AUQDST 9, 1917. 



The Florists^ Review 



23 



SPENOEBS FOB 0HBI8TMAS. 



Are the new early-flowering Spencer 

 sweet peas, like Early Morning Star, 

 Early Heather Bell, etc., suitable for 

 winter growing! If so, when should 

 they be planted to flower by Christmas! 



E. E. M.— Okla. 



Yes. Sow early in September for a 

 Christmas crop. 



0. W. 



HOME-GEOWN SWEET PEA SEED. 



There are some good looking ripe seeds 

 on my Spencer sweet pea vines and I 

 should like to know what success I am 

 likely to have if I plant these seeds the 

 coming season. A. S. — HI. 



There is . no reason why your sweet 

 pea seeds should not prove perfectly sat- 

 isfactory, s,nd if you are growing only 

 one or two special varieties they should 

 come fairly true to color — more so, per- 

 haps, than many which are sold. 



C. W. 



APHIS ON SWEET PEAS. 



Will you please tell me what will de- 

 stroy aphis on outdoor sweet peas! I 

 have sprayed them with common soap 

 and with fish oil soap, but the blooms 

 were injured so badly as to be worth- 

 less. E. A. P.— Md. 



Try nicotine, which will reach the 

 pest better than any other insecticide. 

 Use it according to the printed instruc- 

 tions on the cans. There are several 

 excellent brands of liquid nicotine on 

 the market. Spray in the evening, not 

 when the sun is shining, and syringe 

 with cold water early the next morn- 

 ing. 



C. W. 



QABDENIAS FOB CHBISTMAS. 



Please tell me how to grow gardenias 

 so as to have them in bloom by Decem- 

 ber. I tried them this season and they 

 did not bloom until April. I planted 

 them in the bed at the end of June and 

 they grew well and made a great many 

 buds by November, I then took off 

 all surplus shoots around the buds, ex- 

 pecting to have plenty of blooms for 

 Christmas, but from that time on they 

 did not do well. In March the buds 

 began to swell. L kept them in a tem- 

 perature of 70 t<>. 72 degrees. Is it 

 customary to disUiid these plants! I 

 have 400 plants and from the middle of 

 April I have been cutting from 100 to 

 200 blooms per day, but at that date 

 they are too late to be of much value in 

 the trade. Would you advise carrying 

 over the old plants for another year! 



C. J. E.— Ga. 



Gardenias are by no means an easy 

 crop to flower for the holidays. The 

 soil should be quite porous, so that 

 water passes readily through it, and 

 should consist of fibrous loam with the 

 finer particles screened out, dried cow 

 manure well broken up and partly de- 

 cayed leaves. Some coarse sand also 

 should be added, especially if the loam 

 is heavy, to give the soil more porosity. 

 A few growers succeed in flowering gar- 

 denias well in solid beds, but I have 

 had the best success with them in raised 

 "benches, with heating pipes running be- 

 low them to give a little bottom heat. 

 I prefer to use from four and one-half 



Some Well Known Chicagoans Take an Afternoon Off. 



to five inches of soil and do the bench- 

 ing in June. 



Your winter temperature of 70 to 72 

 degrees is too high for night. At night 

 62 to 65 degrees is ample and on severe 

 nights 60 degrees is better. Ventilate 

 a little when the temperature gets up to 

 72 degrees on cloudy days or 75 degrees 

 with sun. Gardenias need careful 

 watering to avoid a loss of buds. It is 

 a safe plan to allow the benches to dry 

 out tolerably well between waterings. 

 Give the plants a thorough syringing 

 twice a week even in midwinter, to keep 

 them clean, selecting clear mornings for 

 the work. Lighter sprayings may be 



given at shutting-up time in the after- 

 noon. 



Gardenias will bloom earlier in pots 

 than in benches. Last season I had a 

 batch in 8-inch pots which started to 

 bloom about November 20 and gave a 

 fine Christmas crop. These same plants 

 bloomed profitably until May 20. They 

 were grown in a house with poinsettias 

 and begonias, where the average mini- 

 mum in winter was 55 degrees, and 

 occasionally lower. I think you kept 

 your plants too close and warm. Keep 

 them somewhat cooler and air more 

 freely and you should get much earlier 

 flowers. C. W. 



With liberty loans, war taxes and 

 other big figures goes the information 

 that the Poehlmann Bros. Co., of Chi- 

 cago, uses 39,000 tons of soft coal during 

 the season. 



Growers at Philadelphia were puzzled 

 last week by the receipt of printed 

 forms from the government asking them 

 as to their fuel supply. "With whom 

 have you placed your contract?" was 

 the question that bothered the growers 

 most. How much and what kind of 

 t'oal the different industries require is 

 probably what the government is driv- 

 ing at. 



Paul Janisch, of the Broad Ripple 

 Floral Co., Indianapolis, recently pur- 

 chased an automobile. Since then he 

 has been purchasing liberty bonds. No, 

 not the kind that bears interest at the 

 rate of three and one-half per cent, but 

 the kind that gets one what the word 

 implies, freedom. Twice he has been 

 arrested for speeding; a like number 

 of times he has engaged in disputes 

 with policemen about how long his car 

 has been parked. Not unlike his great 

 namesake, Paul, the evangelist, Paul 

 now preaches many sermons, but with- 

 out exception they are on one subject — 

 policemen. 



Sam Seligman went fishing to rest. 

 Asked how he managed to do both at 

 one time, Sam replied: "I had plenty 

 of time to rest while fishing, because the 

 big fish didn't bother me much; I only 

 had to wake up now and then to throw 

 a minnow back into the water." 



It sounds almost too good to be true, 

 but it is fact that the H. Weber & 

 Sons Co., at Oakland, Md., heats its 

 houses with natural gas, of which there 

 is an abundance, and when it becomes 

 so cold that coal is necessary — why, the 

 local miners are glad to furnish the 

 article at $1.50 per ton. (Printer, set 

 that $1.50, not $3.50.) 



Some men are bom wealthy, some 

 achieve wealtli, while others have 

 wealth thrush- upon them. Several 

 years ago Charles Thorley, the New 

 York retailer, had a lease on a store 

 where now stands the Times building. 

 He is said to have received $30,000 a 

 year for the surrender of the lease. 

 Now the building at Fifth avenue and 

 Forty-sixth street, known as the "Thor- 

 ley corner," has been sold, and Mr. 

 Thorley is found to be the possessor of 

 another lease. It appears certain that 

 lightning will strike in the same place 

 a second time. 



