194 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



July 10, 1902. 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Smilax. 



Amidst the midsummer heat and con- 

 sequent laziness there are some crops 

 that need their foundation laid during 

 this month. As important as any to the 

 general florist is smilax. Only last year 

 one of our scions said we did not have 

 room for it and could buy it. A big mis- 

 take for any man who has any glass. 

 Twenty-five or fifty strings for a dee- 

 oration you can buy and won't forget to 

 provide, but you will be slipped up 

 dozens of times during winter when you 

 only want a string or two and have to 

 send a mile or more to get it. 



Many a time I have insisted that smi- 

 lax should be planted every year, and 

 that early in July. Old beds get bare 

 at the bottom of the growths and do 

 not send up successive crops so fast 

 and require much more attention to keep 

 in order. Most any soil will grow smilax. 

 In a light sandy loam the growth will 

 be weak. The best soil is a clay loam 

 with at least a fourth of cow manure 

 or stable manure if not too fresh. There 

 is no need of making a bench. Right on 

 the floor of the house is the place for 

 it, and as it's only to last the year six 

 inches of soil is an abundance. 



I feel reluctant to repeat so often the 

 principal points in smilax culture, but 

 there may be a blacksmith or barber or 

 preacher .iust joined the noble army of 

 florists who will take a hint. It does 

 not need a light, bright house; any 

 house running north and south will do. 

 It should be daily syringed. It should 

 never be neglected in tying up. Two 

 weeks' neglpet of tying up the house for 

 it to run on will give you days of most 

 annoying work. When a string is cut 

 before it is well matured the plant 

 should not be watered till the young 

 growths are well started or you will 

 rot the tubers. That is why it is always 

 better, when starting, to cut a bed from 

 one end. It is most desirable to start 

 at one end of the bed and cut all strings 

 that are any way fit to cut; then you 

 can manage the watering without trou- 

 ble. When making a vigorous growth 

 you can scarcely over water it. Ten 

 inches between rows and eight inches 

 between plants is a good distance to 

 plant, and finally, it is not profitable 

 unless kept steadily up to 60 degrees 

 at night throughout the winter, and 

 where it is made a specialty 65 degrees 

 is better. 



Asparagus Plumosus Nanus. 



Asparagus plumosus is another article 

 indispensable not only for the long 

 strings but for the sprays. Unlike its 

 cousin, the smilax, there is no need of 

 making a planting of this every year. In 

 fact it is better left several years. And 

 we have learned from experience, and 

 profited by the knowledge of experts 

 with this plant that it should always be 

 on the solid ground. For instance, if 

 the house you intended to use for aspara- 

 gus had a fairly dry surface you could 

 dig up sis inches (if fairly good soil), ' 



work in plenty of manure and with six 

 inches of good rich soil above the ground 

 level you would have a bed a foot deep 

 and have just the right conditions. Never 

 have the bed, hovi'evcr rich or deep, on 

 boards or tiles. To once more use the 

 words of Mr. Elliott, "Never divorce it 

 from mother earth." A rather heavy 

 well manured soil is what it wants and 

 5.5 to GO degrees grows it well. 



Speaking of manure for this a.sx)ara- 

 gus tribe, and the smilax belongs to it, 

 yuu know, most of you, how to make a 

 good asparagus bed. In the old ortho- 

 dox kitchen garden they were made two 

 feet deep. Dead horses and perhaps 

 dead ancestors were buried in them, and 

 Jots of other ingredients, and so they 

 got; asparagus shoots like a ten-cent 

 Roman candle and that's all there is in 

 the difference of asparagus. The "giant" 

 varieties advertised is in the manure, 

 that's the giant. And our ornamental 

 asparagus are also voracious feeders. 



