SLIPS IN THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE--COLD OR HOT.
Art of sticking Slips.--How the Slips take Root.--Slips in the Cold
Portable Greenhouse.--Slips of Dwarf Succulent Plants.--What is
necessary to make them take Root.--Slips from Leaves and Fragments of
Leaves.--Slips of Begonias.--Slips of Dwarf Bengal Roses.--Of China
Roses.--Of Pelargoniums.--Of Indian Chrysanthemums.--Slips in the Hot
Portable Greenhouse.--How this Greenhouse is constructed.--Slips of
Camellias destined to be Grafted.
Art of Sticking Slips.
The prodigious multiplicity of resources contrived by Nature for the
propagation of plants is assuredly one of the most curious of all
the facts revealed by the study of vegetable physiology. Life is
disseminated with such profusion in all the parts of plants, that with
many of them the least fragment placed in favorable circumstances
becomes a complete plant. The art of rearing from slips rests upon the
knowledge of facts of this nature. If it has never happened to you to
stick any, or to see any stuck, I will inform you that a slip is a part
of a plant detached from the mother plant and put in the earth, in the
hope that it will be able to take root there.
What is necessary to make a slip take root? It is necessary for it
to live long enough on its own vital energy for young roots to form,
and to draw nourishment from the soil. When the tissue of the plant
is soft, and contains a good deal of water, and when the branch that
is detached to serve as a slip remains exposed to the air, the slip
will not take root; it dries too rapidly; the operation fails. On the
contrary, roots always form when, by the exclusion of the external air,
evaporation is abated; whilst, at the same time, the lower part of the
slip is in a medium kept constantly moist, which solicits its taking
root.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.--Cold Portable Greenhouse.]
Slips in the Cold Portable Greenhouse.
Already, from what I have said, ladies, you have a glimpse of the
utility that your cold portable greenhouse will possess for
propagating every kind of plant by slips. We may begin by your pretty
dwarf succulent plants, detached fragments of which will, under the
shelter which it affords, take root with marvellous docility. Take, for
example, a charming opuntia, and separate one of its little shoots,
by cutting it at the base with a very sharp penknife. If you put this
shoot in the earth as a slip at the moment that you cut it, the surface
of the wound in contact with the earth will rot, and not a root will
come forth. To be successful, you must lay the slip on one of the
shelves of your _étagère_, and leave it for two or three days, that
the wound may begin to scar over before it is planted; when this takes
place, plant it as if it had roots--and indeed it will not be long
before it has them. To assure yourself of this, you need not pull it
up, as children do, who, when they have put a bean in the earth, take
it up once or twice a day to see if it is going to sprout--so that it
never comes up. So soon as your slip has taken possession of the earth
with its young roots, it will not fail to advise you of it by giving
birth to little shoots at the upper part. The growing of the upper
part of any plant whatever, propagated by slips, is the most certain
sign of the existence of young roots. All the dwarf succulent plants
of the garden on the _étagère_ can, like the opuntia, be propagated
by slips, in the cold portable greenhouse; only taking care that the
part separated as a slip be allowed to dry and begin to form a scab by
contact with the air before planting it.
Slips from Leaves.
If you have renewed the contents of your flower-stand every season,
you will have at the proper time achimenes in bloom. This pretty plant
is easily cultivated; and its numerous tubulated flowers, nearly the
same in form with those of the paulownia, are in color of a beautiful
light violet, or of a fiery red, regularly marked with yellow and
purple within. Take off a leaf of achimenes and stick it by its stem;
it will take root, and this single leaf will in a short time become a
perfect plant, similar to the one from which it was detached. But if
the species that you desire to propagate by this means is rare, and
you possess but one leaf, for which you are indebted to the kindness
of an amateur, split this leaf down through the principal rib; split
afterwards the two halves in four or five pieces, through the side
ribs; and these fragments, treated as slips, will not fail to take
root. But, as this plant is of very loose tissue, and evaporation might
cause the slips to perish in a few days, even in your cold greenhouse,
you will act prudently if, besides the shelter which it affords, you
cover them separately, each with a small glass turned upside down.
Slips of Begonia.
Another genus of plants, not less agreeable, the genus Begonia, is
propagated by slips of leaves in a manner somewhat different. The stems
of the leaves of begonias are of a cylindrical form; those of the
begonia manicata, or cuffed begonia, are ornamented with an elegant
fringe for about one half of their length. If you stick one of these
leaves in your portable greenhouse, do not be frightened, if, after
the lapse of some days, the entire leaf fades and then draws up as
if it had been shrivelled by a violent sun-stroke; the vegetable life
has withdrawn into the stem; the operation has not been necessarily
unsuccessful. When the leaf is dry, take the stem out of the earth; it
will not yet have roots, properly speaking, but all around its lower
edge you will distinguish little swellings composing a sort of roll,
tolerably prominent: these are the rudiments of the roots ready to come
out. This leaf-stem, although hollow within, is thick and fleshy. Split
it into five or six slips, down its length; and each of these slips,
provided it has at its base a portion of that little roll from which
the roots are to come out, will become, in a short time, a fine plant
of begonia manicata. Just as many pieces as you have been able to split
that stem into, just so many thriving slips will you have; all will
take root.
