THE FLORISTS* MANUAL. 



77 



Give your -worn-out palms to the nearest 

 botanic garden, or to the rubbish pile 

 when beyond a certain degree of shabbi- 

 ness. It is most unprofitable to occupy 

 space with useless old runts. 



As most of our orders for decorations 

 come during late fall, winter and spring, 

 seldom can we use our native flowers. 

 Wheii you can don t despise them. We 

 have used the kalmia very largely at 

 weddings in June. Also our native haw- 

 thorne, and beautiful it is. If the sea 

 son suited, the common field daisies 

 would make a fine decoration, and for 

 a summer occasion sprays and branches 

 of Kambler roses are gorgeous. 



DEUTZIA. 



Several of the species are among our 

 earliest and best known flowering shrubs, 

 and gracilis, the smaller growing pure 

 white species, is largely forced as an 

 Easter plant. It is sold in pots or used 

 for decorations, or the cut sprays are 

 used. There is a new form of gracilis 

 called Lemoinei, quite double, a beauti 

 ful flower and more lasting than the 

 single. The double form is not yet quite 

 so common and consequently is more ex- 



An Exhibition Group of Decorative Plants. 



pensive, but it will soon be grown as 

 plentifully as gracilis. Plants for forc 

 ing of any size can be imported so 

 cheaply and so well and compactly grown 

 that it is useless to attempt to grow 

 plants for forcing; they would cost you 

 far more. 



Those wanting to grow them to raise 

 in the nursery for flowering shrubs can 

 root them most easily from the young 

 tender shoots taken from forced plants 

 in February or March and put into the 

 ordinary propagating bed, or from out 

 side cuttings in June put into sand in a 

 hotbed. 



When you receive the deutzias in the 

 month of November don t expose them 

 to zero weather. They are a hardy 

 plant, but after their sea voyage are 

 poorly prepared for a hard freeze. The 

 stems are studded to their tips with their 

 flowering buds, so they want no pruning 

 or you will get no flowers. Keep them 

 protected by a coldframe and their roots 

 covered till you pot them up for forcing. 

 They should have about seven weeks 

 under glass in a night temperature of 

 50 degrees, then they will be nicely out 

 and not unduly forced. 



For forcing we prefer to buy every 

 year, but unsold plants if planted out 

 make good bushes for selling with other 

 hardy shrubs. 



DIANTHUS. 



To this genus belongs our divine 

 flower, the carnation, which has been 

 treated at length as its value deserves. 

 D. barbatus is the well known sweet 

 william, a splendid border plant while 

 in bloom but not of any commercial 

 value. Perhaps because seen too often 

 in the humblest gardens, or for some 

 reason not apparent, it is not a flower 

 that can be used in the commonest 

 bouquet, though in June and July it 

 makes a splendid show of bloom of the 

 richest tints and markings. 



The seed of the sweet williams can be 

 sown in May in a coldframe and when 

 the plants are large enough transplanted 

 into flats or placed at once in the bor 

 ders where they are to flower. They 

 will make fine spreading plants, and be 

 ing entirely hardy will send up a mass 

 of bloom the following spring. They 

 are biennials, but a few straggling 



