14 



The Florists' Review 



SEFrEMBBB 11, 1913. 



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Bouvardias. 



Those useful early winter flowering 

 plants, the bouvardias, are quite tender 

 and must not be subjected to any tem- 

 perature even approaching freezing. 

 The foliage may not show any ill ef- 

 fects of a minimum of even 32 degrees, 

 but the flowers will assuredly suffer. 

 A bench in a house piped to maintain 

 a minimum of 60 degrees will suit bou- 

 vardias. Endeavor to lift with a ball 

 and all possible fibrous roots. With- 

 out a ball there is danger of the plants 

 dying. Soak well with water, spray 

 freely while hot weather continues and 

 sh'ade from direct sunshine until they 

 become established. 



That fine, pure white, sweet-scented 

 variety, B. Humboldtii, grows much 

 more vigorously than other sorts and 

 should have more head room. A center 

 solid bed suitB it well, and, if fancy 

 flowers are desired, rub out all the 

 weaker shoots. In this way it is pos- 

 sible, with strong plants, to get trusses 

 carried on 36-inch or even longer stems. 

 Usually, however, shorter-stemmed 

 stock proves more salable. B. Hum- 

 boldtii also is excellent in pots, and for 

 decorative purposes is specially desir- 

 able on account of its delicious night 

 odor. 



Cyclamens. 



Cyclamens, which it is desired to 

 have in flower from Thanksgiving to 

 Christmas, should now be ready for 

 their final potting. Those in 5-inch 

 and G-inch pots are the most salable, 

 but there is also considerable call for 

 large-sized plants. For early flowering 

 the plants are now better kept in the 

 greenhouses right along, but for late 

 winter blooming the plants will be 

 much stockier and can be more easily 

 retarded in coldframes. With neces- 

 sary mats or other protecting material 

 for cold nights, cyclamens can be easily 

 kept in coldframes until early Novem- 

 ber or even later. For the final potting 

 use a compost consisting of three parts 

 good fibrous loam and one part dry cow 

 manure screened through a ^-inch 

 screen, adding a 6-inch pot of Clay's 

 fertilizer to each four bushels of com- 

 post. ISome sharp sand and fine char- 

 coal also are helpful, especially if the 

 soil is heavy. Pot the plants moder- 

 ately firm. Be .careful not to cover 

 the corms and give the plants a posi- 

 tion just as near ,the glass as possible. 



It is a good plan to give the plants 

 a dip in a nicotine or soap solution 

 when repotted for the last time, as a 

 preventive or check to thrips and the 

 dreaded cyclamen mite. Throw away 

 at once any plants the foliage of which 

 shows indications of the mite. It usu- 

 ally cleans out whole batches of plants. 



If seed for another season is not yet 

 sown, lose no time in getting it into 

 the soil. Buy the best strains and the 

 colors that are the most popular, such 

 as pink, salmon and red, for Christ- 

 mas, and white. Drain the flats or 

 pans efficiently, put some coarse ma- 

 terial over this and let the upper part 



be composed of leaf-mold, sand and a 

 little loam finely screened. Lay the 

 seeds down singly about one-half to 

 three-fourths inches apart each way, 

 just covering them with the compost. 

 1 like to place a thin layer of sand 

 over this, otherwise the surface is 

 liable to become slimy. Give the pans 

 or flats a covering of glass and paper, 

 and a night temperature of 60 to 65 



degrees. 



Poinsettias. 



The last batch of poiiisettia cuttings 

 put in the propagating bench should 

 be rooted now and these, potted oflf 

 and later transferred several together 

 into 6-inch and 8-inch pans, will make 

 fine, dwarf plants for Christmas, just 

 what the bulk of the buyers are look- 

 ing for. Until after the middle of Sep- 

 tember, it does not make much differ- 

 ence what house or frame the poin- 

 settias are in, for up to the time the 

 bracts start to develop they do not re- 

 quire a high temperature. After that 

 time, however, let the absolute mini- 

 mum be 60 degrees. Then you are 

 sure the bracts will be developed on 

 time. 



