THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



J85 



choice early plants, especially for vases, 

 and the care and labor bestowed on them 

 warrants your asking double and treble 

 the price of the field-grown plants. Yet 

 the latter will generally fill the bill. 

 After you have raised them and have fine 

 beds in full bloom in the month of 

 October, it is a shame to let them perish 

 for want of winter protection. Straw 

 is best of all, but if there is a deficiency 

 of that the evergreen boughs are good, 

 and branches of the common hemlock 

 spruce are best of all. 



The frosts of winter have usually 

 heaved the plants out some, so the first 

 job in spring is to go over the beds and 

 press them back. These plants will be 

 large and give fine, perfect flowers, and 

 you will get at least 50 cents a dozen 

 for them and should get more. When 

 Mr. Pumpkin brings in his wagon-loads 

 and sells at 25 cents a dozen, and every 

 grocer handles them, you are out of it. 



If you have forgotten to sow in the 

 fall you can make a sowing in the green 

 house in flats in January or February, 

 and by pricking out in other flats and giv 

 ing them the coolest, lightest bench you 

 have, and putting the flats into a cold- 

 frame early in April, you will have 

 plants to sell that for continuous sum 

 mer blooming, if cared for, will be more 

 satisfactory than either your own cold- 

 frame or the farmer s field-grown 

 plants. 



I failed to mention that those sown 

 out of doors in July will be ready to 

 transplant into the winter beds in about 

 six weeks, or as soon as they are large 

 enough to handle. You are bound to 

 have sown thickly, so transplant before 

 the plants become spindling. The pansy, 

 like all the viola family, is little af 

 fected by a disturbance of the roots and 

 immediately starts growing. About four 

 inches apart is a good distance between 

 plants. Give them a thorough watering 

 after transplanting, and if the weather 

 is dry a good soaking once a week; be 

 fore snow flies you will have beds of 

 stout, healthy plants, many blooming, 

 and here is where their meek faces should 

 appeal to you that they deserve an over 

 coat of some sort through the long 

 winter. 



Pansy flowers are favorites with 

 many in the winter months. In some 

 floral designs the blues and purples or 

 white and yellow look very rich, and 

 when grown for cut flowers you should 

 sow in distinct varieties. For this pur 

 pose sow early in August and then se 

 lect the strongest, healthiest seedlings 

 and plant on the bench in &quot;September, 

 giving them all the sun and air you 

 can. They are often disappointing in 

 not flowering. They must have a light 

 house and need every ray of sun you 

 can get between snow storms. Anxious 

 as they are to flower when March comes, 

 they don t want to send up their buds 

 in the dead of winter. 



About 45 degrees at night will do, 

 and 60 degrees in daytime if the 

 weather is bright, if cloudy, less, but 

 unless you can give them a light house 

 don t try it. The greenfly troubles them 

 in winter, so smoke. Out of doors noth 

 ing troubles except the hot weather. 



In Europe where they give the pansy 

 great attention and select the finest 

 flowers and name them Captain Drey 

 fus, Paul Kruger, Aguinaldo or Wm. J. 

 Bryan, etc., they perpetuate these fine 

 varieties by cuttings, which root easily 

 from side shoots in a shaded cold- 

 frame in September. Here I have never 

 heard of that being done. We depend 

 entirely on seedlings and they are cer 

 tainly, as we often say in the vernacular, 

 good enough. 



For large quantities the seed can be 

 sown broadcast on a finely raked sur 

 face and the seed just covered and 

 pressed slightly firm. With expensive 

 seed in small quantities I prefer to 

 sow in shallow drills two inches apart, 

 scatter the seed thinly in the drills and 

 then just cover. You can quickly make 

 the drill by having a rod an inch square 

 and pressing one angle of it into the 

 ground. 



The pansy is a cold-blooded little 

 plant of the northern temperate zone, 

 and it likes water. Above all, to pro 

 duce fine flowers and a good plant it 

 takes an abundance of manure. A 

 good, friable loam is the thing, with 

 the addition of a third of decayed cow 

 manure, or if that is not to be had, 

 plenty of old hotbed manure will do. 

 If you try to grow them all summer 

 don t be sprinkling every night, but 

 give them a soaking twice a week and 

 be sure to pick off all withered 

 flowers. It is not the flower that ex 

 hausts the plant, it is_the function of 

 bearing seed. 