There is another asparagus as useful 

 as any, yes, perhajis the most useful 

 green grown and used by the florist, 

 A. Sprengeri. It needs a deep rich soil^ 

 a bench of five or six inches of soil 

 will not sustain it the whole year. It 

 IS worth giving a bed as you do A 

 plumosus although it needs no such good 

 and lofty house. About 60 degrees at 

 night grows it well. Now some of you 

 may have such a place in your estab- 

 lishment as that in which I saw this 

 growing last November. It was in a 

 range of six rose houses, equal span, all 

 connecting and no jiartitions; four-inch 

 cedar posts supported the gutters, which 

 were six feet above grade; steam pipes 

 hung on the posts and three or four feet 

 above the floor; a path on each side of 

 post. Now you will see that there was a 

 space right under the gutter between 

 posts in which you did not walk and 

 which would be unused if the owner had 

 not received some inspiration from his 

 own brain. Between every post were 

 glass boxes set on edge; the boxes were 

 16x24 and perhaps four to five inches 

 thick. These were filled with soil and 

 planted with Asparagus Sprengeri. I 

 never saw better, and thousands of 

 sprays had been and would be cut. Al- 

 though the width of soil was only four 

 or five inches it was sixteen inches deep 

 and the Sprengeri was sending out 

 sprays three feet long. I am not say- 

 ing that this range was built with the 

 most economical arrangement, but as it 

 was built that way it was turned to most 

 excellent account and a good many hun- 

 dred dollars were taken from that range 

 besides what the roses produced. 



There seemed last winter far more 

 than ever a demand for some graceful 

 green, and to have it in abundance on 

 your place is just as essential as to have 

 roses and carnations. Maidenhair fern 

 is beautiful and never can be in dis- 

 favor, but in large vases or bunches of 

 flowers something larger and bolder is 

 needed, and here is where plumosus and 



Sprengeri come in, and they never come 

 in fast enough to meet our wants. 



Mignonette. 



This is very easy to grow and can be 

 overdone and perhaps not over-profitable, 

 still very useful, and when well grown 

 brings a good price for the best sprays 

 and the inferior can be used with cut 

 flowers. If you want it by the first of 

 November it should be sown about the 

 15th of this mouth. If not wanted be- 

 fore Christmas wait till August 1. Mig- 

 nonette should have nothing but the light- 

 est house. The glass may be twenty feet 

 above it or two feet, that won't "make 

 any difference, except that a small cheap 

 house is just as good as an expensive one. 

 iJon't go below 40 degrees or above 45 

 degrees a.t night in firing weather and 

 you will have good mignonette. Some 

 growers sow a few seeds every twelve 

 inches apart on the bed and thin out to 

 the strongest plant. Twelve to fifteen 

 inches apart is close enough for each 

 plant. Others sow a few seeds in 2%- 

 inch pots, and when ready to plant divide 

 the contents into three parts. 



It is well known that the mignonette 

 handled as wc do an aster or balsam is 

 often a failure transplanted, but with a 

 good lump of soil they will not feel it. 

 It is well to have three or four little 

 plants in a group for some mishap may 

 occur, and when two or three inches high 

 you can thin out to the strongest, and 

 when about three inches high is the time 

 to pinch out the top so that they branch 

 out. You cannot grow good spikes unless 

 you keep the lateral growths pinched 

 off, and, like everything else we 

 grow, and there is any money in, 

 it requires labor. The greatest en- 

 emy we have found to the mig- 

 nonette is the green cabbage worm, 

 the larva of the yellow or sulphur butter- 

 fly. The little worm is so precisely the 

 color of the mignonette leaf that it would 

 take the keen shooter's eye of a Cartledge 

 or Lonsdale to detect them. A very weak 

 solution of Paris green syringed over the 

 plants will fix them, and by early October 

 they disappear. Mother" butterfly has 

 gone to the happy hunting ground. 



Pansies. 



I have been watching the pansy trade 

 in our town and vic^ity this spring, and 

 made some mental memorandums that 

 will benefit me. Let me say here that if a 

 bed of pansies is wanted to last all sum- 

 mer (just as feasible as a bed of ver- 

 benas), the seed should not be sown till 

 end of January or even later. If you in- 

 tend to winter them in a cold-frame cov- 

 ered with sash anil have very early plants 

 in bloom by middle of April (remember 

 I am talking about western New York) 

 then early in August will do. 



But if you have none of these conveni- 

 ences, and wish to have a lot of early 

 pansies to sell early in May, entirelv 

 grown in the field, then they" should be 

 sown by the loth to 20th of" this month 

 of July. If well cared for and trans- 

 planted at proper time they will be stout 

 branching plants before winter S6ts in, 

 and, if surviving the winter in good or- 

 der, will be ready to open their welcome 

 faces at the first warm days of spring. 

 Sow in very shallow drills two inches 

 apart, only just cover the seeds, and 

 never let the seed bed get dry. It will 

 not bo a large plot of ground, and you 

 can afford to give it the best of atten- 

 tion. The most critical time with seed 



