760 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



Mauch 10. 1904. 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Cannas. 



It will soon be time to start the can- 

 nas. There is nothing like having good, 

 strong plants. They need take up but 

 little room on your benches until after 

 Easter, when you will have plenty of 

 room to pot them. Years ago we used to 

 put the dormant roots of these and 

 caladumis at once into 4 or 5-inch pots, 

 oceup^ng much space, and they did not 

 start :k quickly or surely as they do by 

 a more modern "and better plan. Trusting 

 that the clump of roots dug in the fall 

 and stored beneath a bench have kept 

 sound, divide them now. A piece of root 

 with one good eye or bud is enough to 

 make a fine plant, but sometimes two 

 eyes can be left to advantage. If the 

 root is found, in cutting it up, to be the 

 least unsound, don't save it; its only 

 waste of labor. 



In a light house where the temperature 

 is 55 to 60 degrees at nipht and on a 

 bench preferably with heating pipes be- 

 neath it, spread an inch of sphagnum 

 moss, or coeoanut fiber will do just as 

 well. Then place your canna roots. They 

 can be set quite" closely together, for 

 they are only to remain there three or 

 four weeks, "or until they make a start 

 to grow and a few roots. Shake over 

 them a little sphagnum or the fiber, just 

 about enough to hide the roots. ^ Keep 

 the moss just moist only, and in two 

 or three weeks all the sound pieces will 

 have sent out roots, a growth will have 

 started and then they will need potting 

 in a 4 or 5-inch pot, or whatever size 

 you want to sell them from. We try to 

 grow them all in 4-ineh pots, but some of 

 the coarser growing varieties may be 

 better if given a 5-inch. "With this start 

 of root growth they have made in the 

 moss, they wUl continue to grow without 

 a halt when potted, and any that do not 

 start in the moss you have wasted little 

 labor or space over. 



Too often we see cannas grown in the 

 month of May in a shaded house. They 

 never should have shade at any time. A 

 bright, warm, sunny house is the place 

 for them, and, even tropical plant as they 

 are, I would rather have them without 

 fire heat in the month of May, than have 

 them under a heavy shade. 



Caladiums. 



The Caladium esculentum is another of 

 of our sub-tropieal garden plants that 

 can soon be started. Don't buy large 

 bulbs. One from two to three inches in 

 diameter is large enough to make the 

 finest growth and leaves. Put an inch 

 of rotted manure in the bottom of a 

 bulb flat and place the caladiums on it, 

 about two inches apart, and then fill in 

 between bulbs with sand. If you can 

 place the flats over some bottom heat, so 

 much the better. You can always find a 

 place a foot or so above a coil of steam 

 or hot water pipes. Light is not wanted 

 when starting them, but heat and moist- 

 ure are, and almost at once will an 

 abundance of roots be made. Two weeks 

 of this treatment will put the caladiums 

 farther ahead than six weeks in a 5-inch 



pot on a cool beui/li. and you have saved 

 a lot of bench room. They will, of course, 

 need potting in tliree or four weeks. 



I don 't think tliere is any fear of these 

 sub-tropieal ~ plants, particularly the 

 canna, losing any of their popularity. 

 Ever since the advent of the beautiful 

 Crozy varieties, known as the flowering 

 cannas, to distinguish them from the old 

 varieties, which were grown entirely for 

 the beauty of the foliage, their flowers 

 being unattractive, there have yearly 

 been given to us some beautiful varie- 

 ties. Yet as in all our florists' flowers, a 

 few old varieties are still favorites. We 

 now have almost all shades of color ex- 

 cept blue, and some that do not exceed 

 two feet in height, like that brilliant 

 scarlet. The Express, to Kate Gray tow- 

 ering eight feet high. 



Tuberoses. 



We do not have much use for tuberoses 

 nowadays, although the prejudice against 

 them, which has existed for some years, 

 is slowly wearing away. We are always 

 wanting them to sell for our customers' 

 gardens. They, also, can be started in 

 the same way as described for caladiums, 

 in flats of two or three inches of sand or 

 sand and leaf mold, only don't put the 

 bulb more than half its depth in the 

 compost. Place them deeper in the soil 

 when you put them in the 4-inch pots. 



They will quickly start to make roots in 

 the flats if given a little bottom heat, 

 and once more you will save bench room. 

 If for flowering in the greenhouse you 

 can start some at once. If you only 

 waut them as a flower garden plant, 

 April 1 is soon enough, because after 

 removing from the flats and potting 

 them, there is no place that suits them 

 better or produces more sturdy plants 

 than a mild hotbed. 



Asters. 



The middle of this month will be time 

 for a large sowing of asters, which of 

 lato years have taken rank among the 

 leading summer and fall florists' flow- 

 ers. I am not going to say which va- 

 riety or type to grow. If your business 

 warrants it, you need to gi'ow the early 

 Queen of the Market, to be followed by 

 the Comet and Truffaut's Paeouy Flow- 

 ered, and later still come the large- 

 flowered, branching varieties that have 

 been so greatly developed the past ten 

 years. Don't think I mean that these 

 varieties should be sown at difl'erent 

 times. You may want a successional crop 

 of any of them, but remember that if 

 Boston or Queen of the Market aud Sem- 

 ple 's Branching were sown the same day 

 the Queen of the Market would be cut 

 and gone six weeks before Semple's 

 showed the color of its petals. 



Time was within the memory of many 

 of us when it was thought impossible to 

 get a good strain of aster seed unless 

 it was imported in sealed packets from 

 ■ continental Europe at a most tony price. 

 That time is pa.st and our climate and 

 our aster specialists provide us with the 

 best of seed. For that matter, we have 

 in this neighborhood a young man who 

 has the right land, and right industry, 

 and who brings into the town the finest 

 asters the writer ever saw in any land, 



Carnation Indianapolis. 

 (Vase of 200, not for Competulon, Exlilbited at Detroit.) 



