CHAPTER VII.
SOFT-WOODED GREENHOUSE PLANTS.
Between herbaceous and soft-wooded plants the difference is sufficiently decisive, but as to cultivation, they require pretty nearly the same conditions, and may, therefore, be associated in the same house. We shall in this chapter ofter brief directions for the cultivation of soft-wooded plants, but reserve for separate chapters the pelargonium and the fuchsia, on account of their great importance. The whole of the plants now before us may be raised from seeds or cuttings, and, as a rule, the latter are to be preferred. If one or two hard-wooded plants should find their way into this list it will be because they associate better with the softer section than with that to which a technical classification would assign them.
Bouvardia.—These are hard-wooded plants, but associate best with soft-wooded plants, and should only be grown in a house that is kept well heated during winter. Those employed for bedding purposes make nice pot plants, but the best of the family is B. longiflora, which produces a profusion of most elegant and sweet-scented white flowers during the winter. It is a troublesome plant, but worth any amount of trouble. Strike cuttings of the young wood in a brisk moist heat in March. Pot off as soon as rooted in five-inch pots, in a mixture of equal parts loam and peat, and a sixth part of the whole bulk of silver sand. Put them into the warmest place you have, but they must not be closely shut up, and the foliage must be frequently syringed. A fortnight after this potting pinch out the points of all the shoots to promote a bushy habit. Winter them in a temperature of 50', and in February shift them into eight-inch pots, and after this potting put them in a good
