THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



29 



coldframe should have a light, warm 

 house or the hotbed. They are very 

 strong growing and should have a deep, 

 rich soil, plenty of water, and they de- 



Pyramidal Bay Tree. 



serve a space of at least eighteen inches 

 each way. The seed is most easily saved 

 and if you select your flowers and save 

 from the finest you will in a few years 

 have as good a strain as can be procured 

 anywhere. 



BASKET PLANTS. 



There are quite a number of climbing 

 or vine-like habit of plants that are 

 useful for this purpose. Many that would 

 be useless to use in vases make pretty 

 basket plants because in the vase they 

 are exposed to drought, sun, wind and 

 neglect, while the basket has more or 

 less shelter and is under the care of 

 some one whose duty it is to keep it well 

 supplied with water, the chief need of a 

 successful hanging basket. The soil in 

 the basket should be rich and daily it 



should be taken down and dipped in a 

 tub of water or thoroughly soaked with 

 the hose, but never left sitting in a 

 foot of water for half an hour, as 1 

 have seen, for that will drown the 

 plants. 



A goou selection can be made from 

 the following. The upright or center 

 plants can be a selection of zonal gerani 

 ums, fuchsias, coleus. achyranthes, pe 

 tunias, but a free flowering, compact 

 growing zonal geranium is best of all. 

 The climbing and drooping plants can 

 be chosen from nasturtium, lobelia, thun- 

 bergia, Nierembergia gracilis, senecio, 

 Kenilworth ivy, ivy geranium, Pilogyne 

 suavis, Abutilon vexillarium, maurandia, 

 double sweet alyssum, glechoma, money 

 vine, saxifraga. 



What constitutes a good basket is the 

 profusion of drooping plants that hide 

 the material that forms tUp basket, 

 whether it be a frame of wire lined with 

 green moss or earthenware. 



BAY TREES. 



The sweet bay, Laurus nobilis, has 

 been imported from Belgium to this 

 country in large numbers the past fifteen 

 or twenty years. Although the rather 

 stiff, formal shapes into which they are 

 trimmed, and to which they so readily 

 conform, are entirely inappropriate in 

 the decoration of a drawing room, yet 

 there are many situations where they 

 have a striking effect and are certainly 

 not out of place. A single pair of per 

 fect form could be admitted to any 

 church ceremony or at the decorating 

 of a large hall. In the summer time a 

 handsome pair stand one on each side 

 of the broad granolithic walk leading 

 to a stately mansion on one of our fine 

 residence streets, and very fine their ap 

 pearance is. Too much of it may get 

 tiresome, as clipped and grotesquely- 

 shaped Norway spruces do if overdone, 

 but the chronic grumbler who in his 

 ignorant and prejudiced blindness 

 objects to these handsome bay trees be 

 cause &quot;they are not natural&quot; should 

 be confined to the backwoods eternally. 

 Their formality sets off the brighter the 

 natural grace of the birch, the elm, the 

 maple or linden and the more or less 

 freedom of the hardy flowering shrubs. 



Another place I found the bays to 

 be useful was when asked to decorate 

 for a store opening and wagon loads 

 of palms were expected. They are just 

 the thing to fill up, and a fine pair or 

 half a dozen of them on the sidewalk is 

 just what Mr. Goldstein wants to attract 

 the attention of every passer by, and 

 what could you put there equal in ap 

 pearance and withstand the ordeal un 

 harmed? Considering the years they 

 must be grown, the labor entailed and 

 great skill in producing such a large 

 tree in such a comparatively small tub, 

 their cost to us is, I think, very moder 

 ate. 



It is often a surprise to us that such 

 a stout stem and large head of branches 

 and leaves can subsist on such a relative 

 ly small quantity of soil. From early 

 spring till fall they want an abundance 

 of water. They are out of doors all 

 summer, or should be, so the hose can 



play on their heads freely and over- 

 watering of the soil is, about impossible. 

 You should commend to your customers 

 who invest in these sweet bays for the 

 adornment of their grounds the great 

 benefit to the plants by sinking the tubs 

 into the ground; much drying out and 

 exhaustion will be saved, which means 

 vigor and color of leaves. From No 

 vember to April a cold shed will keep 

 them in good order if it is not too dark 

 and where they won t get more than 5 

 degrees of frost. Some late experience 

 with these sweet bays makes us hesitate 

 to say what amount of frost is safe to 

 expose them to. While we have seen 

 naturally grown large plants of these 

 sweet bays in the ground withstand a 

 frost of 20 degrees unhurt, it is en 

 tirely different with these plants in 

 tubs; and in their unnatural conditions, 

 and perhaps dry at the root, it is safe 

 to expose them to but little frost. A 

 coacn house is an excellent place. It is 

 usually light and seldom too cold. Less 

 water will do than in the summer time. 



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Columnar Bay Tree. 



