Mat 22. 1902. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



907 



A Cottage Garden. 



ivbeii that lias soaked away cover or fill 

 in with an inch of dry soil. In a bed of 

 100 geraniums or cannas this would take 

 possibl.v fifteen minutes' more time than 

 .iamming them into the soil, smoothing it 

 all over and then watering the whole bed 

 on the surface, but, oh, what a differ- 

 ence to tlie welfare of the plants. You 

 cannot give suiBcient water on the sur- 

 face to thoroughly water to the roots of 

 the plants, particularly if the bed is 

 rounded up in umbrella form, as too 

 many of the people think a tiow-er bed 

 should be. 



A good many asters are already plant- 

 ed, and many more to plant. Be sure 

 you get tliem near the hose or means of 

 irrigation. A dry spell in July and Au- 

 gust is fatal to them and the ground can- 

 not be too deep or too rich. 



Cydamer. 



A plant that suffers from now on for 

 a month with the general tlorist more 

 than almost any other, and it is one of 

 our winter stand-bys, is the beautiful 

 cvclamen. We make up our minds in the 

 winter that next spring we won't neglect 

 them, but the rush of the planting time 

 comes, and all hands, and more hands if 

 we had them, are driven, and these young 

 plants, perhaps now in 2-inch pots and 

 some in 3-inch, are overlooked. Now, 

 please put them in some light house 

 where there is plenty of air. Syringe 

 them lightly every bright morning and 

 fumigate at least, twice a week. They 

 don't like a scorching sun through un- 

 shaded glass, neither do they want a per- 

 manent shade, such as whitewashed glass 

 affords, but a shade of some sort on 

 bright days from 10 to 4 o'clock is the 

 ideal, and if you cannot give this correct 

 form of shading then half shade on the 

 glass. By that I mean if your glass is 

 12 inches broad, run the whitewash or 

 whatever material you nse down the 

 glass, say, 6 or 7 inches broad, leaving a 

 strip of clear glass on each side. This is 

 a great improvement over covering the 

 whole surface, for those plants that do 

 not want or thrive in too heavy a shade. 

 For instance, it's about the thing for our 

 houses just now that are filled with a va- 

 riety of summer bedding plants. 



Most gardeners know, but perhaps 

 some do not realize, that to leave the 



glass clear and apply shading inside, such 

 as paper or cheesecloth, is shading the 

 plants true enough, but you are not keep- 

 ing, the temperature down; your houses 

 will be just as hot as ever. To keep 

 your temperature down your shade must 

 be over your glass. 



Don't forget to stake your sweet peas 

 when the.v are three inches oiit of the 

 ground, and I will say a sweet good-bye. 

 ' WiLLiAJi Scott." 



A COTTAGE GARDEN. 



Our photographer has a garden and 

 has favored us with the photographs from 

 which the accompanying engravings were 

 made. He doesn't belong to any par- 

 ticular school a7id has worked on rather 

 original lines, but the effect is not un- 

 pleasing. The mixture of tiger lilies, 

 golden glow rudbeckia and perennial 

 phloxes bordered by colcus is decidedly 

 an original conception and the hall mark 

 of the amateur is seen in the tvibcrosc 

 blooming among the phloxes and t^ger 

 lilies. But the effect is good as well as 

 interesting. 



]ividentl3' nothing came amiss or was 

 considered out of place when this garden 

 was planted. The assosiation of gera- 

 niums with perennials, and annuals put 

 in belter skelter, maj' seem incongruous, 

 .but we confess we like it, though it might 

 not be approved by many. While w'e 

 wouldn't be apt to plant a garden that 

 way yet we find much in it to commend 

 and such a garden does excellent mission- 

 ary work among the people. 



ROSE NOTES. 



Liberty. 



After two years' trial by many ex- 

 perts, it is still a question if Liberty can 

 be grown suecessfull.v with any certain- 

 ty. Some few weeks ago the trade jour- 

 nals published the opinions of many of 

 these experts, and hardl.v anv two of 

 them agreed on the method of culture. 

 It is certainly a fine rose and well worthy 

 of a good many trials before being dis- 

 carded, but it will be wisdom for the 

 smaller growers to experiment on a small 

 Scale till success is attained. 



During the past two seasons, we have 



experimented with it in all our rose 

 liouses, planting part of a bench in each 

 house in order to find out if possible the 

 conditions under which it would succeed. 

 Those planted with Meteors and run at 

 a night temperature of 68 to 70 degrees 

 did well uji till November when dark 

 weather set in when they suffered severe- 

 ly from black spot, which continued to 

 infest them up till Easter; they are now 

 looking well and producing some fine 

 blooms, but in productiveness they are 

 far behind Meteor. 



Planted with Kaiserins and run at a 

 night temperature of 62 degrees, have 

 done fairly well during the whole season. 

 Grown along with Brides and Brides- 

 maids, they, in spite of all we could do, 

 insisted on having a rest during the win- 

 ter months; they are now growing nicely 

 and producing a fair cut. 



Our most satisfactory results have been 

 with plants which were never allowed to 

 approach being pot-bound, and which 

 when in the bench were continually en- 

 couraged to active root action by fre- 

 quent cultivation using a sprinkling of 

 bone meal once a month and watering 

 liberally during the summer months. 

 Liberty requires a very small excuse for 

 taking a rest. Eibes. 



TOMATOES. 



"Inquisitive" asks why I recently 

 recommended a correspondent to trim 

 Sutton's Best of All tomato to one or 

 two shoots, and if I would recommend 

 such treatment for other varieties; and 

 asks further: Is the object to get 

 larger fruit? 



This is, of course, growing tomatoes 

 outside that is referred to. I would 

 certainly recommend anyone to grow his 

 tomatoes with only one or two stems and 

 either trained on a trellis or tied to a 

 stout stake. The advantages are ob- 

 vious if one considers for a moment. 

 Plants that are left to take care of 

 themselves fall all over the ground, and 

 in showery weather much of the fruit 

 splits or gets burnt by the sun, while 

 lying on the hot soil. The fruit is also 

 dirty, and if the season happens to be 

 a very wet one, the plant will make a 

 forest of shoots, and produce very little 

 fruit, or what it does produce will be 

 very late in the season. 



I am well aware that most market 

 growers let their tomatoes grow just as 

 they please once the plants are set out, 

 but it always seemed to me that the 

 saving in labor by so doing is more 

 than offset by the lateness of the crop 

 and the poorer quality. This system may 

 perhaps w-ork all right on a dry bank 

 with a southern exposure. In such a 

 position the plants would set fniit no 

 matter what the weather, and the shade 

 aft'orded by the foliage would keep the 

 soil moist for the roots, but speaking 

 generally I would never grow my to- 

 matoes that way. 



The finest crops of tomatoes I ever 

 saw growing outside were handled as fol- 

 lovi-s: The plants were tied up and 

 kept to one shoot until it was aboufi five 

 feet high. Then when sis or seven 

 trusses of fruit were set another shoot 

 was brought up from the bottom of the 

 plant which gave a later supply of 

 fruit, and the crop can only be de- 

 scribed as enormous. 



The advantages, briefly, are early set 

 of blossom, consequently early ripening 

 of the fruit (and sines "Inquisitive" 

 lives in Vermont this should be of para- 



