J84 



THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



primula just after shifting,to keep them 

 from wobbling about, as they were 

 potted what we would call "high." We 

 never found any necessity for that, for 

 they can be potted with care just right, 

 sufficiently deep to hold them firmly 

 upright, but not by any means to bury 

 their crowns. This is particular; don't 

 get them too low, but just so that they 

 set firmly on the soil. 



If you wish to have primroses by Oc- 

 tober you should sow in April, and if 

 you wish to have them in spring you 

 should sow again end of August. You 

 can with care sow any time from 

 March to September. We usually sow 

 about first of May, which gives us 

 flowering plants from November on to 

 March, after which we think there are 



pots. I have found these little plants 

 do finely on a shelf in a house that 

 had a good shade. In another five or 

 six weeks they will go into a 3-inch 

 pot. If you don't have a cold-frame 

 then give them a bench where it is 

 shaded overhead, and they can get 

 plenty of air. End of August or early 

 September they should be shifted into 

 their flowering pot. We sell most of 

 them in 4-inch pots, and the great ma- 

 jority go as soon as one fine truss is 

 developed, but to grow a fine plant 

 they should have a 5-inch. 



After the heat of summer is gone we 

 try to keep them at about 50 degrees at 

 night, but less won't hurt them in the 

 least. And don't crowd them at any 

 time; they must have full room for 



some large, healthy plants, but in this 

 immediate neighborhood they are a 

 failure. Thousands of dollars have 

 been spent for their purchase and care, 

 but in a few years they are gone. We 

 have pulled up this spring the remains 

 of rhododendrons and kalmias (and re- 

 placed with hardy deciduous shrubs) 

 which the confiding owner had pur- 

 chased from the agent, who showed 

 him the gorgeous picture of a rhodo- 

 dendron warranted (till the bill was 

 paid) to grow and blossom even more 

 beautifully than the colored plate. So 

 be careful, and unless you are sure that 

 these plants thrive in your neighbor- 

 hood don't sell them. There is any 

 number of good, honest hardy shrubs. 

 It is said that the rhododendron, or 



many other plants, not better, but the 

 people want a change, and for an 

 Easter plant we do not prize them. It 

 is in early winter that they are such 

 favorites with everybody. 



The cold-frame is an excellent place ' 

 to summer over the primroses. With 

 the glass shaded and the sash raised 

 back and front, it is cool, and if you 

 will not neglect them there is no place 

 in the greenhouse where they can be 

 grown so well. If the frame is in the 

 shade of trees so much the better. It 

 is coolness; you want. 



Sow on some light loam and leaf- 

 mold that has been previously well 

 watered. Just press in the seed and 

 cover with more leaf-mold very light- 

 ly; when the seed is out of sight it is 

 covering enough. Place a pane of glass 

 over the flat or pan and don't let the 

 soil get parched. When the little 

 plants are up keep the pan in the 

 coolest place you have. 



In five or six weeks they can be pot- 

 ted singly in 2-inch pots, using clean 



Specimen Greenhouse Rhododendrons. 



the spread of their pretty leaves, or 

 they are useless. They need little syr- 

 inging, and none when in flower, but 

 when growing during summer a fine 

 sprinkling does them good. They wilt 

 quickly when allowed to suffer for 

 want of water and need plenty of 

 water from seed pan to flowering. The 

 soil should be always in that condi- 

 tion that it will take plenty of water. 

 If you flower them as late as March 

 or April their flowers will need shad- 

 ing. 



RHODODENDRON. 



Where these broad-leaved evergreen 

 shrubs will flourish out of doors there 

 is no hardy shrub that equals them for 

 color and massive beauty. We have 

 seen acres of them growing as freely 

 as a weigelia or philadelphus, and in 

 many parts of Great Britain they are 

 planted for game covers, but that is 

 on the other side of the Atlantic. In 

 the vicinity of Boston they appear to 

 do well, and nearer home I have seen 



any of the Ericaceae order, will not 

 thrive where the soil is impregnated 

 with lime. So there cannot be lime in 

 some parts of the Alleghany mountains, 

 for there the kalmias cover the mount- 

 ain side. R. catawbiensis is widely dis- 

 tributed through our eastern states, 

 and is quite hardy. There are other 

 causes than the lime that make the 

 rhododendron an undesirable plant for 

 our northern states. It gets burnt 

 with the bright suns of March when 

 the leaves are frozen hard. The past 

 winter has destroyed many. 



It is as a forcing plant that we are 

 chiefly interested, and strange to say, 

 beautiful as they are when well flow- 

 ered, they do not sell readily. They 

 take up much room and we have sev- 

 eral times declared we would leave 

 them alone, but as the drummer pays 

 his annual visit we relent and say, 

 "Well, we will just try a few." And it 

 is only a few you want in the commer- 

 cial greenhouse; and the best time to 

 have them is at Easter. 



