^^ 



22 



The Florists' Review 



NOVEMBEE 6, 1913. 



lutely no effect on the roses, Killar- 

 neys will drop a lot of foliage at this 

 time of the year, no matter how you 

 may treat them, and if they are kept 

 in pots and are potbound it is almost 

 impossible to keep any foliage on them. 

 As long as no blind wood is cut off the 

 plants and the flowering shoots are not 

 cut back too hard, the plants will not 

 suffer from the loss of the bottom foli- 

 age unless they are checked from some 

 other cause. W. J. K. 



ODOR FROM WALL COVER. 



I wrote to you. recently about some 

 roses that were not doing well; the 

 leaves were dropping and not matur- 

 ing their growth. I thought at the 

 time that the falling of the leaves 

 might be caused by an overdose of 

 sulphur fumes or that possibly the soil 

 might not be good enough, as de- 

 scribed in my letter. The leaves con- 

 tinue to fall, so I have been looking 

 for another cause than sulphur fumes, 

 as the effect of these would hardly 

 persist for three or four weeks with- 

 out renewal. This morning it occurred 

 to me that the outside covering of 

 the walls might be the cause of the 

 trouble. The walls are rough boarded 

 and covered with some kind of roof- 

 ing material which I supposed was 

 partly composed of asphalt, but per- 

 haps it is tar. The building was cov- 

 ered last fall, but there were no plants 

 or heat in it until the present crop of 

 roses was planted. There was only 

 a slight odor of tar from the stuff 

 when it was freshly opened to be put 

 on, eleven months ago, and there is no 

 noticeable odor outside now. This 

 morning I noticed what seemed to be 

 an odor of tar down near the pipes 

 inside. I do not think there was heat 

 enough in the pipes to start the smell 

 of tar, if it is tar, as the tempera- 

 ture is seldom below 60 degrees out- 

 side and the pipes are scarcely warm; 

 there is just a little fire to keep the 

 air moving, with the ventilators open 

 almost an inch at night. 



The Killarneys are still losing foli- 

 age; some in 3%-inch pots are worse 

 than those in the bench. The Rich- 

 monds are on the outer end of the 

 bench, close to the end of the house, 

 and have this tar (?) covering or sheet- 

 ing on three sides of them. Although 

 they have not made so much growth 

 as the Killarneys, they have kept what 

 growth they did make and have lost 

 no foliage. Last fall I had to put 

 a new wall in a 75-foot carnation house 

 and I covered it with this same stuff, 

 but have not seen any bad effects on 

 them. Of course, the house is a great 

 deal larger and the carnations would, 

 perhaps, stand more than roses. 



I inclose a sample of the covering 

 used; you may be able to tell whether 

 it is tar or asphalt. 



This morning I started to try to 

 shut out the effects of the outside wall 

 covering. I tacked a strip of paper 

 over the cracks and on top of that 

 nailed a lath, in the hope that I would 



thus shut out a large proportion of the 

 odor of tar, and it was while doing 

 this I noticed the odor. I have made 

 the walls as tight as possible in the 

 hope of avoiding the work of stripping 

 the whole thing off, if that is the cause 

 of the trouble. 



I should like to have your opinion 

 of this wall covering. If it is a tar 

 compound, the whole thing is explained. 

 In that case, -will it be necessary to 

 strip it all off? When real firing be- 

 gins, will the heat of the pipes warm 

 the walls enough to increase the 

 fumes? W. C. 



If you follow my suggestions, as 

 given in The Review of October 23, 

 page 12, in reply to your first letter, 

 you should be able to remedy the 

 trouble. You might also find a hint 

 or two in my reply to H. G. A., on page 

 14 of The Review of October 16. The 

 asphaltum roofing felt used on the out- 

 side of the house should have abso- 



PROPAOATION OF HARDY ROSES. 



I have a number of hardy roses from 

 which I should like to take cuttings. 

 Will you kindly tell me the best way 

 to treat the stock plants and the best 

 method and time to strike the cuttings? 



A. G. B. 



The ripened cuttings of your hardy 

 roses can be taken any time in Novem- 

 ber. Make them three to four inches 

 long and place them in flats or pans of 

 sand in a cold greenhouse. They will 

 root in about three months, and then 

 can be potted off singly and later 

 planted outdoors in rich soil. They 

 will make good sized plants before fall. 

 A more common method of propagation 

 is that practiced by specialists, who 

 usually root hundreds of thousands of 

 hardy roses under glass. Dormant 

 plants are potted, pruned back, started 

 cool, gradually given more heat, and, 

 when the buds begin to show promi- 

 nently, which is just about the flower- 

 ing time, the wood is cut up into short 

 lengths, each containing a single eye; 

 then the cuttings are placed in a cut- 

 ting bench where they can have a lit- 

 tle bottom heat. All will be rooted in 



Timothy Smith. 



(Member DecoraUnR Committee for the Cleveland Trade Show.) 



