December 11, 1909 



HORTICULTURE, 



817 



Begonia Gloire de Lorraine 



This beautiful greenliouse flowering plant has '' 

 been before the gardening world since 1893. Its 

 beautiful pink flowers last so well that from early 

 fall until spring the plant is a mass of bloom, 

 almost entirely obscuring the foliage. If the old 

 flowers are cut off about the end of March and 

 the plant given a slight shift, it will, in a few 

 weeks, again yield as good a crop of flowers as at 

 the first, lasting well into the summer. We have 

 used these cut-back plants for piazza decorations, 

 they lasting six weeks in that position. 



November or early December is a good time to 

 put in leaf cuttings, if large plants are desired the 

 following fall, in ten or twelve inch pans. We get 

 our best plants from medium sized, well ripened 

 leaves. They root quickly in a temperature of 

 seventy degrees, but I think it is a good plan to 

 leave them in the sand until they begin to throw 

 up the young shoots from the callous formed at the 

 end of the leaf stem. I fail to find any difference 

 between a leaf cutting with a heel attached and one 

 with the plain leaf stem, equally good plants being 

 raised from either. 



For a first potting take equal parts of loam and 

 leafmould, with about a fourth of charcoal added 

 to keep the soil sweet and porous, the compost 

 being as rough as can be conveniently used in a 

 two-inch pot. One of the best begonia growers I 

 ever knew never used a particle of sand for potting 

 them, except what was naturally in the soil, using 

 equal parts of fibrous loam, leafmould, dried cow 

 manure, or well decayed horse droppings, and to every 

 four pails of that mixture one of charcoal, all as rough 

 as could be equally worked around the plant while 

 potting. 



I think pans are the best receptacle to grow them in, 

 pajin.? strict attention to drainage. Leaf cuttings 

 treated in the above manner, and grown in a rather 

 huinid atmosphere, during the summer, if so desired 

 can iic in ten or twelve-inch pans by Sept. 1, and some 

 of the largest ones can be staked out with small twigs 

 and made to measure about three feet through when 

 in full flower. If allowed to droop equally around the 

 pan without any support they make a very handsome 

 hanging plant. Nice small plants in six-inch pots 

 or pans may bo grown from cuttings secured from the 

 ba.^c of a cut-back plant in April or May. 



Lorraine Begonias, we find, do best grown close to 

 the glass; a good plan is to hang them to the rafters. 

 No flowers !;hould be allowed to develop earlier than 

 October first. Pinch the shoots and it will make them 

 break gn<id and strong from the base of the plant. A 

 slight shading is necessary up to about the middle of 

 September. After they are well rooted in their last 

 shift, waterings with stable manure water will be bene- 

 ficial; wciik and often is the better way. They also 



like "Clay's Fertilizer.'" Two teaspoonfuls to a ten inch 

 pan, scattered on the surface once in three weeks is a 

 good dose; water the plant after putting it on. Soft 

 coal soot is also a good thing to give the pink flowers 

 a nice brilliant color, a good handful to three gallons 

 of water and change with the above stimulents oc- 

 casionally. 



\Vhen the plants begin to develop their flowers, they 

 ought to be in a nice airy greenhouse with a night tem- 

 peiatuic of from fifty to fifty-five. They will, however, 

 stand a much lower temperature. One of the best 

 plants we ever grew was flowered in a north house where 

 the glass siood quite often at forty degrees. The 

 bououia is given to sporting, and one should exercise 

 care and tskc cuttings from the best formed and most 

 florifcrous plants. The most distinct of the several 

 varieties is "Turnford Hall." I don't consider the color 

 good; it is neither a pale pink nor a white. However, 

 it is much more vigorous than any of the pink varieties 

 ] hnve grown. 



West Medford, Mass. 



