226 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



FEBRUARY 2, 1S39. 



Lilium Longiflorum. 



An inquiry comes from the north 

 whether a batch of I^ilium longiflorum 

 can be got in flower tor Easter. The 

 writer says, "They are now just fhow- 

 ing above the pots about an inch or 

 so high. Will a rose house tempera- 

 ture bring them in for Easter?" .No; 

 most^decidedly no: it would be useless 

 to try. Lilies for Easter should be a 

 foot to IS inches high (although 

 heiglit is no great criterion), and be 

 swelling out, or even the buds be vis- 

 ible, by this time. If your longiflorum 

 are as late as described, it would pay 

 far better to keep them in a cool 

 house, say 40 degrees at night, and 

 then they would or could be so man- 

 aged that they would be in good order 

 for Decoration Day, or, as it is often 

 called. Memorial Day, May 30. I have 

 already noticed on my own place this 

 winter the ill effects of allowing 

 greenfly to get in its work deep down 

 in the heart of the plant, when the 

 buds are very small. Repeatedly I 

 have mentioned that a little of the 

 Rose Leaf Extract of Tobacco diluted 

 50 to 1 in water and syringed into the 

 crown of leaves will keep the aphis 

 down where the fumes of tobacco will 

 hardly reach them. 



Echeveria Retusa. 



I lately saw this pretty plant in 

 flower and it reminded me that twenty 

 years ago it was one of our standaril 

 pot plants for selling in the fall and 

 early winter, and it is better worthy 

 a place in our greenhouses than many 

 plants that have displaced it. It grows 

 from one foot to 18 inches high, sends 

 up numerous flower spikes, and being 

 a fleshy, succulent plant, does finely 

 in a room under the most unfavorable 

 circumstances. It can be propagated 

 in any quantity from seed or from 

 the leaves, which should be pulled, not 

 cut, from the stem, and put into flats 

 of sand and kept rather dry, or from 

 leading shoots, which make fine plants 

 the first summer. 



If you have any old plants, cut the 

 leading shoots squarely off a few 

 inches above the pot and keep on the 

 dry side and several small breaks will 

 start from the edge of the stems when 

 it has been cut. which make fine cut- 

 tings. Plant them out of doors during 

 summer in a light soil and lift before 

 hard frost. A .'i-inch pot should ac- 

 commodate the largest plant from onn 

 summer's growth. We found last fall 

 that after the chrysantheniums were 



gone there was a dearth of pot plants 

 in any variety. The Echeveria retusa 

 is one to fill the gap, and for those 

 who have to supply conservatories at 

 so much per month, it is a most useful 

 plant, for it will last in good appear- 

 ance for months. 



Strobiianthes Enisifolia. 



This is another plant that is just at 

 its best and adds great variety to a 

 collection of flowering plants for rea- 

 son of its color (blue). It requires 

 rather a high temperature, but that is 

 no drawback, for most of our patrons 

 keep their living rooms or small con- 

 servatories much warmer than the 

 greenhouse man does any of his 

 houses. It is easily propagated from 

 cuttings now or a month later. They 

 can be planted out and occasionally 

 pinched till lifting time, but no frost 

 must touch it; or it can be grown in 

 a pot and shitted when needed. 

 Ericas. 



A subscriber asks, "What tempera- 

 ture and how many weeks does it take 

 to get Erica [ragrans into flower for 

 Christmas? ' and also the same inquiry 

 about E. persoluta alba for Easter. I 

 am sorry I don't know the species call- 

 ed fragrans, if there is one. Persoluta, 

 of which alba is a variety, flowers nat- 

 urally in April, so it would be about 

 right for our ordinary Easter; but if 

 not in time for our early Easter of 

 this year, you can at once place it in a 

 little more heat. The hard wooded, 

 mostly Cape heaths, the most beauti- 

 ful of this large genus, would be killed 

 by anything like forcing, but the soft 

 wooded, such as Persoluta, autumn- 

 alis, gracilis. Willraoreana, melan- 

 thera, hyemalis, etc.. will bear a little 

 forcing, but nothing like the treat- 

 ment we give to deciduous shrubs, lilac 

 for instance. 



Ericas, the soft wooded section, are 

 largely gi'own in the large eastern 

 cities, and immense quantities are 

 sold as pot plants during winter and 

 spring; but they are not generally 

 grown throughout the country as they 

 should be for the reason. I think, that 

 the great army of florists know little 

 about them or have an idea that they 

 are very difficult to manage; climate 

 does not suit, etc. When Peter Hen- 

 derson more than thirty years ago 

 wrote that ericas should be planted 

 out in the summer and lifted in the 

 fall, -there werf .many good .gardeners. 

 sUeptical of that method, l.nit he was 

 right, and that is just how to do it. 



Just now or for the next month or 

 so is a good time to begin with the 

 cuttings of any of those species or 

 varieties mentioned above, or any of 

 the so-called soft wooded section. The 

 cuttings should be made from the 

 young growth, of which there is plen- 

 ty to be had just now. but it should 

 not be soft and brittle as you would 

 want a verbena cutting to be. It 

 should be what we call half ripened. 

 Make the cuttings quite short and put 

 them in flats of clean sand, and after 

 the first thorough watering, water only 

 often enough to prevent the sand from 

 getting dust dry; the cuttings want no 

 bottom heat. If you have a case in- 

 closed with a sash over it, to prevent 

 much change of temperature or 

 draught of air, they will strike all the 

 better; and a house that is kept at 

 5.5 to 60 degrees will suit the cuttings. 

 In 9 to 12 weeks they will show signs 

 of growing, and if found to be rooted, 

 pot off singly in 2-inch pots. A cold 

 frame with a shade during the hottest 

 hours is the place for them diiring 

 summer, and the following winter 

 keep them in a cool house till danger 

 of a frost is past, when they should be 

 planted out. The young plants should 

 of course have been stopped once soon 

 after they started to grow in the 2- 

 inch pots, so they will be in good con- 

 dition when planted out the following 

 spring to make b;ishy plants. 



The erica is one of those plants that 

 it was once thou,ght almost impossible 

 to grow witliout peat, but that wfl 

 don't have, and they grow very well 

 planted out in a good light loam, such 

 as the Long Island men grow their 

 carnations in. When lifting and p:]t- 

 ting use a third or fourth of well rot- 

 ted leaves, and pot firmly. Ericas do 

 not like a wet. sodden soil, but ex- 

 treme dryness in the pots will ruin 

 them, 



■Violets. 



Remember, there is always a call for 

 a moderate sized, inexpensive plant at 

 Easter. Sometimes baby has a nlaD*- 

 sent her, and a pot oT violetn if weH 

 flowered is very accentable. The n'o- 

 per way to have a eoori not of violeti 

 would have been to lift some from 

 the field in the fall, pot them, and 

 keep in a cold frame away from very 

 hard freezing till about this date, 

 when, if given a te"iperature of 45 

 degrees, thev would by Raster be in 

 fine flower; but if that was not done, 

 then lift a hundred o»' so of the most 

 compact nlants from the bed at once, 

 keep cool till within two weeks of 

 Easter, when a night temperature of 

 55 degrees will bring out most of the 

 buds. 



Deutzia Gracilis. 



Last year we found a lot of neat lit- 

 tle plants of this shrub an excellent 

 thing to have for Easter, but we wj'-e 

 just about one week too late with it. 

 It pays to cut. if not sold in the pots. 

 It is a little early vet. but allow a 

 good six weeks to bring it into flower; 

 that is none too much; it will last a 

 week if a little early. 



WILLIAM SCOTT. 



