

,7^»^,">.V\ v 



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May 18, 1916. 



The Florists^ Review 



21 



can purchase young stock and plant 

 "them in the field now to pot up in the 

 fall. _^__ C. W. 



FOOB DBAINAGE RESPONSIBLE. 



Last July I transferred some rose 

 plants to concrete benches. Now the 

 plants seem to be somewhat stunted in 

 growth. The blooms are poor and the 

 stems weak. Do you think this condi- 

 tion can be charged to either under- 

 feeding or overfeeding? When I 

 benched the plants I had the usual com- 

 post; one-fourth well rotted manure, 

 three-fourths loam and a good sprink- 

 ling of bone meal. Since that time I 

 have given three top-dressings of bone 

 meal. I had some fine flowers this fall, 

 but the plants did not make much 

 growth. 



The beds do not seem to dry quickly; 

 the benches appear to be wet all the 

 time. The benches, which are of con- 

 crete, have i/^-inch holes every twelve 

 or fifteen inches. The drainage is un- 

 usually poor. Do you think this can 

 have much bearing on the condition of 

 the plants? Also, is nitrate of soda a 

 good fertilizer. W. G. — Kan. 



From your description of the mixture 

 of the compost and fertilizer used, your 

 plants can hardly have suffered from 

 lack of food, especially as they only 

 made a weak growth. Your trouble is 

 more likely to be due to poor drainage. 

 Cement benches have not proven a uni- 

 form success for growing roses. While 

 some good roses are grown on concrete 

 benches, it takes greater care to do so. 

 Your drainage is insufficient. There 

 should be at least a %-inch opening 

 every ten inches across the bench. 



Nitrate of soda is a good fertilizer 

 for roses if used intelligently, but a 

 most dangerous one in the hands of a 

 novice. Your plants do not need such 

 a strong fertilizer in the state they are 

 now*in. Keep the water oflF until they 

 get dry, even if it takes four weeks. 

 Then give the plants a thorough water- 

 ing and syringing, to clean both the 

 soil and foliage. Leave all the growths 

 on the plants until they start to make 

 good, strong growths. Water them only 

 when the soil is dry, and then do it 

 thoroughly. Use liquid manure after 

 the plants have made good growths. 

 Above all, get more drainage in your 

 benches as soon as it can be accom- 

 plished. W. J. K. 



THE BOSE APHIS. 



The rose aphis passes the winter in 

 the egg stage on the stems and dormant 

 buds of the rose bushes, according to 

 A. D. Hopkins, entomologist in the 

 United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The insects hatching from these 

 eggs reach maturity in about fifteen 

 to twenty days, all being wingless. 

 They are pear-shaped and either bright 

 green or pinkish in color. At this stage 

 they begin to produce living young, 

 each individual in course of about 

 twenty days producing fifty to 100 

 young, which, on maturity, are either 

 winged or wingless and in turn either 

 green or pinkish. Thus the tender 

 growth soon becomes crowded with va- 

 rious sizes, colors and shapes of 

 aphides. Many generations may follow 

 one another, covering every bit of 

 green vegetation on the bush with their 

 bodies, their cast skins, honeydew, and 

 the resulting sooty fungus. 



The presence of ants on the rose 

 bushes is an indication that the aphis 



Looking Toward the Door at Podesta & Baldocchi'it San Francisco. 



is present, because the ants collect the 

 honeydew from the aphides and, to a 

 certain extent, protect the aphides 

 from their insect enemies. 



Fortunately the rose aphis readily 

 succumbs to artificial methods of con- 

 trol and, with the different styles of 

 spray pumps on the market, there is no 

 excuse for allowing garden roses to suf- 

 fer from these insects. The best rem- 

 edy is a forty per cent nicotine ex- 

 tract diluted at the rate of one part 

 to 1,000 to 2,000 parts of water, with 

 fish oil soap or laundry soap added at 

 the rate of one pound to fifty gallons of 

 the spray mixtures. The simplest way 

 to prepare the spray in small quanti- 

 ties and secure satisfactory proportions 

 of the ingredients is to put one tea- 

 spoonful of the nicotine sulphate in 

 from one to two gallons of water and 

 then add one-half ounce of laundry 



soap. One spraying is usually 100 per 

 cent effective, but if the first applica- 

 tion has not been thoroughly made, a 

 second one may be necessary. 



BAMBLEB BOSES ON THE COAST. 



The accompanying illustrations serve 

 the proverbial purpose of killing two 

 birds with one stone, because they show 

 looking in and looking out views in the 

 store of Podesta & Baldocchi, 224 Grant 

 street, San Francisco, and the rambler 

 rose plants of Eric James, of Oakland, 

 Gal., who is one of the most successful 

 plantsmen around the bay. Two birds? 

 No, three birds, for the illustrations 

 also serve to show that Tausendschon, 

 Lady Gay and Dorothy Perkins are the 

 popular pot varieties on the western 

 edge of the continent the same as in the 

 aesthetic east and the material middlewest. 



View from the Door at Podesta & Baldocchl'a, San Francisco. 



