THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



67 



Cyclamen in 10-inch Pot. 



best are inexpensive, and get the best 

 you can hear of. Also if you raise a 

 thousand or more plants buy the seed in 

 colors. 



Sow from middle of September till 

 New Year s; the former date if you 

 ^want them in flower in early winter. If 

 not till February or March, then Decem 

 ber will do. 



Sow in light soil and press the seeds 

 into the soil and then cover slightly. 



Keep moderately moist and they will 

 germinate in three or four weeks, but 

 sometimes several weeks longer. When 

 the small leaves are up you should give 

 the pan or flat plenty of light in a tem 

 perature of about 55 degrees. When 

 the little bulbs (as we will call them) 

 are the size of a small pea they should 

 be transplanted into pans of very light 

 loam, sand and leaf-mold. In six to 

 eight weeks they can go into 2% -inch 

 pots, or, what is just as good, be again 

 transplanted into other flats of similar 

 soil, and given more room. No definite 

 time can be given for these transplant- 

 ings or shiftings, for that depends upon 

 when you sowed. 



Beginners often ask how deep to put 

 the little bulb when shifting. You can 

 put the top of bulb even with surface 

 of soil; the bulb will soon force itself 

 to the surface. Cyclamen are free root 

 ing plants, but by no means want over- 

 potting; yet when the roots have filled 

 the pots they should not be stunted, 

 but should at once be given a shift. 

 From the pans they will need a 3-inch 

 pot and from 3-inch to 4-inch and finish 

 with a 6-inch or 7-inch, or perhaps from 

 3-inch to a 5-inch, and the last shift into 

 an 8-inch. This will depend on size 

 and vigor of plant. 



The question of soil best suited to the 

 cyclamen is not so easy. There can be 



no doubt that high class cyclamen are 

 grown in many different soils in many 

 different parts of this country and Eu 

 rope. We think a moderately firm loam 

 sod that has had time to decay is the 

 main thing in the proportion of two 

 parts loam and two parts genuine leaf- 

 mold and one part well rotted cow ma 

 nure and sand. If me loam is sandy 

 then omit the sand. We often speak of 

 drainage, and with a cyclamen it is es 

 sential, especially after they are in 

 5-inch or over. I call good drainage 

 for a 6-inch pot one inch of broken-up 

 crocks covered with a piece of green 

 wood moss, which does not decay like 

 sphagnum. 



Frames or the House. 



Good plants are grown both ways. I 

 am told that most of the expert growers 

 of Europe use hotbeds largely, and 

 doubtless many do here. A friend told 

 me he saw in far-away Denmark the 

 most wonderful plants of cyclamen, and 

 they never saw, or rather felt, anything 

 but a hotbed. There is no doubt that 

 if you used hotbeds and watched the 

 plants as a mother watches her infant, 

 that larger plants could be grown in these 

 miniature greenhouses than any other 

 way, yet there must be no let-up to the 

 incessant care, and therefore the one 

 who does not make a specialty of this 

 plant had better use the ordinary green 

 house bench, or, for the summer months, 

 what is just as good a coldframe. If 

 a bench in a greenhouse then it should 

 be a detached narrow house, so that a 

 temporary shade can be applied on 

 bright, hot days, and removed by 4 

 p. m. This shade can be in the form of 

 lattice-work, a frame the size of an 

 ordinary sash, say 6x3, and laths nailed 



on one inch apart, or nail some long 

 strips of wood on the roof and have 

 cheese-cloth on a round stick, which can 

 be unrolled or rolled up as occasion re 

 quires. You may think of some better 

 method. I consider a shade during the 

 scorching hours a necessity, while shade 

 in early morning and evening and on 

 dull days is doubtless an injury. Now, 

 a coldfr-ame affords ample opportunity 

 to easily do this shading, and whether 

 on a bench or in the frame, plunge the 

 plants in tobacco stems. Every bright 

 morning the cyclamen- should be lightly 

 syringed. 



If syringing is properly attended to 

 the thrips and spider are seldom trouble 

 some, but the aphis is a persistent enemy 

 of this beautiful plant, getting down 

 among the young leaves and flower buds. 

 A faithful weekly fumigating must be 

 followed up. With the pie dish and to 

 bacco dust this is as easily done in a 

 frame as in a greenhouse. I tried one 

 winter an experiment on the best tem 

 perature to flower them; 45 degrees at 

 night was too cool and 55 was too hot; 

 50 degrees seemed to be just right, open 

 ing the flowers fast enough without 

 drawing them up. If once clean of 

 aphis when brought into the house, a 

 good plan is to stand every pot on an 

 inverted 6-inch pot and place three or 

 four inches of loose tobacco stems be 

 tween the pots. This will keep down the 

 fly, but it should be renewed every three 

 or four weeks. 



There is another enemy of the cycla 

 men of which too little is known. After 

 the greatest promise and splendid plants 

 are produced, this &quot;mite&quot; attacks the 

 plants in October. The flowers come 

 streaked and sadly off color, in fact use 

 less. We have not heard of any specific 

 remedy for this minute insect, and if it 

 appears, throwing away the affected 

 plants at once is generally advised. We 

 think plenty of pure air, light and the 

 frequent fumes of tobacco will go far 

 toward keeping away this enemy. A se 

 vere check, such as neglect of watering, 

 is at any time very bad for the cycla 

 men. 



Plants are seldom carried over the 

 second year. If you wish to, lessen the 

 supply of water after the flowers are 

 gone and keep cool till May, when the 

 pots can be placed outside; in July 

 shake off the old soil and start growing 

 in smaller pots and shift again as re 

 quired. Old plants, if well managed, 

 give an enormous lot of flowers that are 

 usually not so fine as those on the year- 

 old plants, and the plants are not so 

 perfect. If a plant can in fifteen 

 months be grown in an 8-inch pot, the 

 foliage fifteen to eighteen inches across, 

 with 100 fine flowers, what better is 

 needed ? 



IH Europe they use the soot of bitu 

 minous coal as an ingredient of the 

 compost ; it adds to the size and color 

 of the leaves. A liquid application of 

 nitrate of soda would possibly have a 

 similar result. 



The crested and so-called double forms 

 are curious, but no improvement in 

 beauty over the older forms. The double 

 is in fact a monstrosity without beauty. 