Careful watering is what poinsettias 

 need. The grower who can prodifce 

 plauts with foliage down to the top of 

 the soil when the bracts are developed 

 is the one to whom we -can afford to 



take our hats off, for seldom do we se.> 

 such on the market. Leaving the littk' 

 plants in small pots too long is anothe:' 

 cause for foliage going off, but care 

 less watering is the prime cause. 



Primulas. 



All varieties of winter-flowerin;: 

 primulas are now making much more 

 rapid growth, and they will need atten 

 tion in potting before the balls be 

 come too hard and matted. Use a light, 

 but fairly rich compost for the final 

 potting. There is no place so good for 

 primulas for some weeks yet as a cold- 

 frame with the pots plunged, or partly 

 plunged, in clean coal ashes, removing 

 the sashes on cloudy days and at night 

 unless heavy rains threaten. Pinch off 

 all flowers which appear and look out 

 for green worms, which are at this sea- 

 son destructive on the young growths. 

 These sometimes will be entirely eaten 

 out before the grower knows anything 

 is amiss, unless a careful search is 

 made, especially on obconicas. Plant? 

 of P. obconica wanted for Christmas 

 should be placed in a carnation tem- 

 perature by the middle of September. 



Shew Pelargoniums. 



Show pelargoniums which have beeu 

 rested and pruned back fairly hard 

 should be shaken out and repotted as 

 soon as they start to break away 

 again. Shake the soil clean away and 

 shorten back the long roots. Use a 

 fibrous compost containing some fine 

 cow manure and a little bone. All the 

 plauts can go into pots one or two sizes 

 smaller than they flowered in. They 

 will do well in a coldframe for some 

 time, with the sashes removed alto- 

 gether except in the case of torrential 

 rains. 



INFESTED WITH MEALY BUG. 



You will find enclosed a spray of 

 plumosus and a chrysanthemum, with 

 a white, mossy substance covering 

 them. We shall greatly appreciate any 

 information about this disease. What 

 shall we do to rid the plants of it? 

 There is a great deal of it on our 

 mums and it seems to spread rapidly. 

 It is also getting started on the plumo- 

 sus. W^e first noticed it on some coleus. 

 The coleus plants were soon covered 

 and they died. The mums are sixty 

 feet from the plumosus and coleus. 



E. F. C. 



The insect infesting the plumosus 

 and munis is our old friend the mealy 

 bug, and E. F. C. evidently has a good 

 supply of the pest. Mealy bug is hard 

 to eradicate. It is claimed by some 

 growers that fumigating with cyanide 

 will absolutely clean it out. I have 

 never used this gas and so am not in 

 a position to state as to its merits, but 

 if E. F. C. will be careful in its use it 

 will be worth while to try it. Fumiga- 

 tion with tobacco has little effect on 

 mealy bug. Spraying with tobacco ex- 

 tracts, unless these are extra strong, is 

 not of much use either. Anything in the 



house that is not of value should be 

 cut down and burned, because mealy 

 bug, when so bad that the coleus is in 

 fested, is a serious matter to overcome. 



Chas. H. Totty. 



TWO QUERIES ON LEAF MINERS. 



Enclosed you will find a sample of 

 something that is destroying the foliage 

 on my mums. I shall be thankful to 

 you if you will tell me what to do to 

 destroy the pest. H. W. L. 



Enclosed you will find two mui i 

 leaves. Between the tissues of the 

 leaves are some small maggots. This 

 pest is doing a great deal of damagi' 

 to our mum foliage. Can you give us :i 

 remedy? It appears that a fly of some 

 kind lays the eggs for these maggots 

 inside the leaf; otherwise we cannot un- 

 derstand the cause. We shall be thanl;- 

 ful to you for an early reply. 



S. S. 



The chrysanthemums of H. W. L. 

 and of S. S. are suffering from the 

 same pest. The insect deposits its egg^ 

 between the tissues of the leaf and the 

 maggot eats all the center out of tbo 

 leaf, leaving the upper and lower sec- 



