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14 



The Rorists' Review 



April 22, 1915. 







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SEASONABLE SUaOESTIONS. 



Stock for Bedding Out. 



The time for selling geraniums will 

 soon be here and every effort should 

 be made to have the stock in as good 

 a condition as possible. No matter 

 how many geraniums are propagated 

 each year, the demand always seems 

 equal to or greater than the supply that 

 is ready early in the season, something 

 which cannot be said of any other bed- 

 ding plants. There are growers today 

 who are thousands short and who find 

 it hard work to secure what' they need. 

 Geraniums are good property, as their 

 popularity steadily increases. 



The earliest propagated plants will 

 be, or should be, in 4-inch pots. Keep 

 them spaced apart from time to time 

 and if they show any signs of starva- 

 tion at the root, feed them judiciously. 

 Do not use cow manure water. Such 

 foods as Bon Arbor or fine bone will 

 be found much better. Liquid from 

 animal manures produces too soft a 

 growth and the plants flower sparsely. 

 We need a short-jointed, stocky growth 

 if flowers are wanted. 



Later propagated stock should be 

 given its final potting now. Nice plants 

 may be had in 3-inch pots. This size 

 will not realize so much money as the 

 fall propagated plants, but will pay 

 fully as well. 



Do not keep the geraniums too warm; 

 50 degrees at night is ample. Give an 

 abundance of fresh air , and remove 

 faded trusses and bad foliage. Plan 

 to have as many as possible of the 

 plants in bloom by the time they are 

 to be sold. Customers invariably pre- 

 fer small plants with a truss open to 

 larger plants without flowers. 



The Leaf Disease. 



There contihues to be more or less 

 trouble the country over with leaf dis- 

 ease on geraniums. Nearly everyone 

 having this trouble reports that their 

 own stock was clean, but that boughten 

 stock developed disease. It looks as 

 though some of our geranium spe- 

 cialists were not exercising all the care 

 they might with their own stock. Cut- 

 tings are, no doubt, often left too long 

 in the sand, or, if in small pots, are 

 allowed to stand too crowded. Then 

 these rooted cuttings are shipped long 

 distances and, no matter how carefully 

 packed, they will lose some of their 

 foliaige in transit. These weakened 

 plants would naturally fall an easy 

 prey to disease and, once it has ap- 

 peared, it is not eapy to check. Per- 

 fect cleanliness, plenty of fresh air and 

 sun, care in watering, both at the root 

 and overhead, frequent picking over 

 and spacing apart, the discarding of 

 badly affected plants and a tempera- 

 ture not exceeding 50 degrees at night 

 will do more to alleviate the trouble 

 than spraying, although Fungine and 

 Bordeaux mixture are useful in com- 



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bating the blight which causes spots 

 on the leaves. 



Since Easter it has been possible to 

 give plants more room, but the Me- 

 morial day crops also demand much ad- 

 ditional space. Where the grower has 

 an ample supply of coldframes, gera- 

 niums from this time on will be found 

 to thrive splendidly in them. In some 

 sections it may still be found advisable 

 to tramp a few inches of warm ma- 

 nure in the bottom and partly plunge 

 the pots in this. This gives a gentle 

 bottom heat and prevents drying out 

 at the roots. Geraniums thus treated 

 make a wonderful growth, and, being 

 so close to the glass, the growth is 

 stocky. It is also easy, by removing 

 the sashes on hot days and mild nights, 

 to gradually harden off the -plants. 



TOO WARM FOR GERANIUMS. 



We are sending you some geranium 

 leaves which look bad and we should 

 like to have you tell us what is wrong. 

 We have never had anything like it in 

 our greenhouses until this spring. We 

 have been buying geraniums from sev- 

 eral concerns and think the trouble 



may have got into the greenhouses in 

 this way. We are growing the gera- 

 niums in a fine, new, airy, greenhouso 

 and they have had a temperature of Sf) 

 to 60 degrees at night in severe weather. 

 H. F. C— Ohio. 



Some of the leaves seemed to be dis- 

 eased. Others, of a reddish color, I 

 would hardly call diseased, but they 

 seemed somewhat starved. Any gera 

 niums grown in a warm, sunny house, 

 ' such as you evidently have, and given 

 as high a temperature as 55 to 60 de- 

 grees at night in severe weather, if 

 much potbound, would so«n develop 

 foliage like the samples sent. Your 

 night temperature has been far tdo 

 high, A temperature of 45 to 50 de- 

 grees at night is ample for bedding 

 geraniums at all times, except when 

 being propagated, when a slightly 

 higher temperature, with some bottom 

 heat, is an advantage. I would advise 

 you to keep the plants 10 degrees 

 cooler at night. Air freely and do not 

 maintain a humid atmosphere, as such 

 a condition is bad for geraniums. 

 Feed the plants; the reddish color of 

 the foliage is evidently caused by lack 

 of plant food. This food can be fine 

 bone, weak nitrate of soda or some 

 other chemical fertilizer, rather than 

 liquid animal manure. I would throw 

 away any hopeless-looking plants and 

 pick over the balance. 



Another season, if you would propa- 

 gate your own stock, you would be 

 more certain of having clean plants. 

 It seems to be a fact that some bed- 

 ding specialists are not sufficiently 

 careful with either the growing or the 

 sending out of young plants. C. W. 



HOLDING OVER OLD PLANTS. 



When chrysanthemum plants are left 

 in the house after they are through 

 blooming, what is the best way to treat 

 them with a view to next fall? If the 

 growth is one foot tall, should they be 

 cut back? Would the old plants bloom 

 earlier than freshly planted stock? Is 

 it advisable to depend on last year's 

 planting, for one flower to each stem? 



C. L.— Ohio. 



If the growth is a foot tall, it might 

 perhaps be well to cut it back about 

 halfway; then the shoots that will 

 break out from the sides will be all 

 right. If cuttings were taken from 

 the tips of the growth, with the plant 

 as tall as stated, it is entirely possible 

 that they would run to bud; in fact, 

 they might be showing .buds already. 

 These buds will develop if left on the 

 plants and it is not an unusual thing 

 to see a considerable crop of chrysan- 

 themum flowers in May, though such 

 treatment of the plants is not wise or 

 profitable. C. L. would better take 

 fresh cuttings for his stock and throw 

 out the old plants as soon as he has 

 the cuttings secured. Then, by plant- 

 ing the cuttings in new soil in June or 

 July, he will get much better results 

 than by trying to get along with the 

 old stock. C, H. Totty. 



PINCHINO POMPONS. 



Should pompons grown on a bench 

 for cutting be pinched? If so, when 

 and how often? F. B.— 111. 



Whether pompons should be pinched 

 or not is governed by the time the 

 plants are set out and their height at 

 that time. The object of pinching is 

 to make the plants dwarf in habit and 

 make them produce more shoots. If 

 you set out low plants in June or July, 

 they will hardly, need any pinching. 

 The plant will make what is known as 

 a first break; that is, it will produce a 

 bud with three or four growing shoots 

 around it. These shoots grow away and 

 will make separate branches which are 

 ideal for cutting. If you have some 

 plants that were propagated early, you 

 can pinch them until the middle of 

 June, and let them carry up anywhere 

 from ten to twenty shoots, according 

 to the size of the plants, if you wish 

 to do this. 



Our expenience in growing pompons 

 has been, however, that if we set out 

 little stock that has been propagated 

 early in May, and let them grow away 

 naturally without any pinching at all, 

 they give us ideal stock for cutting, 

 with shoots from one to two feet long> 

 according to the variety. 



C. H. Totty. 



