January 16, 1902. 



TheWeekly Florists' Review, 



247 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Cytisus or Genista. 



Among other Easter plants which I 

 have not mentioned of late I notice the 

 eytisus, or, as it is often called, the ge- 

 nista. This is b}' no means a good las1> 

 ing plant when taken into the dwelling 

 house, but we can hardly consider that 

 qualification nowadays, if it only sells. 

 It is one of the few yellow flowers and 

 in moderate quantities sells w-ell. as it is 

 an inexpensive plant. Supposing you 

 gave them the last pinching back in Oc- 

 tober, they will be full early now for 

 Easter. It will not do to give them any 

 more "stopping," so all you can do is to 

 keep them very cool. Anything above 

 freezing will do for the next six weeks 

 should they be too early with you. 



Acacias. 



Acacia armata ia another l)cauli 

 yellow blossom, a much superior phint 

 to the genista, but not so quickly or 

 easily grown and flowered. I have never 

 been able to flower the newly imported 

 plants very satisfactorily the first spring, 

 but the second year, after being cut down 

 in the spring and grown along out of 

 doors in pots as we do azaleas, they 

 make fine plants. These also are usually 

 rathei- early but they are easily retard- 

 ed by keeping very cool. 



Palm Seeds. 



We have lately had another failure 

 with a few thousand seeds of Kentias 

 Belmoreana and Forsteriana and feel 

 sure this time it was not our fault, for 

 we took the precaution to sow the seeds 

 directly they were unpacked from the 

 cases and sowed them in flats in a mix- 

 ture of loam and leaf mould, giving 

 them a very warm bench. It would mat- 

 ter very little what the compost was in 

 which they were sown; if there was any 

 latent vitality in them they would start, 

 but there was not. This leads me to say 

 tliat there are times when the seedsman 

 or impoj'ter is blamed for what is not 

 his fault, simply because the seed is often 

 received, unpacked and allowed to lie 

 around the shed for days, perhaps weeks, 

 before being put into the ground. Par- 

 ticularly is this destructive to kentia 

 seed, and more or less to all palm seeds. 

 As soon as unpacked from what should 

 he air-tight cans or packages, the palm 

 seeds should be sown. 



I don't suppose there will be any law- 

 suit over our ten thousand kentia seeds. 

 I have for many years invariably when 

 failure occurred with flower and garden 

 seeds given the seedsman the benefit of 

 the doubt and laid the blame to unskill- 

 ful sowing or management, but with 

 these palm seeds when you know the 

 conditions they require and follow them 

 faithfully and none grow it is a good 

 plan not to have paid for the seeds till 

 you see the young plants up. 



Abutilon Savitzii. 



One of the prettiest flower garden 

 plants of the day is Abutilon Savitzii. 

 As an edging to a bed of dwarf red can- 

 nas, such as McKinley or Tarrytown, it 



is superb. It only waut.-^ one pinching 

 when planted out for such a purpose. 

 Its bushy branching habit will do the 

 rest. Trusting you have lifted a few old 

 plants in the fall, a very little cutting 

 back and a temperature of .55 to 60 will 

 soon give .you good cuttings. Like all 

 plants that have so much variegation, 

 this abutilon lacks the vigor of many of 

 the old varieties that are of rampant 

 growth and needs more heat. A good 

 warm sunny house is what it wants, but 

 it deserves it, for it is a beautiful plant 

 and unequalled w'here used as above re- 

 ferred to. 



Cyprjpediums. 



The holidays will have cleared you out 

 of two most useful orchid blooms." Cypri- 

 pedium insigne, with its subdued but del- 

 icate colors, is one of the best and nv y> 

 profitable orchids. At no time does this 

 orchid require a warm house. Fifty at 

 night during winter is all that it needs. 

 If they are in sufficiently large pots then 

 at your leisure within a few weeks pull 

 off the old, worn out sphagnum and re- 

 place with some fresh. 



At no time of the year do cypripedi- 

 ums need or must they have what in 

 other orchids we call a rest. A drying 

 out such as a cattleya or Itelia will sub- 

 mit to would much injure a cypripedium. 

 Just keep the surface of the' moss mod- 

 erately moist at this time of year. In 

 April, May and June, when they are 

 making their growth, more moisture and 

 syringing is needed. 



