656 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



March 19, 1903. 



they commenced to make some bI•o^^^l 

 or dead foliage at the base of the plant, 

 and this kept on until the plants died or 

 dried up one after the other, until the 

 whole lot was dead. Can you tell us 

 the cause of the trouble? The tempera- 

 ture was about 50 degrees at night and 

 65 during the day. Other varieties in 

 the house are in fine condition. 



G. F. Co. 



The plant you sent me of Flora Hill 

 was quite dry and I was unable to see 

 what was wrong except that it was dead. 

 I would like to see some of the plants 

 before they are quite dead in order to 

 form an opinion of what was killing 

 them. I do not know of a disease that 

 acts just the way j'ou say your ])Iants 

 were affected. I have seen plants of 

 Armazindy and its sports dry up in a 

 similar manner here and there, but 

 never F. Hill. I have always thought 

 that it came from a weakened constitu- 

 tion and that these varieties had a ten- 

 dency to act that way. 



If your plants did finely up to the 

 holidays, I take it for granted that they 

 were housed at the proper time and that 

 they were well established on the l)Oiich- 

 es, but if they were housed very late 

 and planted in poor soil they would 

 likely go off in the manner j'ou dcwribe. 

 When I first looked at the plant, before 

 I had your letter, I remarked that the 

 latter had likely .been the case and that 

 the plants had never taken hold of the 

 new soil, but your letter knocked that 

 theory. F. Hill does not dry its leaves 

 any more than most varieties while 

 growing. 



As the other varieties in the same 

 house are not affected, I guess it is 

 not caused by a disease, but rather by 

 improper treatment in one way or an- 

 other. I found some rust and some bac- 

 teria, both denoting a weakened consti- 

 tution, the former very seldom appear- 

 ing on this variety when in robust 

 health. ' A. F. J. ]$.\ii!. 



VENTILATION. 



In building a lean-to 15 ft. wide, fac- 

 ing the south, to be used for carnations, 

 would one continuous line of ventilators 

 at the top be sufficient, and should they 

 be hinged at the bottom or the top? 



As the ventilators cannot be put with- 

 in a foot or so of the top, because of 

 the wall on which the sash rests, how 

 can I keep the roof from leaking under 



the sash? SlB-SCRIBER. 



In addition to the ventilation at the 

 top of your lean-io you should provide 

 for ventilators in the side wall, which 

 will allow the heat to pass away from 

 the lower side of the house. This will 

 be far better than to try to set ventila- 

 tors into the middle of the roof. 



If I were building that house and had 

 your difficulties to overcome I think I 

 would find a way out, as I would know 

 just what was wanted, but I have not 

 seen your house and I cannot tell you 

 how to proceed. Without a drawing or 

 a good description of the construction 

 of the house, etc., one cannot be sure 

 what is wanted. 



I would not put a continuous line of 

 ventilators on a house of mine. Better 

 leave one row of glass between each ven- 

 tilator. After a few years there is 

 bound to be more or less unevenness in 

 the roof, and there is where your trouble 

 commences. This will also allow you to 

 run the water from above down between 

 the ventilators. A. F. J. Bauu. 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Trees and Shrubs, 



Xever in our recollection have we 

 moved shrubs so early as the IGth of 

 March, but the frost is gone, the ground 

 dry, and there is no occasion, if you 

 have that work to do, why you should 

 delay a single day, as our spring season 

 for outdoor work is all too short, and 

 many seasons winter lingers until past 

 the month of April, and then two weeks 

 of warm weather and deciduous trees 

 and shrubs are out in leaf. So we must 

 have a longer season this year, and if 

 we do have a return of winter for a 

 few days it will do no injury to these 

 hardy shrubs. 



If you handle shrubs, or have an acre 

 or two on your own place, it is well not 

 to prune them until your customers 

 have seen them plant<'il. or they may 

 think they are getting very little for 

 their money; but insist on pruning them 

 as soon as they are planted, no matter 

 what kind they are. It is their salva- 

 tion and the making of a future well 

 shaped shrub, yet it is strange how dif- 

 ficult it is to convince some of your pa- 

 trons of the benefits of this. 



