476 



The Weekly Florists^ Review, 



Feeruabt 19, 1903. 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Abutilons. 



One of the most useful plants for sub- 

 tropical gardening, or in combination 

 with subtropical plants, as cannas is 

 Abutilon Savitzii. It's not an easy plant 

 to propagate in the fall, but now will be 

 making an active growth from the plants 

 that were lifted and cut down, and the 

 j'oung growths root quickly and easil.v. 

 When once rooted and growing in small 

 pots they should be given all the light 

 and air possible. Like all variegated 

 plants that have half their foliage minus 

 chlorophyl it has not the vigor of a 

 green leaf and wants a full exposure to 

 light and air and a higher temperature 

 than the common flowering varieties of 

 the abutilons. 



Azaleas. 



I notice that with us the azaleas are 

 inclined to be too early for Easter. This 

 is a matter of great importance. Al- 

 though you can sell a few azaleas "right 

 along" as they say in the vernacular, 

 and after Easter a limited number of 

 these beautiful plants are desirable, yet 

 Easter is the time when they are in de- 

 mand and when you get the best price. 

 Niobe, Mme. Van der Cruyssen, and oth- 

 ers of our most useful varieties are going 

 to be too early unless you do some de- 

 cided "arresting of development." In 

 Southern Pennsylvania and southward 

 a cold frame may be trusted with sudic- 

 ient protection against a cold spell, but 

 no such conditions can be considered safe 

 in our blizzard-blown north. Yet you 

 can possibly find a house that can be 

 kept down to 38 or 40 degrees at night 

 and ventilated during the day. Shading 

 will do no harm and prevent the sun 

 from raising the temperature on bright 

 days. Many large establishments have 

 small leanto houses on the north side 

 of the long-span-to-the-south hou-ses. 

 where no ray of sun touches the roof. 

 This is an ideal place for azaleas to bi' 

 kept, or any other hard-wooded planU 

 that you want to retard, but we do net 

 all have those u.seful appendages and 

 something else must be done. However, 

 find a place and get your azaleas in right 

 for Easter, and don't have the melan- 

 choly strain "to spiel" that your azaleas 

 were too early, just as if it were some- 

 lliing that could not be avoided. 



Astilbes. 



Don't let the astilbe remain InMieath 

 the benches after the foliage is well 

 started. I may not think to mention 

 the fact, which I am aware is widelj 

 known, yet some beginner has still to 

 learn, viz., that the tender foliage should 

 never be subjected to a strong dose of to- 

 bacco smoke. Tliey are never troubled 

 with aphis or any other "bugs," but they 

 are often in a house where there are oth- 

 er plants that do need a smoke and they 

 have to take it likewise: so cover them 

 with paper while the disagreeable but 

 necessary performance of fumigation is 

 going on. We ram the bundle of roots 

 of these astilbes into a G or 7-inch pot, 

 about filling all available space and leav- 

 ing little room for the new roots to work. 



and by flowering time they want three 

 waterings a day. 



To get the very best results from these 

 plants every pot should have beneath it 

 a saucer which can be replenished 

 whenever empty, and the last four or 

 five weeks ijefore flowering let the sauc- 

 ers be filled daily with some kind of 

 liquid manure. Tliis treatment will make 

 a most marked difi'erence in size of the 

 feathery bloom, as well as the robust- 

 ness and color of the foliage. 



Speaking of liquid manure, some writ- 

 ers in our florist papers within the past 

 ten 3'ears have advocated a change of diet 

 for carnations and other plants, infer- 

 ring that a plant was mucii benefited by 

 a change of food. Do you think that is 

 so? Or was it only that the pen flow olT 

 at a tangent and the writer had a 

 dream? Do not the stunly ])ine and oak 

 subsist for centuries on the same ele- 

 ments which they abstract from the earth 

 and absorb from the air? Most surely our 

 soft-wooded plants, and for that matter 



philosophy. I also spent the whole of 

 one Sunday afternoon in meditation on 

 the subject, and after having "several 

 varieties brought me" concluded that, 

 bright man as he is, he- was wrong. 

 JIany good Irishmen have from childhood 

 seen or eaten nothing but potatoes and 

 salt, and for a change, potatoes without 

 salt. The great, great, great grandfather 

 of our General Grant was brought up on 

 oatmeal boiled and stirred with the "par- 

 ridge stick" if there was time, and if 

 time was limited it was mixed cold. 

 Burns' daily fare up to twenty-five years 

 of age was doubtless "halesome par- 

 ritch." And Shakespeare's, within a 

 few years of his writing Othello, was 

 f.at bacon, bread and cheese. And have 

 not all these nationalities produced some 

 great minds from the peasantry? Yet, 

 after all, it is not the isolated genius and 

 exceptionally illuminated mind that 

 makes a nation great and powerful. It 

 is the high average of her people's intel- 

 ligence, and so after all, Edison may be 

 right as far as intellect goes, but physic- 

 ally we do not want this great variety of 

 food. Tile horse is a higher organism 

 than Astilbe japonica, and if you will 

 give him a judicious quantity of good 

 oats and timothy, with a little salt once 

 a week, he will never kick. I mean men- 

 tally, and live so long that you will grow 

 old enough to much prefer the safer but 

 less exclusive trolley than any two seated 

 buggy. I have strayed considerably from 



Basket of Cattleyas Arranged by T. D. Mosconesotes, Chicago. 



our fruit trees and shrubs, can be stimu- 

 lated and helped by adding to the food 

 what that ambiguous dame nature has 

 sparingly supplied them. But in the 

 short life of a rose or a carnation on our 

 greenhouse benches this varied diet is, 1 

 believe, a fallacy. Give them what they 

 like and relish and can assimilate, and 

 you have done all that is essential. A 

 year or so ago the wizard of electricity 

 was interviewed, and it must be admit- 

 ted that Mr. Edison has a marvelous 

 brain, and while speaking of brightness 

 of intellect he told his interviewer that 

 he believed a great variety of food was 

 considered to brighten the intellect and 

 that he ate all the variety he could lind 

 that was palatable. I am glad to say 

 the newspaper man rather doubted his 



the vegetable kingdom and will now re- 

 sume. 



Calceolarias. 



If you grow any of the beautiful her- 

 baceous calceolarias, and there are few 

 plants more truly worthy of the adjective 

 gorgeous, they will now be growing fast 

 and should have their last shift. They 

 should be flowered in a Cinch pot, at 

 least commercially. Never wet thei'' 

 foliage more than necessary and water 

 early on bright days. They like a free 

 circulation of air around them, therefore 

 it pays well to staml them on an in- 

 verted 5 to 6-inch pot and jiut between 

 the pots plenty of tobacco stems, for 

 greenfly is their great enemy. This aphis, 

 on a cineraria, will grow as big as James 



