220 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



drainage. If they are made in sec- 

 tions of 6 feet they are easy to handle 

 and can be taken to the greenhouse to 

 fill, but if very large we cart the soil 

 and plants to the lawn. Such a box as 

 I have given the size for is worth to 

 rnakj of cypress and painted 75 cents 

 per lineal foot and you should get the 

 same price per foot for filling it. Like 

 the vases a good appearance is. expect- 

 ed from the very start. 



If in the afternoon sun the same 

 plants are used as those mentioned for 

 vase^, but more cannas can be used in 

 the back of the box, and don't use too 

 many coleus or they will smother the 

 geraniums. The drooping vines will 

 be the chief beauty of these boxes and 

 it. matters not how common they are 

 if they grow freely. The pilogyne and 

 lophospermum are two splendid droop- 

 ers for this, purpose. Mignonette and 

 lemon verbena can be used for their 

 sweet odor. 



If the boxes get only the morning 

 sun, or very little at all, the gera- 

 niums will not flower, but you can use 

 several plants that you could not in 

 the sunny bleak exposures of the 

 cemetery. Begonia Rex looks well. 

 Fuchsias will thrive and flower if not 

 too crowded, and small plants of lata- 

 nia and kentia, and better for fine ef- 

 fect than all is the beautiful nephro- 

 lepis, both the Boston form and tuber- 

 osa. Nothing is equal to these ferns 

 and if kept watered they stand the sun 

 finely. 



Veranda boxes are nearly always 

 satisfactory. They are more or less 

 sheltered and get plenty of water. In- 

 struct your patrons that the soil be- 

 ing crowded with roots they want a 

 good soaking every evening and tell 

 them that when the coachman or they 

 themselves handle the hose not to 

 stand and let drive at them as if they 

 were putting out a fire, but let the hose 

 run in on the soil till they are well 

 wet. 



VERBENA. 



The garden variety of these well 

 known plants are probably hybrids. 

 They have been decidedly deposed 

 from their former popularity by the 

 carpet and sub-tropical bedding, but 

 of late we see many more verbena 

 beds, and few plants can be prettier. 

 The varieties we get from seed are 

 now so good that little attention is 

 paid to named sorts and the trouble 

 of keeping them over winter is dis- 

 pensed with. 



If you wish to propagate fine va- 

 rieties they should be shortened back 

 about the first of September and kept 

 watered. By the end of the month 

 there will be plenty of nice, fresh cut- 

 tings, and only a quick, tender growth 

 should be used. Put the cuttings in 

 the propagating house, or what is as 

 good, in flats with some soil in bottom 

 and sand on surface. Keep the flats in 

 a cold frame and keep moist and shad- 

 ed from the sun. They will take a co- 

 pious watering every day. 



Verbenas will stand quite a frost, 

 but it is not well to let th~e cuttings 



freeze. When rooted they can be kept 

 in a cool but light house and be kept 

 in the flats till after New Year's, when 

 they can be potted off into 2^-inch 

 pots and kept in a temperature of 50 

 degrees. You will soon get plenty of 

 cuttings which root very freely, and 

 before spring you can have a large 

 stock. Plants propagated from cut- 

 tings want to flower early and those 

 propagated in February and March 

 will want at least one pinching. 



iSeed is now used by most florists 

 for their stock of verbenas. It has the 

 advantage of producing good, healthy 

 plants free of all disease, and when 

 planted out they are sure to do well 

 and make a most satisfactory flower 

 ted. Sow the seed in February, and 

 pot into 2-inch pots as. soon as up an 

 inch. You can usually get a cutting 

 from an early sowing if you wish. If 

 not just pinch out the tip of the plant. 

 A temperature of 45 to 50 degrees will 

 answer these seedlings, but they 

 should be given full light. 



There is no place equal to a mild 

 hot bed for the verbenas, so about the 

 middle of April plunge the small pots 

 in a few inches of soil in a mild bed. 

