CHAPTER V.. The Portable Greenhouse.

THE PORTABLE GREENHOUSE.

Its Construction.--Plants that can be cultivated there.--Its Principal Utility.--Propagating Ornamental Plants.--Sowing.--Sowing of Azalea Seed.--Transplanting and Rearing the Young Plants.--The same as regards Rhododendron Seeds.--Sowing Orange Seeds.--Rearing the Plants.--Sowing the Seeds of Flemish Pinks.--Sowing of Ranunculus Seeds.--Separation of the Young Offsets.--Time of their First Flowering.

The variety of plants that may be cultivated in an apartment is greatly increased, when, instead of ornamenting the stand of the parlor with a large basket filled with an assortment of dwarf succulent plants, the same spot is devoted to a portable greenhouse. Greenhouses of this kind may, as well as flower-stands, be ornamented externally in any manner conformable to the style of the rest of the furniture. This point depends entirely on the taste and fortune of those who propose to make use of them.

The Cold Portable Greenhouse.

The portable greenhouse may be cold; that is, without any special means of warming it. It may also be tempered; that is, furnished with an apparatus for producing artificial heat. Except for the size and the decoration, more or less elegant, it is nothing more than a great hand-glass, of which the panes of glass, supported on a light iron frame, are arranged by means of slips of lead. Many of the upper panes should be made to open by sliding, as well to let air into the interior, as that you may be able to tend and cultivate the plants within.

A multitude of interesting experiments in horticulture may be made, and charming results obtained, in the small space contained within a cold portable greenhouse. Its pots, none of them exceeding the medium size, may contain a complete assortment of the finest plants that are found in greenhouses,--not only in such as are not, but in such as are, warmed by artificial means. If the portable greenhouse has not a special apparatus for warming it, it must be placed in a room where people habitually sit, of which it must necessarily take the temperature; and this temperature is pretty nearly that of the artificially warmed greenhouse.

Principal Utility of the Cold Portable Greenhouse.

It is quite probable, ladies, that many of your familiar acquaintance are, like yourself, fond of parlor gardening. If you possess a cold, portable greenhouse, you may, if you please, multiply indefinitely the choicest ornamental plants; and, after having reserved for yourself the quantity necessary for keeping up your own stock, there will remain a large supply, which will afford you the means of contributing to the enjoyment of your friends by furnishing them with plants.

We must first fill the pots with good sandy heath soil, and then we can proceed with our work at our ease. Nothing is more agreeable, whether we keep the products or give them away, than to see them arrive at a presentable degree of development.

For the purpose of propagation you have three methods at your option: by sowing, by slips, and by grafting. Neither of these is difficult in itself; attention and a great deal of patience are the only requisites to success in all three.

Sowing.

The list of ornamental plants which can be propagated in pots in the portable greenhouse is very long, even if we limit ourselves to gardening in the house alone. We will select from among those most worthy of attention; and their propagation by seeds will give a just idea of how you should proceed with any others that you may have a fancy for.

Sowing of Azalea Seed.

Let us begin with azaleas. Procure seeds of the most admired variety; they will not always produce a shrub exactly like that from which the seeds were gathered. But so much the better. When your young plants bloom for the first time, you will be agreeably surprised to find remarkable novelties, either in the larger size of the corolla or in the brilliancy or delicacy of the colors. Those whose bloom does not seem to you satisfactory--and this will be the smaller number--can be made use of as stocks to receive the grafts of such varieties as you may prefer. Take care not to cover the azalea seed with more than the eighth of an inch of earth, which you must keep constantly damp, without excess of moisture, by watering often and giving very little water at a time. In your portable greenhouse the pots containing the azalea seeds come in contact only with air loaded with moisture, which being seldom changed, scarcely any evaporation takes place; whilst, the temperature there being mild and very equable, the conditions are the best possible for obtaining a good germination of the seeds. Each pot having received but a small number of seeds, the young azaleas will sprout at their ease, without crowding one another. As soon as they have acquired consistence enough to bear transplanting, pull them up, one by one, and plant them singly in little pots, where they will continue to grow until they have become too large to remain in the portable greenhouse. Then take your share, and distribute the rest; it is a sort of present that cannot fail to be acceptable.

The seeds of rhododendrons are sowed exactly in the same manner as the seeds of azaleas, and with the same results.

Sowing of Orange Seeds.

Among the shrubs that are easily propagated by seeds in the portable greenhouse is the orange. Sow, for this purpose, seeds of very ripe oranges or lemons; these last are most easily reared. Instead of pure heath soil, these seeds require a mixture of heath soil and good manure. By those who carry on gardening as a trade, the pots in which orange and lemon seed are sown are buried in a hotbed, covered with a glazed frame; but this is because they are in haste: for them, to gain time is to gain money. You, ladies, who are not under the empire of the same necessities, by sowing your seeds in February, a time of the year when there is fire in your apartment, will have the temperature of the interior of your portable greenhouse sufficiently high for them to come up in fifteen or twenty days. Your young trees will be much better off under the shelter of your portable greenhouse than any where else; air or light in excess would hurt them during the first period of their growth. You will have the pleasure of seeing them grow fast enough if you water them moderately. Towards the month of July they will already be strong; the panes of the greenhouse ought frequently to be kept open, to habituate the young orange trees to contact with the air. Some of them can be grafted towards the first of November; the others in the spring of the following year; and when you see the first flowers open, this will give you more pleasure than all the orange flowers that could be brought to you.

Sowings of Flemish Pink Seed.

Side by side with your sowings of azaleas, rhododendrons, and orange, sow seeds of Flemish pinks in the same mixture of heath soil and manure that I have directed as the most suitable for oranges and lemons. Transplanted when an inch or two high, the plants will, the ensuing year, bear the choicest pinks, and these will be among the finest ornaments of your garden.

Sowings of Ranunculus Seed.

Sow also ranunculus seeds. This flower is a charming one--faultless in both form and color; nothing is wanting in it but perfume; and for chamber gardening this is scarcely a defect. For the sowings of ranunculus seeds, procure a little cowdung, very dry and reduced to powder. After having slightly wet this manure, sow the seeds, with but a very shallow covering. They will come up in a few days. When you see the little leaves of the seedling wither and turn yellow, cease altogether to water them. A few days afterwards, when the contents of the pots are perfectly dry, take the pots out of the cold portable greenhouse; crumble these contents carefully, and pass them through a tin colander with very small holes. There will remain in the colander little plants of ranunculus, each one not more than an inch or two long.

You are afraid, perhaps, ladies, that these so very delicate plants will make you wait a long time for their bloom. You are mistaken. When spring sets in, plant them in pots of the common size, in a mixture of good ordinary garden earth and manure; they will all bloom before the end of the warm weather.

You see how many things you can accomplish in horticulture, under the cold portable greenhouse, with nothing more than sowings. Slips offer you pleasures not less varied. Grafting, which your taper fingers, habituated to delicate work, can execute to such perfection, will add to your stock of enjoyments. You will after some time--not a long one--have around you a whole generation of ornamental plants, full of vitality, that your care will have brought into life, and your solicitude will have made to prosper. It will end in your becoming attached to all these charming vegetable productions, as to so many friends of your own creation.