192 



THE FLORISTS' MANUAL. 



The principal object is to get a good 

 strong growth in the summer and 

 ripen it in the fall. Over potting should 

 be avoided, and with surfacing and 

 liquid manure you can grow them for 

 three or four years in the same pot. 

 A good strong plant that started off 

 well in the spring should need when 

 lifted from the ground a 6-inch pot. 



Jacqueminot, Brunner and other Hy- 

 brid Perpetuals that are planted on 

 a bench are put in four or five inches 

 of soil in March or April. They should 

 be good, strong plants when first 

 benched. If budded plants, they 

 should be cut down to a few eyes. If 

 plants propagated that spring, they 

 will need one stopping. They must be 

 encouraged to make a strong growth 

 that summer and in September be 

 gradually dried off to ripen their 

 growth. This is the most particular 

 period of their time and they must 

 not be dried off too quickly. Let in all 



I intended to remark at the opening 

 of these notes on the so-called Hybrid 

 Perpetual roses that the term is high- 

 ly misleading. They are not perpetual 

 at all. Perhaps with a cool, wet sum- 

 mer you may get a few scattering 

 flowers, and we usually do get an odd 

 one here and there in September or 

 October, but beautiful as is this most 

 important class of roses in color, form 

 and fragrance, it is all wrong to call 

 them perpetual. So you see that a 

 man who devotes nearly a year, and in 

 case of solid beds, the whole year to 

 one crop of flowers, must not only be 

 sure of success but must realize a high 

 price from his blooms or he is a loser. 



The American Beauty is a true Hy- 

 brid Perpetual, for with proper man- 

 agement it blooms from August till 

 the following May; not profusely, or 

 they would not command the high 

 winter price they do; still they keep 

 sending up flowering shoots. In an- 



and put away in a cold-frame, but kept 

 from very hard freezing. 



After New Year's they are brought 

 in and slowly brought along. Until I 

 tried this plan I had no idea that the 

 Beauty was such a grand rose for the 

 purpose. The year I alluded to we 

 had several hundred plants for Easter 

 that would average six open flowers 

 and six buds, with stems twelve to fif- 

 teen inches long. Nothing sells like 

 them, and we easily got $2.50 and $3.00 

 each for them. When first they break 

 you would think they were going to 

 be all blind, but they soon deceive you. 

 Don't attempt to keep any unsold 

 plants over; far better raise a new lot 

 every year. 



The Crimson Rambler (and we are 

 trying the Yellow, which will doubtless 

 force as well) has become a standard 

 Easter plant with all of us. You can 

 obtain strong field grown plants in 

 November, and if their shoots are six 



the cold air you can and if some frost 

 is inside, so much the better. It is 

 much better to ripen the wood by air 

 and cold than by drying at the root. 



The time of starting will depend on 

 the time you want the flowers, and 

 the earlier you want them the longer 

 time you must give. Cut them close if 

 you expect fine flowers. Mulch the 

 bed and begin firing slowly, with plen- 

 ty of syringing. If you get over the 

 first few weeks without losing any 

 plants, you are all right. The process 

 from now on is plenty of water and 

 syringing, with a gradual rise of tem- 

 perature till flowering time. 



These forcing hybrids are some- 

 times planted out in solid beds and 

 forced year after year. It is precisely 

 the same process. A growth in sum- 

 mer, a ripening in fall and pruning 

 back and starting with heat again at 

 whatever time you want your crop. 



Range of.Short-span-to-the-South Rose Houses. 



other place I intend to say something 

 about this wonderful variety as grown 

 for cut flowers, but here I wish to say 

 that although I have never seen it 

 satisfactory when planted out of doors, 

 it has been to me the most profitable 

 of pot roses. 



For this purpose we plant out a few 

 hundred in a light house in four or 

 five inches of soil as soon as our lilies 

 are gone, in April. The best lot that 

 I ever raised were planted on April 

 1st, Easter being on March the 25th 

 of that year. The flowers you get that 

 summer and fall will pay you for bench 

 room and labor far better than chry- 

 santhemums. In November we dry 

 them off some, having previously put 

 in a lot of cuttings in the sand. The 

 old plants are lifted and cut down to 

 seven or eight inches of the pot. Not 

 so short as we would the Hybrid Per- 

 petuals, for the eyes near the base are 

 not as good. They are then matured 



or seven feet long shorten them back 

 to three and four feet. They require 

 a 7 or 8-inch pot. Pot them and keep 

 very cool for the first month, but if 

 Easter is early you want to begin early 

 to start them growing. The success 

 will all depend on starting slowly, but 

 twelve to fourteen weeks is none too 

 much to allow them in the houses. 

 You can tie them in any shape, but the 

 canes should not be allowed to run 

 up straight. You will get a more even 

 break if they are wound around a few 

 stakes. 



Another plan, entailing more time 

 and labor but a surer way to get 

 flowers in abundance and requiring 

 less time in winter to force, is to pot 

 some strong plants in April and put 

 them in 7 or 8-inch pots and start 

 growing in the coolest house you have. 

 In fact, under a bench would do till 

 they break; then give them a light 

 bench and some long wires to support 