 They will grow very fast and quickly 

 get rooted in the soil of the bed which 

 will delay their flowering, particularly 

 the seedlings, and for that reason they 

 should be lifted t the roots rubbed off 

 and put back in the same spot. That 

 will check their growth and induce 

 them to flower. Most of our customers 

 want to see the colors, so it is impor- 

 tant to get them into flower. 



Verbenas are much troubled with 

 green fly, and they should be perfectly 

 clean when they go into the hot-bed. 

 If affected with the rust so trouble- 

 some to the verbena when we grew 

 named varieties, throw them away; it 

 is much cheaper to buy clean stock. 



Verbena venosa is a true species and 

 always raised from seed. It can be 

 sown in February and grown along in 

 flats. Its beautiful and abundant blue 

 flowers make a fine bed either alone 

 or in combination with a silver leaf 

 geranium. 



Verbenas can be planted out early 

 in May. A slight frost will do them 

 no harm, but our customers seldom 

 look for them till end of May. 



VINCA. 



The trailing V. major, and its varie- 

 gated form, is one of our most useful 

 trailing or drooping plants. The long 

 drooping growths seldom flower, but 

 the short, erect growths do. The flow- 

 er is, however, of little consequence. 

 Plant out a sufficient stock of young 



crbcnas., 



SEND FOR PRICES. 



Are grown by the 



Hundreds of Thousands by 



J. L DILLON Bloomsburg, Pa. 



plants in the spring. They make a 

 great growth in any good soil. 



Put in cuttings in September. The 

 cuttings should not be made of the 

 hardest part of the stems, and should 

 always be of two eyes, as we depend 

 on growths from the bottom eye. We 

 like the propagating bed for these cut- 

 tings. They root rather slowly, but 

 surely. Keep in 2-inch pots till Janu- 

 ary in any cool house and then shift 

 into 3-inch. As they grow they will 

 need the edge of the bench, or the 

 edge of a rose or carnation bench, so 

 that their long growths can hang 

 down. 



Some growers lift up the plants 

 from the field in October and stand on 

 the edge of the benches. They make 

 fine decorative plants for some occa- 

 sions, as their numerous growths will 

 be several feet long. In February 

 they divide the large plants and pot 

 into 3 or 4-inch pots. 



The young growths are troubled 

 with green fly. Any soil and any cool 

 house will grow them, and they need 

 little light till they begin to make 

 their growth in early spring. Use 

 good rich soil when shifting from 2 

 to 3-inch, as you want them to grow 

 fast. 



Vinca minor, often strangely called 

 myrtle by our people, is perfectly 

 hardy. Where grass won't grow in 

 shady city lots it covers the ground 

 finely. It can be divided and planted 

 either in spring or fall and will quick- 

 ly cover the ground. 



Vinca rosea is a very different plant 

 and requires a warm house in winter. 

 It makes a pretty greenhouse plant, 

 but its chief use with us is in the flow- 

 er garden, where it makes a very pret- 

 ty bed, and a change from the high 

 colored geraniums. It can be easily 

 raised from seed sown in January and 

 fcrown on in a light, warm house, and 

 needs an occasional pinching to make 

 the plants bushy. 



Plants can also be lifted and after 

 New Year's cut back, when you will 

 get young growths which root freely. 

 Don't plant out till frost is surely 

 past. 



VIOLET. 



The violets we grow are varieties of 

 V. odorata. There is ever an increas- 

 ing love of the violet, and it seems 

 that the past three or four years the 

 quantity grown and sold is enormous. 

 Violets are rather a precarious crop 

 here; if you fail you fail entirely. In 

 milder climates where only the pro- 

 tection of a cold-frame is needed there 

 is not so much fear of failure. South 

 of Baltimore violets are grown in cold- 

 frames and covered with mats in cold 

 weather. That would not do for us, 

 although with careful attention you 

 can have a lot in the cold-frames that 

 will give you flowers sometimes till 

 Christmas, and again in April, and for 

 later they are better than those grown 

 all winter inside. 



Fine crops of violets have been 

 grown by several methods. And many 

 yet adhere to the plan of planting out 



