14 



The Florists^ Review 



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JUMB 21, 1917. 



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SEASONABLE x 

 X SUGGESTIONS 



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Call as. 



The blooming season for callas now 

 is over. The plants should be placed 

 outdoors, laid on their sides in a warm, 

 sunny location and left alone until Au- 

 gust, when they will require repotting. 

 I'lants in benches should be dried off. 

 As the foliage ripens off, lift and pack 

 the tubers in a loam that is tolerably 

 dry. If you are short of strong flower- 

 ing roots it will pay you to plant out a 

 number of offsets, in well manured 

 ground. It is really surprising how 

 these will increase in size and vigor in 

 a few months. 



Hardy Lupines. 



Of the June-flowering hardy peren- 

 nials which are adaptable for cutting, 

 lupines are among the best. They come 

 in several colors— blue, white and pink. 

 The variety Moerheimii is a beautiful 

 pink shade; so is Pink Beauty. Seeds 

 sown now will give plants of sufficient 

 strength to flower before cold weather, 

 and they will be plants of good size for 

 either fall or spring sales. Lupines, 

 like most herbaceous plants, are fond of 

 a rich soil and an open, sunny exposure. 

 They sometimes are attacked by black 

 aphis as the flowers open and may need 

 a soap or nicotine spray. 



Pyrethrums. 



The forms of Pyrethrum roseum are 

 all valuable for cutting and in some 

 sections prove useful for Memorial day 

 bouquets. They carry quite long and 

 stiff stems, last remarkably well in 

 water, are reliably winter-hardy and 

 can be grown from seeds quite easily. 

 The single varieties are of the easiest 

 culture and propagation. The doubles 

 are occasionally grown from seed, but 

 most frequently by division. White 

 forms of the latter are as valuable as 

 carnations or asters in design work. 

 Plants, if divided in late July or Au- 

 gust, will be well established before 

 winter. Late divisions will probably 

 die. Undivided plants can be safely 

 set out as late as the end of October. 

 They should always have well drained 

 land; a heavy winter protection is 

 liable to rot them. There still is ample 

 time to make a sowing of these. They 

 germinate readily and make a fairly 

 rapid growth. 



Viola Comuta. 



As an edging plant, especially where 

 it can hang over stones, Viola comuta 

 is unrivaled. The variety comuta has 

 somewhat pale blue flowers. V. cornuta 

 atropurpurea has dark blue flowers and 

 it is more vigorous than the type. I 

 consider it the finest low-growing per- 

 ennial in cultivation, as it blooms con- 

 tinuously from May until December. I 

 have even seen flowers on it in January. 

 While it can be grown from seed, it does 

 not always come true; but this is no 

 drawback, as a single clump can be in- 

 creased by hundreds or thousands in 

 a season by division of the root or cut- 

 tings. There is also a pure white form 



of this viola which makes a charming 

 companion to the dark blue one. Any 

 iforist who is as yet without Viola 

 comuta should lose no time in securing 

 it. He should remember that it is per- 

 fectly hardy, and that plants 2 or 3 

 years old are vastly better than those 

 only a year old. For the rock garden 

 it is one of the finest plants we have. 

 It makes a splendid ground cover and 

 edging. In addition it is not attacked, 

 so far as I know, by any insects or 

 diseases. 



Delphiniums, or Larkspurs. 



S})ikes will soon be opening on the 

 delphiniums, or larkspurs. Peonies are 

 considered by many the queen of her- 

 baceous perennials and it is true that 

 during their comparatively brief season 

 they make a gorgeous showing. They 

 are, however, a heavy and clumsy flower 

 compared with larkspurs, which have a 

 stateliness none can gainsay. Some 

 growers complain of stems dying on 



their plants. This is specially true of 

 clumps which are old and have not been 

 transplanted for a number of years. 

 Larkspurs to succeed well should have 

 a shift once in four years. A largi; 

 number of named delphiniums hav(; 

 been raised by Amos Perry, Kelway, 

 and other specialists, and these can be 

 secured from reliable seedsmen wIkj 

 si)ecialize in perennial seeds; but for 

 the average country florist it will suffice 

 to sow mixed packets of light blue and 

 dark blue hybrids of formosum anc[ 

 that l)eautiful variety. Belladonna, 

 which now is procurable from seeds and 

 comes jierfectly true. Sow the seeds 

 now and most of the plants will blooff; 

 before frost, provided they are pricked 

 off first and later carefully transplanted 

 to nursery rows^oFbeds. No grower can 

 go far wrong in /working up a good 

 stock of the hardy larkspurs. Ask 

 your customers to come and see them 

 when in bloom. Tliey are sure to order 

 them. 



Ashtabula, O.— The Tong & Weeks 

 Floral Co., E. A. Adams & Sons and C. 

 ('. Phelps & Son have petitioned the city 

 for permission to extend gas mains 

 across certain streets, for the purpose of 

 getting gas delivered from the main dis- 

 tributing point. Perhaps the Ashtabula 

 growers calculate to asphyxiate the 

 high cost of coal this winter by substi- 

 tuting gas for the precious black dia- 

 monds. 



SWEET PEAS OF TOMORROW. 



The Early- Blooming Spencers. 



A cordial invitation from Howard M. 

 Earl to visit the Fordhook Farms of 

 W. Atlee Burpee & Co. was one of those- 

 happy incidents that promise an hour 

 of absorbing interest. Mr. Earl said 

 that George W. Kerr would be there to 

 show the sweet peas and to tell of his 

 trip to the seed growing farm at Flora- 

 dale, in the Lompoc valley of far-off 

 California. So on the morning of 

 June 15 the first train over the Reading 

 railroad to Lonsdale was taken. Then 

 over a single-track road, through a 

 beautiful rolling country, to the Farm 

 School, where Mr. Kerr was waiting on 

 the station platform with a hearty 

 greeting. 



Everv moment of the hour and a half 

 that followed was delightful. The 

 walk through the woods to the trial 

 grounds at Fordhook has always pos- 

 sessed an especial charm. That day it 

 was of the morning freshness after the 

 rain of the afternoon before. During 

 the walk Mr. Kerr described his visit 

 to California, from which he has just 

 returned. He dwelt especially on the 

 100 acres of the firm's seed farm at 

 Floradale, where the sweet peas are 



being grown and tested. The favor- 

 able climatic conditions were carefully 

 described. The early spring rains, the 

 cool nights continuing into summer, the 

 even temperature, the dryness during 

 harvest — all were mentioned as factors 

 in aiding a fertile soil to produce re- 

 sults that are little short of marvelous. 

 Outdoor Peas in Bloom May 15? 



The sweet pea trial grounds at Ford- 

 hook were a distinct surprise. It was 

 the fifteenth day of June. No one in 

 this locality has sweet peas in bloom 

 outdoors. You say you have them? 

 I do not doubt your word, but let me 

 tell you that they have been scarce 

 in Philadelphia, where all the sweet 

 peas from outdoors that are coming 

 into the market are from coldframes. 

 Here were peas in full bloom, long 

 rows of them, peas that evidently had 

 been in bloom for at least a month. 

 This sight was the more surprising 

 because I clearly remembered that on a 

 previous visit, when the Burpees had 

 a party at Fordhook at about this sea- 

 son of the year, the sweet peas were 

 only just coming into flower. Mr. Kerr 

 explained the matter. These sweet peas 

 were early Spencer varieties. Prac- 

 tically nobody grows anything but 

 Spencers now, but they were started 

 in pots under glass. Here was some- 