There /have been innumerable strains 

 of pansies, and no two people fancy 

 the same flower. A first-class mixture 

 suits the florist best, but be sure you 

 get plenty of yellow and purple ; they 

 are always fancied, and a large flower 

 will always be preferred. One of the 

 best strains I ever grew came from Mr. 

 James Fleming more than thirty-five 

 years ago, when the firm was Peter 

 Henderson and James Fleming. On in 

 quiry I found that Mr. Fleming had 

 been hunting over the markets of New 

 York, selecting a fine flower here and 

 there wherever he saw one, and had in 

 that way obtained a fine strain; that 

 you can do yourself. The best of -every 

 thing is either nature s or man s selec 

 tion. 



It is a mistake to think that pansies 

 must be discarded from flower gardens 

 about the middle of June. During the 

 summer of the Pan-American Exposition 

 we had a dozen small pansy beds that 

 were beautiful every day from May to 

 October, but this was the result of faith 

 ful watering and the removal of all 

 faded flowers. 



The Giant Trimardeau is a large, finely 

 marked pansy, but not of great sub 

 stance. Butterfly pansies are beautifully 

 marked. Other well-known strains are 

 the Odier, very rich in color; Bugnot s 

 Parisian strain, Belgian, German and 

 English strains. Several of our own 

 florists have selected the finest flowers 

 from thcso and have now a strain that 

 T prefer to any of them. Any grower 

 can work up a strain of his own equal 

 to the best. 



PELARGONIUM. 



.^11 the familiar plants we know as 

 geraniums are pelargoniums, but they 

 have been treated, under the name by 

 which they are so well known. Under 

 Pelargonium we include only the show 

 and fancy section, which is strangely 

 so often called Lady or Martha Wash 

 ington. Possibly one of these pretty 

 plants suffered with the cherry tree by 

 that famous little hatchet. 



In Europe the show pelargonium has 

 long been a standard decorative plant, 

 and considering the ease and short time 

 it requires to grow, and its rich, hand 

 some effect, it deserves all the popular 

 ity that it gets. Magnificent plants for 

 exhibition purposes were grown by sev 

 eral of the English firms, chief among 

 which was the firm of Charles Turner, 

 of Slough. Plants six or seven -feet 

 across, not over three feet high, and 

 as perfect in outline as a well grown 

 azalea, are a gorgeous sight and are 

 surpassed in showy effectiveness only 

 by an azalea. Millions are grown in 

 5-inch and 6-inch pots for the European 

 markets and some are grown for our 

 own, but not in such quantities. 



Great as their beauty is, they have 

 these defects or shortcomings compared 

 to the semi-double geraniums. The 

 pelargoniums are much more troubled 

 with aphis; in damp weather in spring 

 without fire heat they drop their petals, 

 and their season of flowering is not con 

 tinuous. Two, or at most three, months 

 of spring and early summer is their 

 period of flowering; after that the plant 

 makes a strong growth without flower. 



As bedding or vase plants they are 

 useless and to use them for such a pur 

 pose is a fraud on your customers. With 

 all their lack of the ever-blooming qual 

 ities of the zonal geraniums, they are 

 far superior as decorative flowering 

 plants, and they are frequently seen in 

 the windows of the dwelling house, 

 growing and flowering as if they had 

 found the very spot that suited them, 

 and if not too warm the perfectly dry 

 air of a living-room is, I believe, most 

 congenial to them. 



Propagation. 



From the end of August to the end 

 of September is the best time for this 

 country. The cuttings should be from 

 plants that -flowered the previous spring, 

 and if the plants had been kept the 

 previous two weeks rather dry so much 

 the better. When you cut the plant 

 down for cuttings don t be afraid; cut 

 it down to within three inches of the 

 pot. Don t look for eyes, as you would 

 on a zonal; there will be any number of 

 eyes breaking from the stems that you 

 saw no signs of. Any part of the 

 wood will root; the young, tender tops 

 or the firmer parts. Make the cuttings 

 with two eyes, one above and one be 

 low the sand. They will root in soil 

 readily, as we do our geraniums, but 

 1 prefer to put them in sand, either in 

 the bed or in flats. Keep only moder 

 ately moist, and after the first few days 

 very little or no shade is needed. 



In five cr six weeks they will be 