An indefinite variety of plants, as well those generally found only
in warmed greenhouses as those which are seen in others, can be thus
propagated. It will be for you an inexhaustible source of recreation,
and at the same time a precious resource from which to renew the
contents of the flower-stand and _étagère_, at all seasons.
Rose Slips.
To the above you can add a large collection of roses of diminutive
size, selected from the series of Bengalese and Chinese roses; the
Lilliputian Bengals, which are reared in a pot of the size of an
egg-cup; the Chinese dwarfs, of a bright red, which live very well in
a tumbler of the ordinary size. The least fragment of a branch of one
of these, stuck in the cold portable greenhouse, will take root and
display its flowers the first year.
Slips of Pelargoniums and Chrysanthemums.
Do not forget to stick also a full supply of the prettiest species of
fancy pelargoniums and chrysanthemums of India; especially pompone[6]
chrysanthemums, charming little plants, very prolific in flowers. They
bloom all the winter, and present, we may say, with the exception of
pure blue, all the shades of the rainbow, and, in addition to these,
the purest white, and a deep purple, so deep as to be almost black.
These chrysanthemums possess, as regards slips, a peculiar property,
worthy of your attention; they furnish slips at all the various
stages of their vegetation. Of such kinds as accord, in their natural
dimensions, with the space that you have reserved for them, take, for
sticking, young shoots between one and two inches in length. These
slips will quickly take root, and in due time attain the normal size
of their species; after which they will bloom. On the other hand,
if you wish to stick some whose dimensions greatly exceed the space
that can be disposed of in their favor, wait until the flower buds
terminating the upper extremities of branches have attained about half
of their size. Then detach such branches for slips, and plant them in
pots, where they will very soon take root; their buds will continue to
develop, and you will obtain as fine a bloom as that which remains on
the entire plant. These slips, however, will not grow; they remain of
the same size as when first planted.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Warm Portable Greenhouse.]
Slips in the Warm Portable Greenhouse.
Until now, ladies, I have spoken to you of such slips only as can be
reared with success in the cold portable greenhouse. But you may rear a
great many more, and these taken from the most interesting plants, if,
for your cold greenhouse a warm one be substituted.
To say nothing of form, which may vary according to taste, the
essential difference between these two portable greenhouses consists
in one of them being warmed at will; to which purpose its shape and
construction must, of course, be adapted. It must contain a lamp and
a little reservoir for water; this reservoir having an earthen-ware
cover, upon which the pots with the slips are placed. This cover is
pierced with a hole, into which a funnel may be placed, for the purpose
of renewing the water as it evaporates; and there must be lateral holes
in the reservoir, for the steam to escape through. Underneath this
apparatus is the place for the lamp,--generally a spirit lamp,--which
is lighted only when you wish to raise the temperature of the
greenhouse. Although the heat produced by the flame of the lamp is
not very great, it suffices to warm the water in the reservoir, and
the other contents of the greenhouse, to the degree requisite for
maintaining its atmosphere at the proper temperature--say at from
fifty-three to sixty-four degrees of the thermometer.
Slips of Camellias.
Provided with this addition to your resources, you may now add greatly
to the variety of your floral decorations, and, whilst doing this,
enjoy the pleasure of watching the growth of plants which refuse to
take root in the cold greenhouse, but prove perfectly conformable to
your wishes in this respect when provided with lodgings better suited
to their tastes.
Let us begin by sticking slips of camellia there. This king of the
shrubs of the cold greenhouse experiences great difficulty in making
his start in life there. The labor of striking root proves generally
too great for his vital powers, unless aided by artificial heat. Thus
aided, however, as they now are in your warm portable greenhouse,
these slips will form their roots in the space of from fifteen to
twenty days.
You are already aware, ladies, that the most beautiful varieties of
the camellia, although they can take root from the slips, produce, by
this means of propagating them, only ill-shaped, puny plants, that are
little disposed to flower well. Your slips should be taken only from
single-flowered camellias; or, if from the double-flowered, then the
white or the pink only. From these you can obtain all the slips you
need; and these slips will become shrubs as vigorous as you can desire.
By grafting on these shrubs, when a year or eighteen months old, you
may multiply the choicest species and varieties; their bloom will be
all that you can wish.
Grafting is another charming operation of horticulture, which you could
not easily realize in the cold portable conservatory. In the warm one,
on the contrary, you may graft all sorts of ornamental shrubs, and the
success of your grafts is assured beforehand; not one will fail.