December 1;- 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



59 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Christmas Plants. 



Christmas has of late bei-ii wiy imieh 

 of a plant giving time. A liaiulsorae 

 Mciwering plant has been the ehoioe of 

 hundreds of our patrons to accompany 

 I lie expression of joy and good wishes of 

 the happy season, and you ought to be 

 well supplied with an assortment of at- 

 tractive plants. A palm or fern will be 

 chosen by some, but a (lowering plant 

 that has color and brightness is much 

 preferred. When you are not supplied 

 with these, as all strictly retailers are 

 not, you should make provision in time. 

 There is no palm in equal favor with the 

 Kentia Belmoreana or Forsteriana, be- 

 cause everybody knows how well adapted 

 they are for house culture. Something 

 that retails from $2 to $5 is the thing. 

 Araucarias, pandanus, dracoenas and 

 rubbers are in some demand, but we can- 

 not all afiord to keep a collection of all 

 of these, for if you lose a few plants out 

 of a dozen your profit is gone on the rest. 

 You must have a good assortment of the 

 Boston fern. Every one now knows its 

 excellent qualities. 



Of the berried plants Ardisia crenu- 

 lata is the best, and some of our eastern 

 growers have a splendid lot. They are 

 not cheap, but they are so splendidly 

 seasonable, with their holly-like leaves 

 and bright berries that all good plants 

 will sell. With us the poin.settia is the 

 favorite winter plant. Especially is it 

 in demand when grown in pans of 10 or 

 12 inches with five or six plants in each. 

 Its brilliant color is just the thing for 

 Christmas. Azaleas come next. We 

 have never had enough of Simon Mard- 

 ner, Verv.ieneana and Deutsclie Porle. 

 Cyclamen always sell well, although it is 

 a few weeks earlier than most cyclamen 

 are at their best, yet there are any 

 amount erf fine plants to be had. 



Begonias of several flowering kinds 

 are in demand, but Gloire de Lorraine 

 eclipses them all. If you don't have some 

 of those you will not be in it. On sev- 

 eral occasions we have made a table 

 center piece of this beautiful plant and 

 nothing can surpass it when the color is 

 wanted. Plants nf several sizes taken 

 from the pots and the bulb wrapped in 

 paper and sunk in moss makes a most 

 beautiful basket. Ericas, or heaths, as 

 they are better known, are beautiful 

 plants and a few sell, but we found 

 them scarcely gay enough to please 

 many and they are more at home in a 

 made-up ha.sket of plants, where their 

 more equal tints of flower and foliage are 

 a setting for more brilliant colors. The 

 Bermuda lilies are always in demand, 

 but not much at Christmas as a pot 

 plant except in baskets. Small pans of 

 Roman hyacinths alwa^-s go, as do pans 

 of paper white narcissus if grown cool 

 and dwarf. There are lots of people who 

 want a small, inexpensive plant, and if 

 you cannot cater to them you get the 

 reputation of being an expensiTe firm. 

 The primula is one plant that vnu can 

 sell for 40 or 50 cents, and they j-liouhl 

 be at their best just now. 

 The above list is not a long one. Imt it 



covers the great majority of the plants 

 available for the season. Another corre- 

 spondent who is more in touch with the 

 centers of fashion will doubtless tell 

 you all about how to trim up these plants 

 to add to their attractiveness. It's no 

 use kicking; every pot must be covered 

 with some material. Now we have water- 

 proof crepe paper. When you stop to 

 think that 90 per cent of all these plants 

 are sent as presents iind that first im- 

 pressions count for much, then you can- 

 not complain that our trade demands 

 that every plant be made as pretty as 

 possible. 



It was only the last year or two that 

 the combination baskets of plants sold 

 in the smaller cities, but now there is a 

 call for them. As no growing takes 

 place in these baskets it is a fact that 

 the later they are made up the longer 

 they will be attractive. There is usually 

 a metal lining to the basket, and with 

 damp moss and having the plants moist 

 when put in they will last several days 

 in fine order; certainly three times as 

 long as did the old fashioned basket of 

 flowers with the flowers on sticks or 

 toothpicks, and are not half a dozen pret- 

 ty plants selected with taste, with plenty 

 of fern mi.xed in, really more beautiful 

 than any basket of one kind of flower? 

 The flowers are gorgeous, the plants are 

 beautiful, and I think if you had to sit 

 beside it all day you would rather have 

 the company of the basket of plants. 



Preparing for Christmas. 

