FEBRUARY 16, 1S99. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



275 



House of American Beauty Roses at Wietor Bros., Rogers Park, Chicago. 



side and most of tlie flowers dropped 

 at that, still it was not all a loss. I 

 had many days of sweet anticipation 

 (the essence of all earthly joys), con- 

 siderable experience and many yards 

 of coarse chicken netting; 50 degrees 

 at night is as high a temperature as 

 you can give sweet peas in the winter 

 months. 



Seeds. 



I have often said that the middle of 

 March was early enough to sow asters, 

 and so it is for a general purpose or 

 for plants to sell to your customers, for 

 their mixed borders, for they will sel- 

 dom ask for them till the end of May. 

 But the aster is now an important 

 commercial flower, and when the car- 

 nation with the heat of June and July 

 has become small and soft and short- 

 lived, then the aster is most accept- 

 able. No doubt the finest, best-colored 

 asters are grown under glass, but you 

 seldom have a bench to spare. Chrys- 

 anthemums take up the benches that 

 are vacant in your plant houses in 

 summer. There's not a day to spare 

 between crops of roses and with the 

 best methods of growing violets only 

 time enough to get in new soil, clean 

 up, etc., and with most of our best ear- 

 nations, if shaded and abundance of 

 ventilation, they should pay far better 



in the months of June, July and Au- 

 gust than throwing them out to make 

 room tor a summer crop. Still occa- 

 sionally a bench of Daybreak will be 

 little worth keeping after the middle 

 of May and then if you have some fine 

 asters well advanced they will pay 

 well and be out of the way in time to 

 plant carnations the first of September, 



I believe in sowing for first crop 

 either for out of door or under glass 

 by the middle of this month, and after 

 being transplanted from seed box into 

 flats they could from that go into 2i/^- 

 inch pots. After the middle of April 

 there is always room in a violet house 

 (for you have more flowers then than 

 you can sell), and a few weeks in a 

 violet house in a 2i/4-inch pot would 

 produce a splendid aster plant, and 

 they would go right ahead when plant- 

 ed out. There are many varietii;s of 

 asters, but doubtless Semple's, when a 

 true strain is the best of all. Victoria 

 is earlier and Truffaut paeony-flow- 

 ered is fine, but Semple's is a selected 

 American variety and can be depend- 

 ed on. 



It is about time now to sow the fol- 

 lowing seeds: Verbena, seedlings are 

 less trouble, free from disease, and 

 strains can now be bought as good as 

 named varieties; Pyrethrum aureum, a 

 little yellow weed that is used for bor- 



dering; single dahlias; mignonette for 

 spring sales, it takes a long while to 

 make a sturdy plant in a pot; Petunias 

 — you may think it early, but it is not, 

 as they should be grown cool; buy 

 only the best double strains you know 

 of, 60 per cent will come single any- 

 way. If you want to raise tuberous 

 rooted begonias from seed and gloxin- 

 ias, it is now a good time to sow. You 

 make this a limited list of seeds, but to 

 have a lot of seedling annuals on your 

 hands too early is a mistake, and a 

 month later will be time enough for 

 stocks, zinnias, balsams and many 

 other of our summer flowers. 



Dahlias. 



If you grow these handsome flowers 

 and have any old plants or, rather, 

 roots dug up last fall and wintered un- 

 der your coolest bench it will be time 

 to start them if you wish to increase 

 your stock. It seems to me the Ca- 

 nadians know better how to produce 

 fine dahlia flowers than elsewhere on 

 this continent, although, perhaps, the 

 northern New England states are just 

 as good. It is a cool climate they 

 want, but high culture will overcome 

 this disadvantage of an unfavorable 

 climate. Place the old clump of roots 

 in an inch of soil on any bench in any 

 house where the night temperature Is 



