THE FLORISTS* MANUAL. 



167 



Areca Lutescens. 



injury in the broad sun. If allowed to 

 get dry in 10 or 12-inch pots, they will 

 burn, and so will a geranium in a pot 

 with its roots parched. The arecas, 

 the most decorative of all palms, do 

 not burn, but they lose the color so 

 much that it is not well to put them 

 out in the sun. They are better al- 

 ways under glass. The phoenix are 

 the least susceptible to any harm from 

 wind or rain; in fact, they are grand 

 plants for a vase or center of a tropi- 

 cal bed. 



Temperature. 



All the palms we grow, either for 

 sale or for decorative purposes, are 

 natives of a warm climate, and al- 

 though submitting for weeks to a 

 lower temperature than they would 

 ever be subject to in their native cli- 

 mate, yet that is not what they should 

 be grown in. Men who raise thou- 

 sands of young plants to sell to the 

 trade must, to make it profitable, give 

 them a good, high temperature, par- 

 ticularly in summer, although a slow 

 grown palm is much better than one 

 quickly grown. A good temperature 

 for the florist who grows or keeps a 

 stock of palms for sale would be 60 to 

 65 degrees at night, with a rise of 15 

 degrees in the day time during the 

 dark days of winter, and in spring and 

 summer 70 to 75 degrees at night and 

 as warm as you like in the day time, 

 providing you have plenty of air. 



Large palms that you keep for deco- 

 rations solely are better kept not high- 

 er than 55 degrees during winter. You 

 don't want them to make young leaves 



while you are using them, which 

 would likely be injured by a chill in 

 transit in cold weather. 



Watering and Syringing. 



This same old advice must be given 

 with emphasis about drainage. A 

 crock and piece of green moss is 

 enough for plants in a 5 or 6-inch pot, 

 but when in larger, and more especial- 

 ly when in very large pots or tubs 

 and boxes, which they may remain in 

 for four or five years, they should have 

 two or three inches of drainage. If 

 water passes quickly through the soil, 

 whether the plant is in a 4 or 14-inch, 

 then the drainage is all right. If it 

 does not, and it is slow in disappear- 

 ing from the surface, then it is all 

 wrong. In spring and summer, when 

 making leaves fast, they want copious 

 watering, but usually when thorough- 

 ly watered, once a day is enough. In 

 winter, with a lower temperature, 

 darker days and slower growth, less 

 water is needed. A gardener knows at 

 a glance whether they are dry or not. 

 Palms in winter 'want as regular wa- 

 tering as in summer, but with the 

 difference that after a watering they 

 may remain moist for two days, while 

 in summer, with the pots full of roots, 

 they want a watering twice a day. 



Syringing is most essential to all 

 palms. First it creates that moisture 

 in the atmosphere so congenial to 



Kentia Forsteriana, 



