ANTIRRHINUM, AQUILEGIA, ARAUGARIA 257 



stock of plants in 2^-in. pots should be grown on for the Spring trade. 

 Everybody planting annuals for cut flowers is sure to include Snap- 

 dragons. You can sell a great many if you happen to have a few 

 plants of a good strain in flower at the time of planting out, and it 

 is as well to grow on a few 3^-in. or even 4-in. pot plants, such as are 

 ready to flower. Many people are willing to pay a little more to 

 obtain plants which will flower shortly after being planted out. 



AQUILEGIA (COLUMBINE) 



Get better acquainted with the Columbines, for they rank with 

 the leaders in perennials. They are among the very first to send up 

 in Spring their beautiful Adiantum-like foliage and well above it 

 stems covered with graceful, spurred flowers in a great variety of 

 colors. Whether you use Aquilegia cserulea (the blue Rocky Moun- 

 tain Columbine), Aquilegia vulgaris (the European Columbine), the 

 common American form, A. canadensis, the white A. californica, 

 the golden A. chrysantha, or the endless varieties coming out of a 

 package of seeds of the long-spurred hybrids, all of them are good. 

 The more you see of Columbines, the better you will like them. 



In Spring and Fall you can always dispose of field stock to your 

 customers for their hardy borders. You can have a few plants in 

 pots for planting out during the Summer months; you can use the 

 flowers to cut from, and nothing goes better with them than their 

 own foliage. Always place them in water for a few hours in a cool 

 place before you send them out; they will last better. You can also 

 use the plants for forcing under glass and have them in flower by 

 the middle of April. They won't stand strong heat. Pot up 

 some field clumps, which have been overwintered in a frame, about 

 February tenth, and place them in a 45-deg. house; in a week they 

 will get busy and start into growth. 



Old clumps can be divided into small pieces and replanted 

 any time after August, but an easier and better way is to sow seed 

 about February under glass, using a little bottom heat, and grow the 

 little plants on in a 50-deg. house in pots, to be planted out in May. 

 They will not flower the first year, but you will get nice, heavy 

 plants ready for sale by Fall; the following Spring your stock will 

 be a mass of bloom during May and June, and when planted in the 

 hardy border the foliage will usually stay green all Summer. Aqui- 

 legias usually survive the most severe Winter, while a lot of our so- 

 called perfectly hardy plants disappear by Spring. No matter in 

 what soil or how misused, they are right there to greet you as soon 

 as the Lilac buds begin to swell. 



ARAUCARIA (NORFOLK ISLAND PINE) 



What a lot of fine Araucarias were sold before the World War, 

 when we imported them from Europe by the carload! Since then 



