HEATING GREEXHOUSES 91 



know will carry and arrive at its destination and look half decent when 

 it gets there. 



Mr. Harrison: Now you take the Siberian iris, and especially the 

 blue and take them just as they are unfolding those big blue buds, and 

 they will keep just as well as any flower, and there is another one called 

 the Snow Queen that is a good shipper. 



A Member: What method do you use in propagating your hardy 

 phlox? 



A. We do not propagate a great many, but you can take the young 

 growth after it has started, and it roots very readily in the greenhouse 

 in the regular propagating bed, or we have a bench that we take up in 

 the fall. 



Q. Well, the point is, to leave them dormant for a while before you 

 bring them to the greenhouse? 



A. Well, we do that for convenience. We do not want the plants 

 until spring, and the florist has to figure on his bench space. And we 

 do not want to take care of them all winter. We do not propagate any- 

 thing until we get it ready for the market. 



Mr. Harrison: One way, and a very good way to propagate phlox is 

 this: You take them in the fall and keep them fine and fibrous. In 

 digging run your spade down about half way and run under and leave a 

 lot of roots in the ground, and you will have, — sometimes you will get 

 25 or 30 plants from those roots. They will come up and hunt a head 

 and find it. And they won't bloom much the first year, but you can dig 

 them up and transplant them, and the year after you will have a fine lot. 

 We propagate thousands of them that way. For the ordinary grower, 

 that is the most efficient way. And another thing, you can dig up a good 

 lot of roots, vigorous and full of life, and take them in a little pot and 

 put them in your greenhouse and even out under a screen or in a hotbed 

 those will grow just as readily and I think a little more so, than from 

 cutting. 



A Member: Probably one of the best ways to propagate the hardy 

 phlox I think is to dig them up entirely and cut the good firm live roots 

 up into about a two-inch length, and put them in a fiat, and cover them 

 with two inches of sand, keeping them at about 40 degrees, and they will 

 very soon commence to grow and every one of them will grow just as 

 easy as from sowing the seeds. You will have any amount of them next 

 spring. 



The Chairman: Our next paper, and last one, is by Lewis Henderson, 

 of Omaha, on the subject of "Heating of Greenhouses. 



HEATING GREENHOUSES. 



4 



Lewis Henderson, Omaha. 



Mr. Henderson: Mr. President, and fellow members of the State 

 Florists' Society: The subject of heating greenhouses is not an easy 

 subject to do justice to in a short article. But to be in the florist business 



