30 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



The sweet bay is a native of southern 

 Europe. All good boys should have read 

 in the Good Book that if they are right 

 eous in their lives they will flourish 

 like the green bay tree.&quot; This fine 

 evergreen grows well and is much 

 planted in the milder parts of the Brit 

 ish Isles. I expect that all over Ireland 

 it grows finely and is seldom or never 

 injured by frost. In the south of Eng 

 land it grows and flourishes for years., 

 but a winter comes occasionally and kills 

 it to the ground. Such a winter was 

 that of 60 and 61. 



The best time for us to cut back 

 growths or to keep it in that splendid 

 form that they are sent to us, is in the 

 spring just before they start to grow, 

 but if you wish a still more trim ap 

 pearance you will have to pinch the 

 young growths as they develop. A new 

 tub and more root room is needed every 

 three or four years, but keep them in as 



in fact it was masses of flowering plants, 

 and that is largely the taste of the day, 

 though not exclusively so because we 

 have so many foliage plants now which 

 were not then known and which now 

 make beds equal in color effect to many 

 of the flowers. The coleus and achyran- 

 thes were unknown and most of the 

 small plants that afterwards came into 

 favor for carpet bedding were not in 

 troduced, or were neglected because of 

 no value in the economy of the flower 

 garden. It seems to me that those gar 

 dens of old, with their circles and squares 

 and ovals of showy plants, just as well 

 kept as our gardens are today, were 

 fully as beautiful as any we now have. 



Then came the ribbon border long 

 strips of flower garden, perhaps six or 

 seven feet on each side of a path. This 

 often began with the blue lobelia next 

 the margin of grass or box edging, 

 then a variegated geranium, next Cal- 



we noticed much less carpet bedding 

 than we expected to see and remember 

 the remark of one head-gardener who 

 was lord of a large domain: &quot;No, we, 

 have given it up and gone back to the 

 old geraniums and calceolarias.&quot; It 

 was then in its greatest popularity with 

 us, but was on the wane across the 

 water. 



As with the coleus so with some of 

 the leading plants used in carpet bed 

 ding. They do better in our climate. 

 I cannot believe that the alternantheras 

 would grow there as they do with us, 

 except in the warmer parts of southern 

 Europe, and if you take the alternan 

 theras out of carpet bedding you leave 

 a large hole. Carpet bedding never was 

 a great item with the commercial florist 

 simply because it was too expensive for 

 the great majority of our patrons. A 

 bed that could be well filled with gera 

 niums or eoleus for $15 would cost $40 



small a tub as possible. Liquid manure 

 will help them much in April, May and 

 June. To those who have not made bows 

 of their strong bottom . growths or 

 hunted rabbits beneath their branches, 

 they may appear a cumbersome plant to 

 occupy valuable greenhouse room. They 

 don t want it. If never coddled up 

 under glass they will stand 5 degrees 

 of frost without harm, but rather give 

 them a little higher temperature. 



BEDDING PLANTS. 



Although directions for the manage 

 ment of all our familiar bedding plants 

 will be found under their respective 

 heads, a few words on the general sub 

 ject are* in order. The earliest bedding 

 that the writer can remember was not 

 very unlike that of the present day. 



Fifty years ago we had (I am speak 

 ing now of the gardens of Great Britain, 

 for the American flower garden had 

 then scarcely an existence) beds of ver 

 benas edged with a variegated geranium, 

 beds of heliotrope, beds of Tom Thumb 

 geraniums, masses of yellow calceolarias. 



A Bed of Ficus, Grevillea Robusta and Ivy. 



ceolaria aurea floribunda, back of that 

 Salvia patens (a most beautiful blue), 

 then a row of dahlias, and, if the bor 

 der was wide, backed up by a stately 

 line of hollyhocks. The ribbon border 

 was well done in this country in many 

 places, but as some of the flowering 

 plants could not be depended upon here 

 we had the coleus, which does finely 

 Mith us and is a poor, stunted, dull col 

 ored plant in the gardens of Great 

 Biitain. 



Then thirty-five years ago, or perhaps 

 a little more, the carpet bedding was 

 evolved and was carried out most elab 

 orately in many places, both private and 

 public. Perhaps in no place in the world 

 was it carried to greater perfection or 

 more ingeniously than in the South Park 

 system, of Chicago, under the direction 

 of Mr. Frederick Kanst. It was ad 

 mired by millions and criticised by a 

 few. The minority are often in the 

 right, but in this case the critics were 

 only wasting their words. It was grati- 

 fving to the millions, and harmless 

 surely, and therefore served its purpose. 

 On u visit to the &quot;Old Country&quot; in 1885 



if well done as a carpet bed. The plants 

 we always had to grow, for there was 

 sure to be a demand from people who 

 wanted to try their hand at a fancy bed. 



The prevailing taste today is to use 

 flowering plants as much as possible ; 

 even the coleus is not as popular as it 

 was a few years since. To be candid, 

 the zonal geranium, with its splendid 

 habit and beautiful trusses of flowers of 

 brilliant and pleasing colors, is such a 

 universal favorite as was the horse 

 Eclipse in the mythical story: &quot;It is the 

 geranium first, the rest nowhere.&quot; 



There is, however, another style, or 

 rather another arrangement, of bedding 

 that is particularly suited to our climate, 

 and on a lawn that is not wanted for 

 croquet or tennis what can be more 

 cheerful than a bed of cannas, cala- 

 diums and coleus. Perhaps this style of 

 bedding is not worthy the name sub 

 tropical, perhaps the latter term is more 

 properly applied to a bed that contains 

 a great variety of our hothouse plants 

 that are bedded or plunged out during 

 the summer months, including crotons, 

 palms, bamboos, etc. They are interest- 



