JUNB le, 1921 



The FlcMists' Review 



15 



Richmond (lem. a beautiful shade of scarlet 

 with a distinct while eye. 



Itosalda, crimson pink shade; a grand bedder. 

 IVY GERANIUMS. 



Alliance, lilac white, feathered and blotched 

 crimson rose. 



.Teanne d'Arc. soft lavender, white markings. 



Mme. Thibuut, clear, rosy pink, delicately 

 feathered deep crimson maroon. 



Pierre Crozy, scarlet, erect in habit. 



Souvenir de Charles Turner, deep pink; fine 

 grower. 



SCENTED GERANIUMS. 



Lady Plymouth, variegated rose leaf. 



I.«mon. delicious lemon odor. 



.Nutmeg, dwarf, nutmeg fragrance. 



Pelargonium crispum latifolium, finely scent- 

 ed, of erect habit, useful for cutting for market, 

 an excellent tlorists' plant. 



Rose Leaf, indispensable for cutting. 



VARIEGATED imOXZE AND TRICOLOR. 



Golden Bedder, rich, golden-leaved. 



Happy Thouglit, dark green, wliite center. 



Marshal MacMahon, fine bronze, with distinct 

 dark zone. 



Mme. Salleroi. compact variegated plant; ex- 

 cellent for edging. 



Mountain of Snow, pure white and green leaf; 

 a most desirable plant. 



Mrs. Parker, variegated foliage; double pink 

 flower. 



Mrs. Pollock, beautiful tricolor leaf. 



Hilver-Leaf Nutt. green foliage, edged silver; 

 like the type except for the variegated leaves. 



TWO GROWERS' GERANIUMS. 



"Geraniums, the finest we have ever 

 grown!" This cheerful expression, 

 ooming almost simultaneously from J. 

 L. North, Sewell, N. J., and T. E. Mc- 

 Ginniss & Son, of South Williamsport, 

 Pa., is impressive of the fact that gera- 

 niums are thriving in more than one 

 locality this season. And the view of 

 Mr. North's house, on page 13, and th.it 

 of the McGinnis range on page 14, fur- 

 nishes convincing proof. 



Mr. North, who operates four green- 

 houses, has grown 35,000 geraniums this 

 season, the best he has ever had, ho 

 says. 



T. E. McGinnis & Son grew 20,000, 

 also the best in their experience. Those 

 in the illustration are Beaute Poitevine 

 and Helen Michell varieties. Mr. Mc- 

 Ginniss and his son started in business 

 in 1909 with one house, 22 x 60 feet. 

 They now have 11,000 feet under cover 

 and are planning to build an additional 

 house, 22 x 60 feet, and a propagating 

 house, 10 X 100 feet, this summer. In 

 the view of their house appear both 

 father and son. 



MAKING GERANIUM CUTTINGS. 



It is remarkable to see the poor judg- 

 ment (or is it carelessness ?j of some 

 florists in such a simple thing as mak- 

 ing cuttings. We have been told that 

 cutting at a joint was not at all essen- 

 tial; don't believe it. Cuttings will 

 root, of many kinds of plants, if cut an 

 inch below a joint, but not so surely. 

 At a joint is where the wood is most 

 firm, and if you leave a piece of sappy, 

 succulent stem an inch long below a 

 joint, it is more likely to become over- 

 cliarged with moisture; then the walls 

 of the cells are ruptured, decay com- 

 mences and the stem turns black. If 

 cut at a joint, this is not so likely to 

 occur. By ' •' at a joint ' ' is meant an 

 eighth to a fourth of an inch below the 

 joint. 



Then, again, you will see men denude 

 a cutting of all the leaves except the 

 small, undeveloped ones, and others will 

 leave three or four large leaves, so that 

 if the cuttings were put into the sand 

 or potted they would be just a mass of 

 leaves unless you placed them far apart. 

 These mistakes are not always by the 

 boys or beginners, but sometimes by 

 men who ought to know better. The 

 trouble is due to carelessness, want of 

 brains and want of thought. 



Cuttings should be made quickly, but 



Did Yoo Ever Grow a Tree Geranium? 



they should be niadti i)roj)erly. The cut- 

 ting exists largely on what the leaf ab- 

 sorbs from the atmosphere and sends 

 down as material to form the root. 

 (Tliese remarks, of course, apply to soft- 

 wooded cuttings tliat are in active 

 growth.) So do not pull off all the 

 geranium leaves. Leave one perfect 

 leaf and one half developed; that will 

 allow you to stand the small pots close 

 together. 



While the foregoing describes the 

 way to trim a geranium cutting, it is 

 not a guide to the hundreds of other 

 soft-wooded plants we grow. With 

 many of the smaller-leaved kinds a 

 number of leaves can be left on, pcr- 

 liaps the more the better for the rooting 

 process, but if too many leaves were 

 allowed you would soon fill up your 

 ]>ropagating bed, and to crowd the cut- 

 tings, covering the sand densely, is just 

 the way to produce fungus on the sur- 

 face of the sand, which is a calamity 

 ami often results in serious loss. 



GERANIUM TREES. 



The illustration on this page shows a 

 floral specimen that is rarely grown, a 

 geranium in tree form. This was grown 

 by Poole & Purllant, Winchester, Ky., 

 who have grown several of these plants. 

 This one, however, is the best plant 

 turned out so far. It is a trifle less than 



3 years old, is five and a half feet high, 

 is three feet in diameter and, at the 

 time of photographing, carried fifty 

 blooms. The method of growing it was 

 a bit of labor, but it is interesting. 



It was grown from a fall, 1918, cut- 

 ting of the variety Heteranthe. This 

 plant, with several others, was left over 

 from the spring sale of 1919; so it was 

 decided to train it into a plant of the 

 tree form. It was put into a 6-inch pot 

 sometime during the latter part of 

 August, 1919. All the shoots but the 

 center one were cut off. That one was 

 ••illowed to grow until it was twenty-six 

 inches high. Then the center was cut 

 out and the plant was allowed to grow 

 at its own free will until late in the 

 fall, when each shoot was topped and 

 rooted with other cuttings for the 

 sin-ing. 



It was kept cool and was practicallv 

 untouched until March, 1920. Then i't 

 was repotted into an 8-inch pot. Dur- 

 ing the fall of 1920, it was again topped 

 at each shoot and treated the same as 

 the year before. In February of this 

 year, it was put into a 10-inch pot and 

 grown in a warmer place. The result 

 is the plant as it stands in the illustra- 

 tion. 



The soil used was heavy and was 

 enriched with bone and watered occa- 

 sionallv with liquid manure. 



"Does it pay?" "Will they sell?" 



