WINTERING HARDY PLANTS IN FRAMES.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1888, 12 March 1880, Page 3

WINTERING HARDY PLANTS IN FRAMES.

[" Field."J The introduction of cocoa-nut fibre refuse as a garden requisite has proved of great value us regards the secure wintering of hardy plants in pots, as the material affords the best possible protection, both to pots and roots, from severe frost. For several successive winters the chief difficulty has been to keep hardy plants quiescent and at rest, in accordance with their usual habit at that time of the year. Now we need, even for our hardiest plants in pots in oold frames, some additional protection from the effects of the severe frosts whioh we are now experiencing and which otherwise might do much mischief. Whether plants be in large or small pots, they are safest and best cared for when plunged either in tan, coooa fibre, or coal ashes; and certainly the value of the protection is much enhanced if to this plunging be added a quantity of eoooa fibre on the surface amongst the pots. Hardy plants suffer if the roots get dry during the winter, even though the plants are quite at reat. It has been found that the practice of allowing the plants remain dry during the depth of winter is bad practice and unnatural, and it is not possible that the roots can suffer from moisture when in pots, whilst in the open ground they suffer nothing from all the moisture that falls upon them. A top-dressing of cocoa-nut fibre refuse, in addition to the plants being plunged, tends to keep the soil in the pots moist, yet not wet. It is when that is the oase that frost does such mischief to pots, splitting them in all directiona. The foliage will suffer little from severe froßt if the roots be in good oondition and protected, but the protection of a mat or two will keep the plants dark, and therefore less amenable to sudden thaws from an undue influx of light Plenty of air on mild, dry days, and moderate' protection from frost, are valuable aids to the successful pot culture of hardy plants, and especially of kinds that are rare, or may be thought too precious to entrust to the full rigour of the winter in the open air.