Hat 4, 1918. 



The Rorists' Review 



17 



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SPBINQ BEBDiNa. 



Sales of bedding geraniums will start 

 soon, if they have not yet commenced, 

 and it behooves us to get the plants in 

 as good condition as possible for our 

 customers. Of course you must have 

 noticed that the average purchasers of 

 gerai^iums or, for that matter, any other 

 bedding plants, invariably prefer such 

 as have a truss of flowers open, and 

 that they will select small plants with 

 a flower open rather than much stronger 

 ones not in bloom. It is necessary, 

 therefore, to cater to this taste and 

 have as many plants carrying flowers 

 as possible. Do not force the plants 

 with liquid manure. That will only 

 cause soft, flowerless wood to be pro- 

 duced. If they look a little starved, 

 give them a little -Bon Arbor, or even 

 nitrate of soda in the water to tone 

 them up. 



Keep the plants spaced apart from 

 time to time. If greenhouse bench 

 space is limited, you can always use 

 coldframes, especially if a little warm 

 manure is well firmed before the plants 

 go in. Plants not yet showing flowers 

 should have a light, sunny bench, with 

 plenty of fresh air. If they have been 

 grown crowded together some distance 

 from the light and are drawn, they will 

 need all the remaining weeks between 

 now and selling time to get into pre- 

 sentable shape. 



How about your own stock for an- 

 other year? The too common practice 

 is to sell all the best plants and plant 

 out any culls and left-overs in the field 

 for stock. Those who persist in this 

 will soon find disease attacking their 

 plants, and wiU find themselves under 

 the necessity of buying stock from a 

 distance to replace that which is run 

 out by their own folly. Keep back 

 enough healthy plants for your own use. 

 Never mind if they are small and only 

 in 2-inch or 2% -inch pots. These, if 

 given a shift, will make excellent plants 

 to set out in June. If you have good 

 cuttings still on your stock plants, put 

 these singly in 2-inch pots of sandy 

 loam on a warm, sunny bench. Pot 

 firmly and nearly all will root and make 

 nice plants in the field before fall. A 

 single pinch will suflSce for them. 



DIS£AS£D GEBANIUM FOUAaE. 



Will you kindly give me some infor- 

 mation as to the cause of the disease 

 on the enclosed geranium leaff 



W. E.— Ind. 



The leaf forwarded was much de- 

 cayed when received. It had evidently 

 been attacked by some fungoid disease. 

 The cause of this is hard to determine. 

 It may originate in the cutting bench 

 by propagating from unhealthy plants, 

 or may be due to improper cultural 

 conditidns. Pick off oadly affected 

 leaves and destroy any hopeless look- 

 ing plants. Give a spraying of Fun|[ine 

 or Bordeaux mixture when the foliage 



is dry. Eepeat the dose a week later. 

 Ventilate freely; keep the temperature 

 down to 50 degrees at night. Keep a 

 dry atmosphere and avoid syringing the 

 plants. Keep them well spaced and a 

 little on the dry side at the root. Fol- 

 low out these rules and you should be 

 able to rid yourself of this trouble. 

 C. W. 



FOOB GBOWTH OF GERANIUMS. 



I am sending you some geraniums and 

 should like to know what is wrong with 

 thepi. The buds on the S. A. Nutt are 

 small, and when they open they have 

 a withered look. The pink ones have a 

 good bud, but do not make a nice bloom. 

 I used a black loam, with some old hot- 

 bed manure. The plants were touched 

 with frost about two months ago, when 

 the fire went out one cold night. They 

 were in a temperature of about 42 

 to 50 degrees all winter. They have 

 been in 4-inch pots since the last of 

 January. Can you suggest a remedy 

 or tell me the cause of this trouble f 



G. H. P.— Pa. 



The plants appear to Have good roots, 

 but the growth is puny and they have 

 a starved appearance. If the plants 

 have been in 4-inch pots since the end 



of January, they have pretty well ex- 

 hausted the soil they are in and I would 

 give the surface soil a scratch over 

 and give them a sprinkling of fine bone. 

 I would also give them a watering with 

 nitrate of soda at the rate of a pound 

 to twelve gallons of water, but do not 

 continue watering with this, as it is a 

 powerful stimulant. Give the plants a 

 light, sunny, airy house, kept at 50 to 

 52 degrees at night. You should notice 

 a marked improvement in them before 

 Memorial day. C. W. 



GEBANIUMS FOB STOCK. 



I wish to grow a few thousand gera- 

 niums next year, but I have no stock 

 plants. If I buy rooted cuttings, pot 

 them in 2^-inch pots and set them 

 outside when the weather is warmer, 

 will they make many cuttings by fall, 

 or would they make more if I set them 

 out in a bench in the greenhouse? 

 About how many cuttings would I get 

 from 1,000 plants? G. S.— N. J. 



If you can spare a bench in one of 

 your houses, I would prefer to plant 

 there rather than outdoors. Cuttings 

 made under glass are firmer and less 

 liable to damp off than outdoor-grown 

 stock. If you had stock in 4-inch pots 

 to plant out now, you would get dou- 

 ble or treble the number of cuttings 

 you can get from rooted cuttings pur- 

 chased now. The last named should 

 average you ten or twelve cuttings each 

 by fall and they will break away and 

 yield a good many more between that 

 time and spring. Do not make the soil 

 in the bench too rich for your gera- 

 niums. Us* some well-rotted manure 

 and add some fine bone to it. Use the 

 latter as a top-dressing from time to 

 time, as the plants need a stimulant. 



C. W. 



FOB CUT FLOWEBS. 



If you have not planted any gladioli 

 outdoors yet, do so now. Cover the 

 bulbs to a depth of five or six inches; 

 then they will not be likely to blow 

 over in wet or windy weather, as shal- 

 low planted ones will do. Of course all 

 the gladioli should not be put out now; 

 make successional plantings until the 

 middle or end of June, to have flowers 

 over a long season. The varieties to be 

 grown will depend on local conditions. 

 America still is the most popular vari- 

 ety, while Mrs. Francis King comes 

 second in favor. Other good commercial 

 sorts are Halley, Brenchleyensis, Baron 

 Hulot, Willy Wigman, Panama, Au- 

 .gusta, Lily Lehman, Klondyke and 

 Peace. 



the blooms between Thanksgiving and 

 Christmas. What is the best method 

 of increasing the stock of gladiolus 

 bulbs? How do you treat the cormlets? 



W. P. H.— Md. 



GLADIOLI FOB EABLY WINTEB. 



We have a house containing solid 

 beds, which we plant in sweet peas the 

 latter part of August. We should like 

 to know whether it would be practicable 

 to carry gladiolus bulbs through the 

 summer d^ and plant them down the 

 side of the sweet pea rows, so as to have 



Gladiolus corms can be carried over 

 dry in a cool cellar and planted as sug- 

 gested. Of course you will not get 

 spikes of the same quality as from 

 earlier plantings. Gladiolus corms are 

 increased in three ways: First, by 

 natural division or increase of corms; 

 second, by seed, which can be sown in 

 beds or nursery rows and will flower 

 the second and third years, and third, 

 from cormlets, which appear in large 

 numbers on the corms of some varieties. 

 These cormlets, or bulblets, should be 

 carefully collected and stored in paper 

 bags, or, better still, packed in sand 

 over winter and then sown in drills 

 like peas outdoors. I find that the 

 cormlets keep plumper if packed in 

 sand than when stored away in bags. 

 By saving cormlets it is possible to 

 increase particular varieties in quan- 

 tity. From seed a large proportion 

 would not come true. C. W. 