As above said, all trees and shrubs 

 should be pruncil when transplanted, 

 but those established should not all be 

 pruned in the early spring or late win- 

 ter, or you will lose the pleasure of the 

 blooms for that season. To begin with, 

 how few of our deciduous trees — the 

 elm. tlie maple, the oak. and others — 

 are improved by any pruning at all. If 

 crowding, or giving too much shade, or 

 hanging their branches too near a side- 

 walk, y<ni must occasionally use the saw 

 and knife, but with room to grow I know 

 of none of our fine trees that can be 

 improved in form or beauty by any 

 pruning that we can give them. I have 

 before now quoted the sensible man. 

 who, when asked the best time to prune 

 trees, replied, "When your knife is 

 sharp." There are, however, two sea- 

 sons when it is better done if necessary. 

 One is now, or late winter, and the 

 other is July or August after the sea- 

 son's growth is made. 



In E'urope the term "evergi-een trees 

 and shrubs" is applied to what our 

 nurserymen here call the broad lea\cd 

 evergreens. There are so few that are 

 hardy with us that it is scarcely worth 

 while to mention them. The Mahonia 

 aquifolia is one, and the late frosts of 

 spring, followed by a bright, sunny day, 

 terribly burns its glossy leaves. The 

 erieaceous shrubs, the kalmia and rhod- 

 odendron are broad leaved evergreens, 

 and in the Southern states they may 

 have flourishing the common laurel, the 

 arbutus, tree box. aucuba, sweet bay. 

 thylleria, golden euonymus. and many 

 others, most of which are now only a 

 memory with me. 



The rhododendron and kalmia most 

 assuredly should not be touched until 

 they have flowered or you would cut off 

 the flowers, and that is the case with 

 our hardy deciduous azaleas. If any of 

 the beautiful flowering shrubs need 



pruning, leave it until after they have 

 flowered, but removing the. old, withered 

 flowers is about all the attention they 

 ever need. Don't transplant broad 

 leaved evergreens until the first of May. 



Now we come to what are generally 

 known in this country as evergreens, 

 which are our familiar Norway spruce, 

 Austrian pine, the beautiful retinospora, 

 and all that large class known as coni- 

 fers or cone bearing. Nurserymen's 

 peddlers will take orders for these and 

 deliver them along with the apple trees 

 and raspberry bushes. It is all wrong 

 and the cause of many dying, even if 

 they had good roots. In our latitude 

 early May is plenty early enough. In 

 fact, no given week in the year is so good 

 a rule as the time when they are just 

 starting to grow. If you can transplant 

 at that; particular time you will stand 

 a good chance of being successful. Still 

 worse is it to i-eceive these trees in Oc- 

 tober and November. That is almost 

 sure death. From the middle of August 

 to middle of September evergreens can 

 be transplanted, but the month of May 

 is the ideal season. 



Few of the evergreens can be im- 

 proved by the knife or shears, unless 

 they are planted as a hedge. Yet oc- 

 casionally it is desirable to prune back 

 the branches of a Norway or hemlock 

 spruce to make them more dense or com- 

 pact, and July or August is a good time 

 to do it. If. however, you .should be 

 late in transplanting any of these ever- 

 greens, and they have made an inch or 

 so of young growth and sliow signs of 

 wilting, don't be in the least afraid to 

 shorten back every leading growth. It 

 has saved the life of many a one. 



Tlie long list of our hardy deciduous 

 flowering shrubs is perhaps the most fa- 

 miliar and useful for our Northern gar- 

 dens, and they are surely the easiest to 

 transplant and handle. I once thought 

 that the absence of aucubas. laurels and 

 other broad leaved evergreens from the 

 little plots of ground surrounding the 

 detached residences of our cities, as well 

 as the more pretentious gardens and 

 parks, would be most dcjilorable. Nowa- 

 days I think quite differently. We have 

 in our gardens, avenues and parks just 

 what suits the climate and our mode of 

 life in these semi-hibernating winters, 

 and the exquisite pleasure realized from 

 the first blossoms of the forsythia and 

 Japan quince more than compensates for 

 the absence of the somber shrubs that 

 grow and thrive in "evergreen winters." 



I started off this article by saying 

 that you should transplant deciduous 

 shrubs at once, and you can keep at it 

 until the leaves are fairly well ex- 

 panded if well pruned. Many of us 

 will be called in to do the spring prun- 

 ing of the shrubberies of our patrons, 

 and most all these shrubs, unlike our 

 trees and evergreens, are greatly im- 

 proved by some amount of pruning and 

 thinning out every year, and the opera- 

 tion is quite different on different 

 shrubs. I cannot afford space to give 

 you a long list of what should be pruned 



