336 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 



January 20, 1898. 



housing right after the houses had been 

 cleared of early chrysanthemums and 

 thus bring another paying crop along to 

 maturit)- and realize upon it in short 

 space of time. 



*»To return to the plants when housed. 

 Ventilate freely day and night while con- 

 ditions permit, keeping the atmosphere 

 dry and buoyant with a night tempera- 

 ture of about 50', better a little lower 

 than in excess of that ligure. Sunlight 

 of course will cause a proportionate rise, 

 but air can then be freely admitted. By 

 this time, too. the pots will be rootbound 

 and the soil somewhat exhausted, so from 

 now onwards manurial assistance must 

 l>e freely giyen, cow or sheep manure 

 vi'ater answering admirably with an occa- 

 sional change off to .some approyed con- 

 centrated plant food. This assistance 

 will come at the right period and materi- 

 ally assist tiower deyelopment. 



It appears to me that such geraniums, 

 as the treatment here advised would pro- 

 duce, could not fail to find purchasers at 

 remunerative prices. I should have men- 



tioned earlier that for market work pref- 

 erence should be given to varieties with 

 double or semi-double ilowers as likely 

 to stand shipment better than the single 

 varieties. 



I should like to mention Jadoo as an 

 aid to the culture of these plants. When 

 it was first offered in England several 

 years ago, a .sample was sent me to try 

 and I potted some geraniums right into 

 it. They were grown on and llowered 

 without any additional food, merely 

 watered with pure water as occasion de- 

 manded, and finer trusses of flowers I 

 never had. Someone may think the cost 

 would counteract against its use, but 

 there is a compensating advantage in its 

 lightness of weight. 



Therefore the grower \vho has to ship 

 by rail would save enormously on ex- 

 prcssage with plants in Jadoo, and it is 

 well known that in this material they 

 will go longer without water. I have not 

 actually tested the respective weights, 

 but it seems to me that a plant in a 6- 

 inch pot of Jadoo would onlj' weigh about 

 one-third as much as a plant in ordinary 

 soil. A. Herrington. 



Madison, N. J. 



SOME ROSE QUESTIONS. 



"Inquirer" asks: "Is Morgan rose sen- 

 sitive to overwatering or running cool. 

 Mine have dropped many of the lower 

 leaves and as I can find no spider, won- 

 dered if 55° and sometimes 50° or 52° on 

 cold nights caused it, or if the}' cannot 

 stand as much as Bride and Bridesmaid 

 which are growing in the same house all 

 right." 



If you kept the rose house up to 60° 

 and suddenly dropped to 50° it might 

 cause a change in the growth, but if your 

 night temperature was pretty steady at 55° 

 to 58° then no great harm would result 

 from an occasional drop to 50°, and some 

 other cause for leaf dropping must be 

 looked for. Nearly all rose growers con- 

 sider that the Morgan and the rose from 

 which it is a sport, "Mad. Cusin," will 

 take and need more water than other 

 teas, and my own experience has been 

 that this is correct. The quantity of 

 water given any rose should be guided by 

 the way water passes through the bench. 

 If well drained there is .so much less dan- 

 ger of over-watering than when the 

 boards have swelled and but a. small 



space is left for water to pass through. If 

 the bench is properly constructed and 

 the water quickly passes away, then 

 Morgan will take more frequent water- 

 ings than Bridesmaid or Perle. 



"Am I burning too much coal? Have 

 about 10,000 feet of glass, half devoted to 

 roses and half to carnations, and bnrn 

 about ten tons in December, January and 

 February each. Heated with hot water, 

 houses well built and about eight years 

 old; about same latitude as Buffalo." 

 No, I don't think you are burning 

 too much fuel. You ought to be satis- 

 fied. It depends though whether you 

 are paying |s per ton for hard coal or 

 jt2.5o for soft, but as you heat with hot 

 water you are doubtless using hard coal 

 and my answer is based on that supposi- 

 tion. 



"What time should one stop disbud- 

 ding the American Beauty to get the crop 

 as near Christmas as possible?" Disbud- 

 ding a hybrid perpetual rose, which 

 American Beauty really is, is entirely 

 different from disbudding a tea rose. 

 Some growers use all the flowers that the 

 Beauties throw up after the plant is strong 

 enough, cutting the flowers with some 

 length of stem to make them salable. 

 Others merely pinch out the bud or 

 flower. The same shoot that would pro- 



duce a flower about middle or early in 

 November, if the flower was sacrificed, 

 would' produce another about Christmas. 



"What is the proper soil for American 

 Beauty?" I have seen them grow ramp- 

 ant in several different textures of soil. 

 Broadly speaking the hybrid perpetuals 

 like a heavy soil and will thrive in a well 

 drained claj-, while the tea roses will 

 grow in a much lighter soil. But watch 

 them out of cloors. I have seen the hy- 

 brid perpetuals grow grandly in a light 

 loam, and the teas thrive luxuriantly in a 

 clay, showing that soil has not half so 

 much to do with success or failure as 

 temperature, ventilation, watering, etc. 

 A heavy loam sod, not too much enriched 

 with animal manure, will suit Beauties 

 first rale. 



"Is not President Cariiot rose a very 

 slow grower, that is, slow to make new 

 shoots where the bud is cut?" No, the 

 experience I have had with a few hund- 

 red is that it may not break so quickly as 

 perhaps Bridesmaid or Cusin, but nearly 

 so. It is a grand grower, making a fine, 

 long, stiff stem. No mildew, no spot; a 

 grand rose and come to stay. 



W. Scott. 



NEW ROSE MRS. ROBERT 

 GARRETT. 



This new hybrid tea rose, raised by Mr. 

 John Cook, Baltimore, is meeting with 

 considerable praise from those who have 

 had an opportunity to see it growing, and 

 it is confidently believed that it will take 

 a prominent place among desirable trade 

 roses. The form of the flower is well 

 shown in the accompanying engraving. 

 The color is a pleasing pink. 



GLOXINIAS-THEIR USES AND 

 CULTURE. 



It was several years ago since this 

 strikingly attractive genus became close- 

 ly associated with florists and plant lov- 

 ers, and year after year from their first 

 appearance they have been growing more 

 in favor until at the present time the de- 

 mand for them is on a par with the ma- 

 jority of other flowering plants. While 

 they will not resist a great amount of 

 rough usage in packing and shipping, 

 their usefulness, beaut)' and distinctive- 

 ness in contrasts of coloring certainly 

 equalizes these qualities and deficiencies; 

 some being pure white, rich crimson and 

 purple, while others are delicately spotted 

 and penciled. 



Gloxinias are naturally summer-flower- 

 ing plants, but successions may be kept 

 up the entire year, if necessary, by re- 

 tarding the bulbs or raising late seed- 

 lings. They are tropical plants and so 

 require tropical treatment, more especi- 

 ally when growing, to get free, healthy, 

 luxuriant and well developed plants of 

 floriferous habits. 



The plants are more frequently started 

 from bulbs of recent years than they were 

 formerly, on account of several Euopean 

 firms making a specialty of their cultita- 

 tion, raising plants by the tens of thous- 

 ands for the purpose of selling the bulbs, 

 many thousands of them passing through 



