34 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



BOSTON IVY. 

 See Ampelopsis. 



BOTTLE BRUSH. 



See Metrosideros. 



BOTTOM HEAT. 



In all cultural notes there is more or 

 less occasion to refer to bottom heat. 

 There was a time when few cuttings 

 were thought to root well without the 

 aid of bottom heat unless it was the 

 cuttings of the ericas and conifers. 

 Practice has taught us that to have the 

 heat of the sand or propagating ma- 

 terial greater than the temperature of 



well if well laid in cement. Heat and 

 moisture quickly rot wood, so use 

 brick, and a few inches from the top, 

 according to the purpose for which you 

 want to use the bed, lay in, or rather 

 build in, some strong strips of iron. 

 A strip two inches by half an inch will 

 bear a good weight of sand if the bed 

 is not more than 3 feet wide and will 

 give a good bearing for the slates. If 

 6 feet wide you must have a center 

 support for the irons, and 1-inch gas 

 pipe with 1-inch uprights every 3 feet 

 will do well for that. Your cross strips 

 should not be more than a foot apart. 

 If you want bottom heat don't at- 

 tempt to get it through a 1-inch board. 



Bougainvillea Sanderiana. 



the house is with many cuttings en- 

 tirely unnecessary. Ten or fifteen de- 

 grees hotter will certainly hasten the 

 rooting of most of our soft-wooded 

 plants, and with some it is a decided 

 advantage while with others (carna- 

 tions and geraniums for instance) it 

 is not desirable. 



Where bottom heat is essential there 

 is no way so inexpensive or durable 

 as having the hot-water or steam 

 pipes under the benches and inclosed 

 so that the heat will remain under 

 them. The hot-bed (primitive green-, 

 house) is ideal as a means of afford- 

 ing bottom heat, but it is of short du- 

 ration, being available only during 

 the spring and summer months and is 

 always liable to neglect. Years ago 

 in growing plants requiring bottom 

 heat many a day was laboriously spent 

 in carting into the houses tan-bark, 

 leaves and other fermenting material 

 to afford heat to plants. That, how- 

 ever, is past and only the hot-water 

 and steam pipes are now used. 



Whether it be for the propagating 

 bench or for plunging plants that re- 

 quire bottom heat let the walls of the 

 bed or bench, be of brick. A 4-inch 

 brick wall back and front will do very 



Wood is one of the poorest conductors 

 of heat and slate is one of the best. 

 Half-inch slates (or thicker) in large 

 slabs are very expensive. For a propa- 

 gating bench roofing slate 24x12 will 

 do very well and will last for years if 

 you support it in the middle by having 

 one of the iron strips every foot. 



If all your heating pipes are under 

 the bench it will be necessary to have 

 sliding openings in the wall to let out 

 some heat in very cold weather, but 

 in most houses there will be an inde- 

 pendent pipe with which you regulate 

 the atmospheric temperature. Don't 

 use wood for these beds. Use brick, 

 iron and slate, and in ten years you 

 will have saved money and much vex- 

 ation. 



BOUGAINVILLEA. 



The most useful species of bougain- 

 villea is the well known glabra, which 

 makes a fine greenhouse climber in 

 any house where the temperature does 

 not go below 50 degrees at night. The 

 flower is inconspicuous; it is the 

 showy rosy purple bracts of the flowers 

 that give the plants such an ornament- 

 al appearance. Long sprays of the 

 bougainvillea covered with these 



showy bracts are of great value for 

 decorations. 



The plant should be in a large pot or 

 tub, or may be planted out in the bor- 

 der, but where it has unlimited root 

 room it grows too freely and does not 

 flower so well. During winter the sup- 

 ply of water can be diminished till the 

 plants start growing again in March, 

 at which time the plants can be cut 

 back to within a few eyes of the previ- 

 ous year's growth. 



The variety of glabra known as 

 Sanderiana begins to flower when very 

 small and is much the best for plants 

 of medium size in pots. We were very 

 successful in flowering plants of this 

 the past spring but are disappointed in 

 it as a house plant. The great majority 

 of our flowering plants are sold to 

 people who want them for their win- 

 dows or rooms and unless a plant has 

 fair keeping qualities under such con- 

 ditions it will never be popular. The 

 bracts of B. Sanderiana, while hang- 

 ing on the plants for months in the 

 greenhouse soon drop with the leaves 

 when removed to the dry heat of the 

 living room. 



The following is our practice and 

 plants of various shapes, averaging 

 two feet above the pot and eighteen 

 inches across were covered with the 

 flowers and bracts. Cuttings made 

 from the young growths strike freely 

 in the sand in January or February. 

 The first year they are planted out in 

 light rich soil out of doors, where 

 they make a vigorous growth. They 

 are potted in the fall and kept rather 

 cool and dry the following winter. In 

 the spring they are put into 5 or 6-inch 

 pots and plunged outside where they 

 make a moderate but rather firm 

 growth. Before there is any danger of 

 frost they are removed to the green- 

 house and are kept in a light house 

 with a night temperature of about 50 

 degrees. In January we move them 

 into a warmer house (about 60 de- 

 grees) and begin to syringe them and 

 give more water. The flower should 

 soon appear on the growth of the pre- 

 vious summer. 



When growing or flowering they like 

 an abundance of water and the soil 

 should always be in a condition that 

 will allow the water to pass freely 

 away. Good fibrous loam with a little 

 leaf-mould or old decomposed hot-bed 

 material suits them well. 



I will take this opportunity to say 

 that this old hot-bed material is of 

 great service and it is one of the rea- 

 sons we like to put up a few dozen 

 sash each year. There can be little 

 ammonia left in the manure, but the 

 manure with the soil and leaves, and 

 perhaps refuse hops, thoroughly de- 

 composed and well mixed together, is 

 an excellent thing to add to the com- 

 post for nearly all our soft-wooded 

 plants and takes the place of leaf- 

 mould with our hard-wooded ones. It 

 must be the excellent mechanical con- 

 dition more than the fertilizing quali- 

 ties that makes it so valuable an ad- 

 dition to all our soils. 