 It is a little early to prepare plants 

 for Christmas sales, but nothing should 

 be left undone that possibly can be done. 

 No plant that needs tying should be neg- 

 lected, for the few days before Christmas 

 bring more work than you can do. The 

 Begonia Gloire de Lorraine needs some 

 support, but they look bad full of stakes. 

 One small stake and the branches sup- 

 ported from it is all you can do. How- 

 ever skillfully done, most any plant looks 

 formal and stiff when first tied up, but 

 in a week or two again assumes a more 

 natural growth. I don't care how much 

 frills .you put on a plant, the pots should 

 be perfectly clean, and a great deal of 

 this can be done a week or two ahead. 

 They won't have time to get dirty again. 

 You know pretty well all that will go 

 and if you wash a few that won't move 

 oflf you have done only good. From 

 present indications there will be a great 

 demand this season for both flowers and 

 plants, so don't hold your stock too 

 cheaply. The best buyers often come at 

 the last moment. 



Bulbs. 



We have had up to date no weather 

 that has made any need of covering 

 your bulbs. They are best out of doors 

 covered with a few inches of soil. We 

 think it is best for the bed to let one 

 inch of frost get into the soil and then 

 cover with four or flve inches of straw 

 inter. Benicmher. if you are keeping 

 any \r,\]v?r white narcissus out of doors 

 that tliey should not be touched with 



frost, so they are best covered with glass. 

 We also cover with sash the Dutch hya- 

 cinths in pots as well as the Roman hy- 

 acinths in flats. If there is two or three 

 inches of soil or tan bark over the pots 

 or Hats and then three or four inches 

 of litter the glass will not raise the tem- 

 perature in the winter months to do any 

 harm. 



Sometimes the pansies come through 

 the winter all right when we have lots 

 of snow and sometimes with bare ground 

 and hard freezing they perish by the 

 thousands. Kye straw laid between the 

 rows and very lightly over tlie plants 

 is a good covering, but a still cheaper 

 method is to cover with hemlock boughs. 

 There is always a bow to them and of 

 course you put the curve upwards. We 

 don't all live in the hemlock belt. White 

 pine branches would do about as well, 

 but not quite. You see people in Novem- 

 ber covering up their beds of tulips and 

 hyacinths with a foot of litter. This is 

 a great mistake. It keeps the soil warm 

 and the bulbs make an early, long 

 growth and when the litter is removed 

 in the spring you have a weak, tender 

 growth that is readily hurt by late 

 spring frosts. These flowers do not last 

 as long, either, as those that are less 

 protected. Late planting for beds, and a 

 few inches of covering after the ground 

 is frozen, is all that is necessary and 

 gives the best results. 



Holly and Green. 



One of the chief industries with si-me 

 of us for the next two weeks will be the 

 handling of holly, ground pine and other 

 greens. The ground pine appears to be 

 quite scarce this year and there is evi- 

 dently not going to be enough to go 

 round, so you can command your own 

 price on that. Holly will be as plentiful 

 as ever and what we have seen is a fair 

 quality. We are all apt to delay in mak- 

 ing this material up into salable form. A 

 great majority of the holly is sold in the 

 form of wreaths. Holly keeps as well in 

 the original cases as anywhere and the 

 wreaths are doubtless all the better for 

 being freshly made, but you cannot make 

 all you want in the last few days, so 

 begin without delay and make up all the 

 wreaths you think you can possibly sell, 

 and the same with the wreaths and the 

 wreathing of the ground pine. 



We have often been puzzled to know- 

 where to put all this stuflT when made up 

 and have it fresh and green. You are 

 tempted to pile wreaths one on top of 

 the other, perhaps to a height of a dozen, 

 as they take up a great deal of room, 

 but this flattens them out and 

 spoils the form. Beneath the middle 

 bench of a cool house, laid out on the 

 floor and covered with paper, we store 

 a great many. I have found a cold frame 

 an excellent place, but in addition to the 

 glass covering you must throw over a 

 cloth or mats to keep it dark. No 

 amount of cold will, of course, hurt the 

 ground pine, but a zero freeze is not at 

 all good for the holly as it does not 

 grow where they get zero weather so 

 early in the season. Don't let your crates 

 of ground pine lay around where the sun 

 and wind will get at them or in a very 

 few days the entire outside will be browii. 

 Keep them covered with some material 

 even though it is only for a week. 



William Scott. 



e trade you could 

 iresent that would 

 ban a copv of the 

 Wm. Scott" 