If the plants are crowded and need 

 shifting, or if you wish to divide them 

 and increase your stock, now is the 

 proper time to do it. They divide eas- 

 ily. Pull them apart between the crowns 

 into the desired size. Ordinary pots are 

 as good as anything for cypripediums. 

 Fill the pots to within three inches of 

 the top with clean broken crocks. I may 

 as well say here that material, pots and 

 everything connected with orchid cul- 

 ture must be clean. For a compost some 

 growers use a portion of chopped up 

 turfy loam mixed with the sphagnum, 

 but it is not as good as good, clean or- 

 chid peat and one-third sphagnum. Add 

 a small quantity of charcoal lumps bro- 

 ken up to the size of peanuts, which helps 

 to keep the compost clean and sweet. 

 Keep the compost well rounded up above 

 the top of the pot. Keep the newly di- 

 vided plants shaded and out of the draft 

 for the next two months. 



Cattleyas. 



Cattleya labiata is one of the gi-andest 

 of this beautiful genus. Pity it cannot 

 be more easily retarded till the holidays. 

 Both it and Cattleya Percivalliana will 

 soon be showing signs of breaking. 

 Whether they are grown on boards, in 

 baskets or pots, they should now he 

 looked over. Thoroughly clean the bulbs 

 and leaves with a sponge and pick out 

 all dead sphagnum and decayed peat, 

 and renew with fresh, clean material. 

 Very little moisture is needed till they 

 begin to make new growths and roots, 

 when an increase in the supply must be 



made; 60 degrees at night will do very 

 well for the cattleyas in the winter time. 



Smilax. 



It will soon be time to sow smilax to 

 renew your bed next July. I have often 

 said a smilax bed never pays so well as 

 the first year of its planting and still 

 feel sure of it. Four crops should be cut 

 from it if it is planted during the first 

 days of July and kept during winter 

 never less than 60 degrees. And it 

 pays to have a good, strong young plant 

 in a ;Mnch pot to plant out, so that the 

 first growth it makes after being plant- 

 ed out is strong enough to make a sal- 

 able string. Sow in flats thickly and 

 keep in a temperature of 60 degrees. 



Asparagus. 



Asparagus plumosus should also be 

 sown at once, especially if you contem- 

 plate planting a bed this summer. 



William Scott. 



ROSES. 



Eel Worm. 



This much dreaded pest whose habits 

 are so little understood by the ordinary 

 grower should receive more attention 

 than it gets. If every grower had the 

 facility to become acquainted with its 

 habits, method of reproduction, etc., he 

 would be in a position to put up a fair 

 fight. As it is, the enemy generally has 

 possession of the citadel before the gi'ow- 

 er is aware of its presence. This nema- 

 toid, which belongs to the free living 

 (not parasitic) kinds, is found every- 

 where, in salt and fresh water, in damp 

 earth and moss and among decaying 

 substances, and is always present in 

 rose soils. They are always minute in 

 size and like many other lower forms 

 of animal life are capable of retaining 

 their vitality for a long period, even when 

 dried, which accounts for their wide dis- 

 tribution. 



Like most other pests it is more liable 

 to confine its ravages to those plants in 

 which the vitality is low and seldom if 

 ever attacks a house of roses that have 

 been properly handled from the start. 

 Plants which are suffering from this 

 scourge are not fit to propagate from as 

 the vitality is reduced to such a low 

 ebb that even though they can be rooted 

 and made to produce fair looking plants, 

 they are almost certain to fall a prey to 

 the same enemy as soon as root action 

 becomes sluggish in the fall. The only 

 remedy of any worth that I know of is 

 to clear out every affected plant with 

 surrounding soil and replant with vig- 

 orous stock. Any remedy that would 

 eradicate or prevent its attacks without 

 destroying the plant would be a great 

 boon to many growers. 



Seasonable Hints. 



When selecting wood for Beauty cut- 

 tings, choose that short jointed stubby 

 wood, which would only be likely to 

 produce short stemmed flowers, thus se- 

 curing all the cuttings of about the 

 same condition of ripeness, and which 

 root more readily and uniformly than 

 ■ cuttings from long-stemmed wood which 

 cannot possess this qualification. In 

 every Beauty house plants will be found 

 which have an extra crop of fine long 

 robust stems which make no attempt to 

 show buds till late in spring. These are 

 very tempting for cutting wood, espe- 

 cially w'hen other wood is scarce. As 



