jANrAKY 0, lQ<y2. 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



215 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Geraniums. 



With many of us a large job just now 

 is shifting our zonal geraniums from 

 2 or 2J-inch to 3-inch pots. This is not 

 much of a shift, but if a little of the 

 soil is rubbed off the top it is sufficient 

 and makes a wonderful change in the 

 plant. They occupy considerable more 

 room after this, but you have got the 

 room and they need it. As I have often 

 remarked, the stuff that we are some- 

 times obliged to buy from other cities 

 under the name of geraniums is a 

 miserable apology for this popular plant. 

 No doubt there are plenty of men who 

 know how to grow them well, but they 

 have an idea that there is not enough 

 money in them to give them a good light 

 house and proper space. And another 

 class, however proficient in their spec- 

 ialty, know nothing about the require- 

 ments of this indispensable plant. 



A very excellent man and large grower 

 of all kinds of plants, on being asked 

 if he grew geraniums for spring sales, 

 answered: "Oh, yes; we keep them un- 

 der the bench till along in February and 

 March." If he had said he kept his 

 Pandanus Veitchii beneath the bench it 

 would have been just as reasonable. 

 Mind, I am not finding fault with those 

 who grow rubbers and pandanus and 

 crotons and kentias and neglect gerani- 

 ums, because the former are much more 

 profitable to them, but to those who have 

 a good retail demand for geraniums, I 

 say grow them well. A dozen zonal ge- 

 raniums from 4-inch pots in the month 

 of May at $1.50 per dozen, if managed 

 well and not occupying a great space, 

 or the 4-inch pot till after the Easter 

 crops are disposed of, is quite as profit- 

 able as many other plants we grow; for 

 instance, quite as profitable as a house 

 of carnations, hov/ever well managed. 



Pot geraniums firmly. You want a 

 short, firm growth. A good loam with 

 a fifth of old hotbed manure is all you 

 want, and if you don't have the rotted 

 manure, then a 5-inch pot of bone flour 

 to a wheelbarrow load of the soil will 

 do just as well. Nothing but the light- 

 est bench will grow geraniums well. 

 With the increased root room and the 

 increased light of the season and a night 

 temperature of 45 to 50 degrees these 

 young plants will make a growth that 

 will give you a good cutting by the end 

 of February, and by taking the cutting 

 you will have improved the plant, pro- 

 viding you don't cut too low. Always 

 remember that the plant is the thing to 

 consider and don't murder it for the 

 sake of a cutting. 



It is well just n6w to select say a 

 thousand of the strongest plants of good 

 early flowering varieties. Pot these into 

 3i-inch pots and at once just pinch out 

 the end of the growth. And you might 

 give them the warmest end of the house. 

 By the end of February shift them into 

 4i or 5-inch pots and they will be in 

 good flower at Easter. Last Easter we 

 could have sold many such plants to peo- 

 ple who pay a visit to the cemeteries 



or to the little girl who wanted a plant 

 for ma, but had only 25 cents to spend. 

 Anybody wants a well-flowered, pretty 

 geranium. 



The bronze and variegated varieties 

 will do better in at least 5 degrees 

 warmer house than the zonals. That 

 most useful of all variegated geraniums, 

 Mme. Salleroi, we usually lift and pot 

 and keep in some cool house, and now is 

 a very good time to pull it to pieces and 

 root the cuttings. If you rooted them 

 in September, don't be shifting them 

 now. They will do till March in 2-inch 

 pots and then can be shifted into a 3- 

 inch, and that's as large as it pays to 

 give them. 



I have had too great a variety of 

 subjects to think of lately to notice the 

 new varieties of geranium, and perhaps 

 I have not had an opportunity. Mrs. 

 Frances Perkins is the best semi-double 

 pink. The finest double scarlet we have 



summer, and before frost bring them in 

 and stand them beneath a light bench for a 

 rest. They are the Lemon verbena and 

 the lantana. They should now shortly 

 be got up, some of the old soil be shaken 

 oil' and given a very slight shift, unrip- 

 ened tips of the shoots cut off, and 

 started growing in a warm house. The 

 Lemon verbena roots from the young 

 green growths in a bottom heat of 65 

 or 70 degrees just as easily as the com- 

 mon verbena, providing you keep the 

 sand wet, and the sun off. The lantana 

 will soon make young growths, which 

 root easily. 



Some readers may think it is hardly 

 worth while to write much about a plant 

 so little grown. I have only to say that 

 since the decline of carpet bedding (and 

 it has so declined that it is dead in all 

 well regulated gardens) we must look to 

 these and similar plants to occupy its 

 place. Excuse the allusion once again 

 to the past Pan-American, but one of the 

 prettiest of all beds was a small circle 

 of 10 feet diameter filled with Lantana 

 Craigii, the exhibit of Henry A. Dreer. 

 It flowered from June to fro.st killing 

 time. It was soothing, chaste and beau- 

 tiful, and compared to the finest carpet 

 bed was like the rainbow is to the sky- 

 rocket or the original statue of the Venus 

 de Medici to a painting of Mrs. Straddles 

 of Chicago, which Mr. Chadwick, also of 



A Ball of Lorraine Begonias. 



seen up to date is the grand Le Soliel. 

 A bed of it at the Pan-American, the 

 exhibit of C. W. Ward, was the best bed 

 of scarlet geraniums that we have ever 

 seen. It is the shade of S. A. Nutt, but 

 altogether a better habit. Not a dis- 

 eased plant in the whole 300, and it has 

 not that failing of Nutt of the inner 

 florets decaj'ing and making the truss 

 look shabby. 



Lemon Verbenas and Lantanas. 



There are two useful plants that I ad- 

 vised you to grow a few of in pots last 



Chicago, so. pleasantly refers to in his 

 "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands." 



Cyclamen. 



Those who sowed cyclamen early in 

 October will now have the little corms 

 as large as peas, and they should be 

 transplanted. They can be put into very 

 small pots, but flats are better. There 

 is less danger of your neglecting them 

 for water and I am sure they make a 

 better and quicker growth, and they will 

 do in the flats very well for the next 

 two months. A night temperature of 50 



