to meet easily without straining either. Pare away with a sharp knife about two inches’ length of bark on both stock and graft where they meet, and sufficiently deep into the wood of each, so as to bring the edges of the bark of each into close contact, but beware of cutting too deeply into the wood. Make a small tongue upwards in the scion, and downwards in the stock, as in side grafting; fit the parts together and tie with bast. There need be no claying
or waxing, for if the operation is performed in a house suitably warm and moist, junction will soon take place. The appearance of the plants operated upon will be as in the subjoined cut; of course one bushy plant of a chosen variety may be surrounded with stocks, and supply scions for them all by a little management. In about nine weeks from the time of the operation the scions may be separated from the parent plants, and the bast removed. In cases where the plants cannot be brought into contact, the scions must be cut off the plant to be propagated. The inarching is to be performed in precisely the same manner as first described, and the end of the scion must be inserted in a phial of water suspended to some part of the stock as in the second figure.
AZALEA.—REINE MARIE HENRIETTE.
The Azalea Indica requires, speaking generally, the same treatment as the camellia, but instead of a loamy should have a peaty soil. As it is an easy matter to propagate them we shall begin with that part of the subject. It is an easy matter to procure seed, as the single varieties produce plenty. Sow as soon as ripe in pans of sandy peat and keep in a moist heat until started. Cuttings should be made from the shoots of the season when nearly but not quite ripe. The new varieties are generally sent out grafted on seedling stocks. The last method is a very simple affair of crown or cleft grafting, easily learnt and requiring only a little practice to make perfect in it. However, we recommend the amateur to obtain ready made nursery plants, for azaleas are never needed in such quantities in a private garden, as to render the propagating of the varieties worth the acquisition of the “knack” which is the key to success.
The best time to buy is in the spring. When the plants come home examine them well, as it is possible they may be infected with thrip, the sign of which is a sooty deposit on the under sides of the leaves. If they appear to be thrippy, shut them up and give them two doses of tobacco smoke, not only to cleanse them but to prevent the spread of the destructive pest. When the plants have flowered and begin to grow, put them in pots one or two sizes larger. The compost usually employed is one consisting of peat five parts, and one part sand, but we prefer equal proportions of silky yellow loam full of the roots of grass and tough fibrous peat, with a sixth part of the whole bulk of silver sand.
Azaleas are strictly greenhouse plants, but they receive immense benefit from the assistance of a genial temperature when making their growth in the spring. When the stock is fresh potted, place it in a temperature of about 65°, and maintain a healthy atmosphere by frequently sprinkling the paths and stages; also syringe overhead lightly morning and afternoon. Water sparingly, because the roots are too much deranged to take up a large supply; and, to keep up the balance, the evaporation must be checked in the manner pointed out above. Hundreds of azaleas are killed annually through improper watering, for they are remarkably impatient of being tampered with at the roots. It is a very common practice to give just sufficient to wet the soil to a depth of three or four inches below the surface, without troubling to
AZALEA VARIEGATA SUPERBA.
ascertain whether the lower portion is wetted or not. When once the lower part of the ball gets dust-dry, it is no easy task to moisten it without dipping it into a vessel of water. When any plant looks sickly, or evinces any flaccidity in the leaves, and the soil is moist on the top, turn it out of the pot, and probably the soil will be found dust-dry at a few inches from the surface. The water should always run through the hole in the bottom of the pot after its application, and you should continue to fill up the space on the surface until it does. Guard against giving too much water at the roots, for that is as injurious as an insufficient supply.
Give liberal ventilation as soon as the stock has recovered from the check received in repotting, and increase it as the growth progresses. Although a moist and warm atmosphere is essential to a healthy growth, it must not be kept too close, or the shoots will be weak and long-jointed. When the growth is completed, harden off by opening the ventilators night and day, and then place out of doors, in a shady and rather sheltered position, until the middle or end of September. A light, airy greenhouse, with a temperature of 40° or 45°, is all that is required during the winter months; and give the treatment already advised during the following spring and summer. Good specimens can be, and are, grown without a taste of artificial heat, excepting what is necessary to keep the frost out; but to grow them like the magnificent specimens staged at the metropolitan exhibitions, the preceding directions must be strictly followed.
When a nine-inch pot is reached, a shift once in two years will be quite often enough, unless large specimens are required at the earliest moment possible. Extra care will be requisite in watering during the second year, to prevent them suffering from drought, without them being kept too wet. Water with rain-water at all times, except when they are making new growth the second year after a shift, and then water with weak liquid manure, made by steeping sheep- or cow-manure in rain-water, and allowing a sufficient time to settle before using. It should be diluted with soft-water until paler than pale ale.
With regard to training the specimens into shape the pyramidal form is perhaps the best. Those who intend to train should take them in hand in a young state, for it is a difficult affair to get an old plant into shape after being allowed to grow wild for several years.
The single and double azaleas are grown in precisely the same manner, and in any case the double varieties should, on account of their fine characters, have a conspicuous place in even a small collection.
The Rhododendron.—From this fine genus we may select a number of tender species and hybrids that are as well worthy of culture under glass as the hardier kinds are in the open air. The glorious R. arboreum with its myriads of scarlet flowers is perhaps best known as the representative of this class, but a good selection would include the wonderful R. Nuttalii, the chaste and fragrant R. Edgworthii, and the curious R. Jasminiflorum. The routine and cultivation advised for azaleas will suit rhododendrons, and their place should be in the coolest part of the house.
