J78 



THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



you will have plants to sell that for 

 continuous summer blooming, if cared 

 for, will be more satisfactory than 

 either your own cold-frame or the 

 farmer's field grown plants. 



Pansy flowers are a favorite with 

 many in the winter months. In some 

 floral designs the blues and purples or 

 white and yellow look very rich, and 

 when grown for cut flowers you should 

 sow in distinct varieties. For this pur- 

 pose sow early in August and then se- 

 lect the strongest, healthiest seedlings 

 and plant on the bench in September, 

 giving them all the sun and air you 

 can. They are often disappointing in 

 not flowering. They must have a light 

 house and need every ray of sun you 

 can get between snow storms. Anxious 

 as they are to flower when March 

 comes, they don't want to send up their 

 buds in the dead of winter. 



About 45 degrees at night will do, 

 and 60 degrees in day time if the 

 weather is bright, if cloudy, less, but 

 unless you can give them a light house 

 don't try it. The greenfly troubles 

 them in winter, so smoke. Out of 

 doors nothing troubles except the hot 

 weather. 



In Europe where they give the pansy 

 great attention and select the finest 

 flowers and name them Captain Drey- 

 fus, Paul Kruger, Aguinaldo or Wm. J. 

 Bryan, etc., they perpetuate these fine 

 varieties by cuttings, which root easily 

 from side shoots in a shaded cold- 

 frame in September. Here I have 

 never heard of that being done. We 

 depend entirely on seedlings and they 

 are certainly as. we often say in the 

 vernacular, "good enough." 



For large quantities the seed can be 

 sown broadcast on a finely raked sur- 

 face and the seed just covered and 

 pressed slightly firm. With expensive 

 seed in small quantities I prefer to 

 sow in shallow drills two inches apart 

 and scatter the seed thinly in the 

 drills and then just cover. You can 

 quickly make the drill by having a 

 rod an inch square and pressing one 

 ancle of it into the ground. 



The pansy is a cold blooded little 

 plant of the northern temperate zone, 

 and it likes water. And above all, to 

 nroduce fine flowers and a good plant 

 it takes an abundance of manure. A 

 ?ocd frinble loam is the thing, with 

 the addition of a third of decayed cow 

 manure, or if that is not to be had, 

 plenty of old hotbed manure will do. 

 If you try to grow them all summer 

 don't be sprinkling every night but 

 give them a soaking twice a week and 

 be sure and pick off all withered 

 flowers. It is not the flower that ex- 



ROEMER'S SUPERB 

 PRIZE PANSIES, 



The finest strain of 

 Pansies in the world. 

 Introducer and Grower of 

 All the Leading Novelties. 



Hiehest award International 

 Exhibition, Hamburg, 1807. 

 Catalogue free'omapplication 



'FRED. ROEMER, 



Seed Grower," 

 Quedlinburg, Germany." 



Roemer's Giant Five 

 Spotted Pansy. K na- 

 tural size. 



hausts the plant, it is the function of 

 bearing seed. 



There have been innumerable strains 

 of pansies, and no two people fancy 

 the same flower. A first class mixture 

 suits the florist best, but be sure you 

 get plenty of yellow and purple; they 

 are always fancied, and a large flower 

 will always be preferred. One of the 

 best strains I ever grew came from Mr. 

 James Fleming more than 25 years 

 ago, when the firm was Peter Hender- 

 son and James Fleming. On inquiry 

 I found that Mr. Fleming had been 

 hunting over the markets of New 

 York, selecting a fine flower here and 

 there wherever he saw one, and had 

 in that way obtained a fine strain, and 

 that you can do yourself. The best of 

 everything is either nature's or man's 

 selection. 



The Giant Trimardeau is a large, 

 finely marked pansy, but not of great 

 substance. Butterfly pansies are 

 beautifully marked. Other well known 

 strains are the Odier, very rich in col- 

 or; Bugnot's Parisian strain, Belgian, 

 German and English strains. Several 

 of our own florists have selected the 

 finest flowers from these and have now 

 a strain that I prefer to any of them. 



PELARGONIUM. 



