June 5, 1902. 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



35 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Plants for Stock. 



I would remind you, before you are 

 all sold out of essential stock, to re- 

 sen-e, or better still plant out, good, 

 healthy plants for your own propagat- 

 ing next fall. There are a number of 

 our useful bedding plants that very few 

 are needed to give you all you want for 

 fall propagation and even if late in 

 planting out you will get sufficient, but 

 there are others in which it is entirely 

 different. A few plants of each variety 

 of acalypha or salvia or Abutilon Savit- 

 zii or ageratum will do because you lift 

 only a few plants and get a great num- 

 ber of cuttings from them during the 

 winter. Zonal geraniums, however, must 

 be planted out in good quantities, and 

 healthy, strong plants, or you will not 

 get an abundance of cuttings. 



Geraniums. 



The geranium may be a plebeian plant 

 but take it all around, if color and 

 brightness are wanted it has no equal 

 and will never lose its popularity. Get 

 a lot planted at once and for your use 

 and to produce cuttings give them lots 

 of room. You wUl get more cuttings 

 and of a better quality if daylight can 

 get at all sides. We plant geraniums 

 10 to 12 inches apart for a customer's 

 flower beds but to give us cuttings on 

 our place we like to give them 18 inches 

 between the plants. 



I daresay there are many new zonal 

 geraniums that are very striking and 

 beautiful that I don't know. I would 

 impress on you once more the great ex- 

 cellence of Le SoleO, the splendid semi- 

 double scarlet. It is very Uke Nutt, but 

 much superior. In the greenhouse it 

 shov.-s no improvement over Kutt, but 

 in a bed it is far better, never turning 

 black in center of truss as Nutt does, 

 and much more prolific even than that 

 grand old variety-. I was rather inclined 

 to be disappointed in the beautiful light 

 pink ' ' Jean Viaud ' ' last summer. Per- 

 haps I did not give it a fair chance, but 

 whatever its qualities as a bettder, as a 

 beautiful plant and flower about sell- 

 ing time it has no equal in its class. 

 You cannot do without it. Pasteur is 

 a grand all around geranium and a 

 splendid bedder. We have nothing in 

 bright pink equal to Mrs. Frances Per- 

 kins. It is the standard pink bedder 

 of its color, and that is a pure deep 

 pink. 



Among single varieties we have seen 

 nothing this spring so striking as "Rich- 

 mond Beauty" of the Mirande tvpe. I 

 can't describe the colors for the flower 

 is not before me, but we will call it 

 a white center bordered by a cherry 

 red. Never mind its color. When it be- 

 gan to bloom last month I made up my 

 mind that if I took 500 plants of it to 

 market any fine morning I should come 

 home with full pockets and an empty 

 wagon. 



Cannas. 



Cannas are another most important 

 plant that you never have in sufficient 



quantity. They want a deep, rich soil 

 and plenty of water tiU they get a good 

 growth, then their foliage shades the 

 ground and they take care of themselves. 

 The dwarfer growing varieties should be 

 18 inches apart, the taller and stronger, 

 2 feet. McKinley is a beautiful scarlet. 

 Tarrytown I consider the finest bedding 

 scarlet canna yet raised. I can hardly 

 think of its being improved on. Dwarf 

 Florence Vaughan is indispensable. 

 Victory is yet a novelty but it is grand, 

 both in color, size and freedom ; a bright 

 orange-scarlet. bavid Harum, deep 

 bronze foliage with vermilion scarlet 

 flowers. It has a splendid blending of 

 colors. Mrs. Kate Gray, Secretaire Cha- 

 banne and M. Jarry Desloges are ' all 

 good, and Buttercup is worth growing. 

 It has green foliage and pure yellow 

 flowers without a streak or spot of any 

 other shade. And don't forget Black 

 Beauty, the best of its class. I am sup- 

 posing, of course, that you know all 

 about Sam Trelease, Souvenir de An- 

 toine Crozy, Charles Henderson and all 

 the rest of the good old ones. 



Other Stock. 



Don't forget to soon pot up into 4 

 or 5-inch pots and plunge out of doors 

 in cold frames a dozen plants each of 

 those things which do not Uft, such 

 as lantanas, lemon verbenas, etc. 



should, however, be in deep, rich soil. 

 They lift so easily that it is much easier 

 to produce a good plant that way than 

 keeping them in pots. If you have a 

 demand for large hydrangeas in tubs 

 you can start them now by putting three 

 thrifty plants from 6-iuch pots into a 

 half whisky barrel (excuse the word, 1 

 should have said cider barrel, but they 

 have been noticed to come of a more 

 blue tint in the former) ; cut these young 

 plants down slightly if they have flow- 

 ered in the greenhouse. Stand the tubs 

 in the full sun and keep well supplied 

 Vfith water, and if your compost is ot 

 heavy, well manured quality you will 

 have fine tubs by fall and something that 

 will fill the bill a year from now. 



Chrysanthemums. 



You will soon have empty benches 

 and many will soon doubtless be filled 

 with "mums." Don't forget a few 

 hundred for pots. In certain soils they 

 can be planted out of doors and lifted 

 with success, but we have never had that 

 soil at our command and we find by 

 planting on the bench 15 inches apart 

 that we get much the best plant. They 

 need several pinches during summer and 

 the last week of September, not a day 

 later, you can lift them without losing 

 a fibre, and they go on growing after 

 potting without losing a leaf. The only 

 discouraging feature is that for the past 

 three or four years the demand for these 

 pot miuns has been extremely light, but 

 if you don't have a few hundred there 

 will surely be a demand. 



William Scott. 



CATTLEYA CHOCOENSIS. 



This cattleya, known also as quadri- 

 color, does well in an ordinary cattleya 



Cattleya Chocoensis. 



Get your sweet stevia planted out in 

 the open ground and give them 2 feet 

 by IS inches; they want to grow bushy. 

 Bouvardias should also go out if you 

 grow them at all and they don't want 

 a heavy, stiff soil. A rich light loam is 

 what they like and if they get a good 

 start they will make fine plants by Sep- 

 tember. 



Nearly everyone nowadays plants out 

 the winter j^ropagated hydrangeas. It 



house, and flowering as it does in De- 

 cember, after the labiata cut is over, 

 is a good paying investment. The flow- 

 ers, while of good size, are always half 

 open in appearance, which will be no- 

 ticed in the illustration, but as they are 

 deliciously perfumed and flowers are 

 scarce at that season, this does not af- 

 fect their ready sale. The flowers are 

 very variable in color, running from a 

 very deep blush to pure white in the 



