The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



99 



Wedding Decoration arranged by W. J. Smyth, Chicago. 



stem or be relegated to the rear, and 

 that was the fate of Siebrecht here. 

 The bud was much larger than that of 

 the Maid and was a handsome flow- 

 er, though lacking a little in double- 

 ness. Morgan was ti'ied. but they 

 couldn't get any good-sized flowers or 

 stems of any length. Whitney also 

 was a disappointment, a beautiful 

 rose, but it didn't produce freely 

 enough to be profltable. 



The only new rose they are now try- 

 ing is Mr. Dorner's new pink seedling, 

 of which he has sent them a few 

 plants for preliminary trial. It has 

 not yet been offered to the trade. 



Trained against the veranda of Mr. 

 Bassett's residence is a superb speci- 

 men of the Crimson Rambler rose that 

 is now in magnificent bloom, and dis- 

 counts the wildest catalogue engraving 

 of this rose. The plant has been in its 

 present position three years and 

 reaches up about ten feet, with a 

 breadth of about three feet. It is now 

 literally a mass of flowers. But it 

 didn't give promise of this beautiful 

 result the first year. The first season 

 after planting it was literally eaten up 

 with mildew. It was nearly as bad 

 the second year and Mr. Bassett came 

 near pulling it out and throwing it 

 away. Now he is glad he didn't and 

 will plant a hedge of KX) plants next 

 year. The demand for this rose for 

 outside planting is bound to increase 

 rapidly, as everyone who sees one of 

 the plants in bloom wants one him- 



self. It will pay everyone to work up 

 a good stock of this superb hardy rose. 



Mr. E. Buettner, Park Ridge, will 

 this year grow S,(mX) Beauties, 3,8CM> 

 Maids and ].2(k» Brides. He will grow 

 only these three varieties this year. 

 He has dropped Meteor. With him it 

 did not grow vigorously enough and 

 as a result he could not get stems of 

 sufficient length. He has discarded 

 Siebrecht. It produced freely and the 

 flowers were all right, but he couldn't 

 get sufficient stem on them. 



He has made a number of experi- 

 ments in feeding roses. He tried a 

 combination of bone, blood and potash 

 that gave very good results. Phos- 

 phoric acid alone had a good effect at 

 first, but it did not last long. Potash 

 alone had no appreciable effect. But 

 potash and phosphoric acid together 

 produced excellent and lasting results. 

 He tried dried blood with disastrous 

 results, its action being very peculiar. 

 The soil became sour and full of fun- 

 gus and though the foliage of the roses 

 took on a beautiful dark green the 

 roots almost entirely disappeared and 

 the plants stood still. He tried Albert's 

 horticultural manure, but it seemed re- 

 ally poisonous to the plants, which 

 shed their foliage and soon died. He 

 may have used it too strong, but he 

 considers it dangerous stuff to have 

 around. 



Bone and wood ashes are the most 

 expensive, but he believes they ari> 



the safest to use. Having noted warn- 

 ings as to the danger of using bone too 

 liberally, he experimented with some 

 roses in pots to see how large a pro- 

 portion of bone could be safely used. 

 In one case he used a mixture of one- 

 fourth bone and three-fourths soil and 

 found even this large proportion per- 

 fectly safe. The growth was very lux- 

 urious. These plants were in 4-inch 

 pots all summer and did finely, while 

 other plants in pots became exhausted. 

 In all his experiments he used raw 

 soil from the field that contained no 

 manure, and always planted other 

 plants in the raw soil alone to enable 

 comparisons to be made. The latter 

 invariably remained stunted and be- 

 came soon exhausted. 



Phosphoric acid, potash and sulphate 

 of ammonia in about equal propor- 

 tions proved the best mixture for 

 roses. This seemed to help both 

 growth and bloom and gave the foli- 

 age a fine dark color. 



ROSE SOIL. 



I have rose soil that I think lacks 

 some in fibre. The soil is clay where 

 grass has not been growing for over 

 two seasons. How would you treal 

 this soil? E. R. G. 



Since your correspondent does not 

 state whethe'r he intends using the soil 

 for the immediate planting of his win- 

 ter forcing roses or merely to prepare 