All the familiar plants we know as 

 geraniums are pelargoniums, but they 

 have been treated under the name by 

 which they are so well known. Under 

 Pelargonium we include only the show 

 and fancy section, which is strangely 

 so often called Lady or Martha Wash- 

 ington. Possibly one of these pretty 

 plants suffered with the cherry tree 

 by that famous little hatchet. 



In Europe the Show Pelargonium 

 has long been a standard decorative 

 plant, and considering the ease and 

 short time it requires to grow, and 

 their rich, handsome effect, they de- 

 serve all the popularity that is theirs. 

 Magnificent plants for exhibition pur- 

 poses were grown by several of the 

 English firms, chief among which was 

 the firm of Charles Turner, of Slough. 

 Plants six or seven feet across, not 

 over three feet high, and as perfect in 

 outline as a well grown azalea, are a 

 gorgeous sight and are surpassed in 

 showy effectiveness only by an azalea. 

 Millions are grown in 5 and 6-inch 

 pots for the European markets and 

 some are grown for our own, but not 

 in such quantities. 



Great as their beauty is, they have 

 these defects or shortcomings com- 

 pared to the semi-double geraniums. 

 The pelargoniums are much more 

 troubled with aphis; in damp weather 

 in spring without fire heat they drop 

 their petals, and their season of flow- 

 ering is not continuous. Two, or at 

 most three, months of spring and 

 early summer is their period of flower- 

 ing; after that the plant makes a 

 strong growth without flower. 



As a bedding or vase plant they are 

 useless and to use them for such a 

 purpose is a fraud on your customers. 

 With all their lack of the ever-bloom- 



ing qualities of the zonal geraniums, 

 they are far superior as a decorative 

 flowering plant and they are frequent- 

 ly seen in the windows of the dwelling 

 house, growing and flowering as if 

 they had found the very spot that 

 suited them, and if not too warm the 

 perfectly dry air of a living room is, I 

 believe, most congenial to them. 



Propagation. 



End of August or early September 

 is the best time for this country. The 

 cuttings should be from plants that 

 flowered the previous spring, and if 

 the plants had been kept the previous 

 two weeks rather dry so much the 

 better. When you cut the plant down 

 for cuttings don't be afraid; cut it 

 down to within three inches of the pot. 

 Don't look for eyes, as you would on 

 a zonal; there will be any number of 

 eyes break from the stems that you 

 saw no signs of. Any part of the 

 wood will root; the young, tender tops 

 or the firmer parts. Make the cut- 

 tings with two eyes, one above and 

 one below the sand. They will root 

 in soil readily, as we do our gera- 

 niums, but I prefer to put them in 

 sand, either in the bed or in flats. 

 Keep only moderately moist, and after 

 the first few days very little or no 

 shade is needed. 



In five or six weeks they will be 

 ready to put into 2% -inch pots and 

 should be grown on in a very light, 

 airy house. From the time they start 

 to grow in the small pots they should 

 be encouraged by a light, warm, but 

 well ventilated house, to grow as fast 

 as possible. They will soon take a 

 4-inch, previous to which they should 

 have had their top pinched out. This 

 pinching, or stopping, after they have 

 made about three or four eyes of 

 growth above the cutting is enough. 

 If a larger plant is wanted they can 

 be pinched again in January or Feb- 

 ruary, but they will be later in flower. 

 I shall pause here to say that this 

 fall treatment is the most important. 

 We leave our zonal geraniums in 2- 

 inch pots till after New Year's, and 

 if they get hard and somewhat stunt- 

 ed no matter, but the show pelargo- 

 niums want the opposite treatment; 

 grow them on as fast as you can with- 

 out forcing in a moist heat. 



I do not like to advocate anything 

 so antiquated as a shelf, but neverthe- 

 less it is a fact that pelargoniums will 

 make a better, stouter, more thrifty 

 growth during winter on a shelf near 

 the glass than on any bench I have 

 ever seen them grown on. By Janu- 

 ary they will be stout plants with sev- 

 eral side shoots, and before the end 

 of the month should be shifted into 

 their flowering pot, a 5 or 6-inch; no 

 more is needed. During spring they 

 will grow very fast. 



In watering they are like the gera- 

 niums; during dark, cloudy, cold 

 weather they need very little water, 

 but in the bright and warmer days of 

 spring they will take plenty. Avoid 



