CALIFORNIA GARDEN FLOWERS. 



The Use of Water in Transplanting. It is particularly desirable in 

 transplanting in light soils, and in any soil at dry times, to use water 

 in transplanting. This not only adds moisture for the safety of the 

 plant, but it water-settles the earth, making such contact with the roots 

 as has been prescribed. In such practice the plant should be put in 

 place, the earth sufficiently compressed by hand or foot to hold it at 

 about the proper depth and upright, and then a few quarts or gallons 

 of water poured into the hole, according to the size thereof. There 

 should be water enough to act upon a relatively considerable mass 

 of the loosened lower soil. In planting in rows a hoe or plow 

 furrow may be drawn along the line, the plants properly placed and 

 firmed and water run in the furrow to avoid carrying. When the water 

 has disappeared and before the soil dries to baking or cracking, the 

 loose soil should be hand-drawn or cultivated over the moist soil and 

 no pressure applied. 



Treatment of Roots at Planting. It is not at all necessary to make 

 supreme efforts to get all the roots of a plant when lifting for replant- 

 ing. From <a few inches to a foot is usually quite enough for any 

 plant of a size which a man can handle alone. Moving larger growths 

 will be discussed in the chapter on trees. Nor is it necessary to save 

 all the fibrous roots; if the transplant is balled, that is if it is taken up 

 with a ball of earth enclosing the roots, the fibrous roots are saved in 

 the process, and in moving woody evergreens this is a desirable thing 

 because an evergreen is always using more or less sap and is apt to 

 quickly perish by drying, but deciduous plants, which can endure con- 

 siderable drying when free of leaves, and herbaceous plants which 

 start growing immediately in a new place and thus supply them- 

 selves at once, do not require all the roots you can get in fact a 

 better plant is usually made when a good part of the roots are re- 

 moved. Roots wounded by digging up should be shortened to a point 

 above the wound, and masses of rootlets, which would prevent soil 

 contact with larger roots, should be clipped away. 



Plants which have grown too long in pots are liable to have 

 twisting roots, like a corkscrew, and when planted as they come, may 

 blow over for lack of lateral or supporting roots. Sometimes such 

 roots can be disengaged and straightened but if not it is often desir- 

 able to take a sharp knife and cut down through these twisting roots 

 before planting, and the plant will throw out good supporting roots 

 that will hold it against ordinary winds and storms. Some ornamental 

 trees have been condemned because they had bad roots and blew over. 

 They had been taken out of boxes and pots without cutting the roots 

 which circled around and could not hold up the tree. 



Depth of Planting. The plant should usually stand in the new place 

 at about the same level it previously occupied and if this cannot be 



