12 



The Florists' Review 



Ai'BiL 8, 1915. 



BLIND WOOD ON GERANIUMS. 



We have been troubled for the last 

 two seasons with blind growth on our 

 Ricard and Beaute Poitevine gerani- 

 ums. Last season, for the first time 

 in our experience of about ten years, 

 a large number of our geraniums re- 

 fused to bloom, producing instead a 

 blunt terminal growth. The foliage of 

 some of the plants had a mottled ap- 

 pearance, and on other plants the leaves 

 were deformed and wrinkled. We have 

 been culling the plants rigidly since 

 taking them in last fall. In fact, we 

 were not aware of housing plants from 

 the field that showed any signs of the 

 trouble. It is, however, still appearing, 

 but only on the above named varieties. 

 The other varieties grown under the 

 same conditions successfully are Nutt, 

 Landry, Perkins, Viaud, Castellane, 

 Jaulin and white. W. K. — Mich. 



I do not think that anything in your 

 culture has caused the geraniums to 

 throw blind wood. My experience has 

 been that it all depends on care in 

 the selection of cuttings. A few years 

 ago I had a somewhat similar experi- 

 ence with a batch of Nutt and General 

 Grant. One year two or three plants 

 showed some blind wood. These were 

 not sold, but planted out for stock. 

 They started away near the ground and 

 made a nice crop of cuttings, which 

 were propagated, and the result was 

 that towards spring I found a consid- 

 erable portion were blind. I would 

 throw away every plant which throws 

 any blind wood at all. If this is done, 

 I think you will soon overcome the 

 trouble. No spraying will be of any 

 value. For plants which are not blind 

 but have a somewhat starved appear- 

 ance, try a couple of weak doses of 

 nitrate of soda water at intervals of 

 ten to twelve days. C. W. 



BLIGHTING OF THE LEAVES. 



We are mailing you, under separate 

 cover, samples of geranium and hy- 

 drangea leaves that are aflfected by 

 some sort of rust or pest. Last season 

 we lost thousands of geraniums and 

 hundreds of hydrangeas because of this 

 blighting of the leaves. As you may 

 see, the trouble affects the edge of the 

 leaf first, gradually approaching the 

 center until the entire leaf is eaten 

 away. We attributed it last year to 

 our soil, which we thought might have 

 been contaminated by street oil, as our 

 compost pile was partly made up of 

 street sweepings of horse manure. Our 

 poinsettias were similarly affected. 

 This year we are using a different soil, 

 but still have the trouble. In fact, 

 our geranium stock was in the same 

 condition in the field last summer. Per- 

 haps you can' tell us whether it is a 

 disease or is caused by a pest. In 

 either case, what treatment would be 



beneficial? We have bought a good 

 many geraniums from outside in the 

 last few years and thought that per- 

 hai)s we might have brought in the 

 trouble in that way. S. F. C. — Mo. 



The foliage forwarded had been at- 

 tacked by a disease which seems to be 

 increasingly prevalent among gera- 

 niums, but I have not hitherto known 

 of the same trouble affecting poinsettias 

 and hydrangeas. Your soil may be at 

 fault and I would suggest that you 

 send a sample of it to your state agri- 

 cultural college and ask for an analysis. 

 I think it quite probable that your soil 

 contains too much acid and that a lim- 

 ing may correct this in large measure. 

 The leaf disease you have is often 

 caused by the specialists in geraniums 

 keeping their cuttings too long in the 

 propagating benches, or keeping the 

 little pots in which they are rooted 

 too crowded. 



It would be best to throw away the 

 worst affected stock. Keep the balance 

 picked over and spaced apart a little 



more. Try to get new growth started 

 on them. To assist in this, give the 

 plants, providing they are well rooted 

 in the pots, a watering with nitrate of 

 soda water, using five pounds to fifty 

 gallons of water. Repeat the watering 

 in ten or twelve days. Also give the 

 soil in the pots a sprinkling of fine 

 bone, to encourage the roots to rise to 

 the tops of the pots. Soot water is 

 also good for greening up the foliage. 

 Use black soft coal soot. Fill a bag 

 with it and sink it in a barrel of water. 

 Leave it there for a few days, stirring 

 up occasionally. Use one part of the 

 black liquid to five parts of water and 

 apply once a week. This is good for 

 any sickly plants. 



Buying geraniums from outside may 

 have brought in some of your trouble. 

 Try to. get clean stock and do your own 

 propagating, which will prove vastly 

 more satisfactory. Many growers sell 

 out their stock too clean, leave little 

 for planting out for themselves and de- 

 pend on bought stock. No matter how 

 carefully geranium specialist's raise 

 their plants and how carefully they 

 pack, there is bound to be more or less 

 loss to the purchaser, especially when 

 long-distance shipments are made. If 

 you are a long distance from reliable 

 geranium specialists, that is all the 

 more reason why you should do your 

 own propagating. 



Poinsettias are fickle subjects; too 

 much or too little water, improper feed- 

 ing or a chill from low temperature may 

 be responsible for loss of foliage. 



C. "W. 



FIFTY PEE CENT SPLIT. 



A large percentage of our carnation 

 blooms are coming split, perhaps fifty 

 per cent or more. We have tried to 

 find the cause of the trouble, but so far 

 have failed. Our temperature is even, 

 48 to 52 degrees at night, with the 

 proper rise in the daytime. Some parts 

 of the three houses are slightly warmer 

 than others .and some of each variety 

 of the Enchantress family are in solid 

 beds and some in well drained benches, 

 but all are splitting alike, so we con- 

 clude that the trouble is not one of 

 temperature or watering. 



We probably fed them with manure 

 water a little too heavily in December 

 and January, but we stopped when the 

 splitting commenced and have given 

 nothing since except an application of 

 lime in February. At present the 

 plants are in strong growth, with fine 

 quality of stem and flower, and are 

 apparently healthy, but are splitting as 

 badly as they did a month ago. Can 

 it be that the plant food in the soil is 

 poorly balanced? 



The soil in which they are planted 

 was composted the fall before, with 

 three parts of soil to one part of horse 

 manure, and the manure water we used 

 was from horse manure. A good carna- 

 tion grower recently told me he did 

 not use manure water, because it fur- 



nished only nitrogen and no potash or 

 phosphoric acid. Is there any truth in 

 this? What is the difference between 

 cattle and horse manure for liquid feed- 

 ing? Is pigeon manure good for this 

 purpose? J. P. K.— Md. 



The splitting of the calyx is not 

 always due to either overfeeding or im- 

 proper night temperature, although 

 these are the most frequent causes. 

 It is quite probable, however, that your 

 liquid feeding last December contrib- 

 uted in a greater or less degree to your 

 troubles. 



We find that if a prolonged spell of 

 cloudy weather is followed by a spell 

 of bright, sunny weather, any variety 

 that is inclined to split the calyx will 

 most likely do some splitting. It is 

 caused by a sudden spurt in the growth 

 of the flower buds, which puts more 

 strain on the calyx than it is able to 

 bear. If the culture has been moderate, 

 the splitting may be inconsiderable, 

 but if the plants have been crowded 

 with rich food, the results are likely 

 to be more or less serious. The dose 

 of lime you applied would only have 

 aggravated the trouble, because the 

 lime liberated additional plant food, 

 when the plants already had too much. 

 The plant food is not poorly balanced. 

 There is simply too much of it. I 

 would suggest holding the day tempera- 

 ture down within 10 degrees of the 

 night temperature on bright days. On 



