THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



193 



Primula Veris. 



We are able to shift a plant from a 

 4-inch to a 6-inch or 6-inch to 8-inch with 

 absolute safety at any time, because 

 when properly clone the plant does not 

 lose a fiber, but many of our soft- 

 wooded plants soon recover from a little 

 disturbance of the roots and with many 

 of our common plants you can always 

 rub off half an inch of the surface of 

 the old ball, which enables you to give 

 them more new soil. 



Many of the soft-wooded plants that 

 make a stem, such as geraniums, fuch 

 sias, heliotrope, etc., do not hurt any 

 if the old ball is down an inch under 

 the new soil, but in hard-wooded plants 

 it should be kept very near the same 

 height. This is particular in palms; 

 they should never be potted below the 

 base of the stems. Many palms will 

 raise themselves several inches above the 

 ground by the roots. Lower them down 

 when shifting, but not below the bottom 

 of the stem. 



The best work of potting I ever kept 

 the watch on was done by an expert at 



any greenhouse work. It was very com 

 mon stuff; Centaurea gymnocarpa from 

 2-inch to 3-inch. He did not have to 

 knock out his plants, but merely shifted 

 them and did it well, and in just twenty- 

 five minutes he had rattled off 500. That 

 was too fast to last all day, but it was 

 not day, it was night, by lamplight. 

 For the first week or two after Easter 

 we ^requently have to put in some 

 bees, and during several evenings last 

 spring, two men in three hours, with 

 plenty of help, shifted 2,500 geraniums 

 from 3-inch to 4-inch. 



I have spoken of rapid potting, which 

 most of our bedding plants must get 

 or it would not pay, but the man who 

 can pot well and fast can also slacken 

 down his speed and pot carefully when 

 occasion requires, and where care is 

 needed it pays. He could not handle 

 cyclamen or cinerarias, or above all 

 herbaceous calceolarias as he could a 

 geranium or a canna, or you would break 

 and smash the leaves, but expertness and 

 smartness will apply to all of them. 



1 have seen some men take hold of 

 a dormant cattleya and hold it up and 

 look at it and twist it around as if it 

 were a new and unknown reptilian fos 

 sil, and then fuss with moss and crocks 

 as long as it would take to visit the 

 dentist and have a tooth out, and then 

 from want of knowledge the poor plant 

 pined and died; while I know another 

 who fixes them up as fast as I would 

 shift a cytisus, and this man makes 

 them grow r . 



Don t think for a minute, young man, 

 that you are an expert potter of plants 

 unless a superior expert told you so and 

 watched you. I have noticed some young 

 men in very large establishments who were 

 poor hands at potting because perhaps 

 they never had a good lesson, or perhaps 

 they were of that conceited build that 

 they would not learn. I noticed in one 

 place where a rapid potter had been at 

 work on a lot of rose cuttings that 

 were calloused but had lost their leaves, 

 and quite a number were upside down. 

 Perhaps some will say that in our com 

 mon plants in springtime anything will 

 do. It may do, but in the aggregate 

 the difference in the result between the 

 right and the wrong way will be con 

 siderable. 



Just a word about a potting bench. It 

 should always be of 2-inch plank, resting 

 on cross-pieces not over two feet apart, 

 so that it is solid, with no spring to it. 

 And it should be high enough so that a 

 man can work his hands conveniently 

 without bending his back. It is the bend 

 ing over that tires. You can t raise 

 a low bench up to suit a tall workman, 

 but you can raise the short workman up 

 to suit the bench. 



PRIMULA. 



A very large genus of pretty, dwarf, 

 stemless plants that are all from tem 

 perate climates or high elevations. Those 

 of us who have crossed the Atlantic will 

 remember the fields and banks and hedge 

 rows where the primrose covered the 

 ground. The cowslip (P. officinalis) was 

 not so common and was generally found 

 in a colony in a pasture and the oxlip 

 (P. elatior) was still less common. 



Many primroses are hardy with us, 

 but our severe winter, and often hot, 

 dry summer, are not nearly so favorable 

 to&quot; them as the more temperate parts of 

 Europe. The polyanthus, similar to the 

 cowslip except in color, is the leading 

 flower in thousands of cottage gardens, 

 and with it the old woman s story that 

 it you plant a cowslip or common prim 

 rose upside down it will come red, double, 

 etc. This strange phenomenon never oc 

 curred in the garden that you are visit 

 ing, but it did happen, because our Aunt 

 Jane or old Bill Jones did it many times. 

 The polyanthus is sometimes seen do 

 ing very well here, and where it can be 

 shaded, but not in a wet soil, and pro 

 tected in winter, it is a most charming 

 hardy spring flower. 



The old double white form of P. Sin- 

 ensis was once a most important plant 

 with every florist. Its flowers were used 

 in immense quantities for making de 

 signs, but we have gotten over that, and 

 although we had no difficulty in cutting 



