HORTICULTURAL NOTES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 7, 10 November 1883, Page 3

HORTICULTURAL NOTES.

[Communicated.]

A BLUE poppy has been discovered. It is from the Siklntn, Himalayas, and is a very handsome plant, attaining a height of 3 feet 7 inches. Messrs Veitch have raised a gorgeous hybrid to which has been given the name of Saelia Veitchiana. It was a seedling sixteen years ago and has only now flowered. Its beauty is said to compensate fully for the long waiting. Its colour is a delicate lilac, shaded in purple and mauve. A new Heliotrope is the darkest variety yet Bfeeti, Its dense heads of bloom are of an intensely deep purple, and the perfume is more intense than in the paler kinds. It is named the Rue des Noirs.

A new Japanese species of Hydrangea is attracting much notice. It is called Hydrangea Rosea. The flowers are of a lovely rose pink, so clear and pleasing as to win the admiration of all beholders. A plant took a first-class certificate from the London Royal Horticultural Society. Sunday flower shows are becoming an institution in England. They are encouraged by the clergy as affording innocent pleasure and an opportunity of enjoying nature’s gifts, to the poor and those who are confined during the week. The example was set by a liberal-minded London clergyman, who induced his richer neighbours to send the contents of their greenhouses and conservatories with which he arranged his grounds as a sort of fairyland, which the poor were freely invited to enter on Sunday. The affair was a great success and was found to give so much pleasure that others were induced to follow his example. Oranges are so plentiful this season in Victoria that there is no sale for the fruit. They are a drug in the market. It is proposed to commence the manufacture of vergamot, so largely used in making scent, to utilire the surplus stock Japanese plants are gaining favour for culture in English gardens. A new variety of Japanese magnolia is attracting notice. The flower is streaked with pink. It is much cultivated by the Japanese and in the woods af Central Niphon assumes the proportions of a small tree. A fine American onion has been developed, and named the Bloomsdale Pearl Onion. It grews to an immense size and the flesh is pure white, translucent, very delicate and so free from astringent oil that the bulbs may be eaten uncooked as freely as apples. Kerosene or petroleum in its crude state is instantly and entirely fatal to insect life of any description whatsoever. In greenhouses it requires to be used with great caution as unless washed off immediately it may be fatal to young and tender shoots, The instant, however, that will be harmless to the plant is fatal to insect life. Professor Riley, the celebrated American entomologist, supplies the following recipe, which renders the kerosene harmless to plants though fatal to insects. “Ot refined kerosene two parts, sour milk one part. Mix the milk and oil and churn or shake till a sort of butter is produced. When required for use this is diluted with from twelve to sixteen times its bulk of water. The mixture now resembles milk and may be employed with safety to destroy insects in greenhouses.