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250 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



June 30, 1904. 



Deeoratiou day, while supplies have been 

 larger since, as the stock came into 

 Uoom. One of the items in short supply 

 and scarce ever since the trade got 

 fairly under way, was English ivy. Thin 

 is largely used in filling window boxes 

 -and lawn vases and every year larger 

 -quantities are required for coverinfj 

 .graves in cemeteries. Vincas, too, were 

 sold out early. Alternanthera has been in 



demand and echeveria, but largely for 

 cemetery use, the carpet bedding which 

 formerly consumed such quantities of 

 these plants having fallen into disuse. 

 Practically everything is now sold out 

 cleaner than for several years, and the 

 production was larger than ever. On the 

 whole the plantsmen are to be congratu- 

 lated on the splendid outcome of a sea- 

 son which had an inauspicious start. 



Mignonette. m^!^ 



About the middle of July is a good 

 time to sow mignonette. I am not go- 

 ing to recommend any particular va- 

 riety. All are good when well grown, 

 and most growers select their plants and 

 save their own seeds. Allen's Defiance, 

 when true, is an excellent variety for 

 winter use. A solid bed has the advant- 

 age that it keeps the plants fresh and 

 growing till late in the spring, but if 

 the crop is to be thrown out by April 1 

 to make room for bedding plants, then a 

 raised bench with five inches of soil 

 will give excellent results. If your bed 

 or bench is all ready you can sow the 

 seeds where they are to remain. If 

 that is not convenient, then sow three 

 little groups of seeds in 3-inch pots. 

 Yoa can afterwards divide into sections 

 without the soil leaving the roots. 

 Mignonette does not at all like the trans- 

 planting process. A foot apart is plenty 

 «Iaae enough if you want fine spikes. It 

 is well to have two or three little plants 

 till they are an inch or two high, for 

 the green worm may want some of them. 

 This green worm is so exactly the color of 

 the leaves that they are not easily de- 

 tected till you see the depredations. After 

 a spraying, dust on some hellebore and 

 that will settle the worm. 



Pansies. 



We have become very well acquainted 1 

 of late with a large pansy grower who 

 has not a foot of glass and yet in or- 

 dinary seasons can ship by the middle 

 ot April many thousands of splendid 

 pansies, each plant with two or three flow- 

 ers. He sows about the middle of July. 

 The seed beds, of finely prepared, light 

 soil, are in the broad sun. The seed is 

 sown in very shallow drills and the sur- 

 face of the bed is never allowed to be- 

 come dry or in the slightest degree baked. 

 A cloudy day they may only want water- 

 ing twice; on a sunny, windy day they 

 may want watering ten times, and they got 

 it. After the little plants are well up. 

 watering is only necessary to keep them 

 growing. 



This is not the only way to raise pan- 

 faeBf but it has one advantage, that th? 

 plants are not drawn up weak, whieii 

 they often are if sown iu the shade. 

 Sowing so early enables you to have a 

 strong flowering plant before winter 

 sets in and, if not much hurt by win- 

 ter's frost, you have an early bloom- 

 ing plant, just what is wantetl for the 

 spring garden or for vase filling. Some 

 growers lay rye straw between the plants 

 just before freezing up begins, but I 

 shall never believe that anything is so 



good for winter protection as hemlock 

 boughs, where they are available. There 

 is a bow to these branches and if laid 

 with the bow up, the branches do not 

 lie heavily on the plants. 



This old gentleman, whose method we 

 have been watching, does not cover at 

 all and with the exception of such a ter- 

 ror as last winter loses but a small frac- 

 tion of the plants. Now the above is a 

 good plan to raise early pansies, for 

 which we have most use, yet pansies 

 make a pretty show the entire summer if 

 kept watered and the withered flowers 

 picked off, and for this purpose there is 

 nothing like the plants from seed sown 

 in early February in the greenhouse. 

 They may be small at planting time, but 

 they last, while these older and larger 

 plants soon become exhausted. 



Lily of the Valley. 



We grew a few hundred lily of the 

 valley every week last summer till the 

 new crop came in. Very large growers 

 have their own cold storage houses, where 

 the roots can be kept at a proper tem- 

 perature, but we have never found our 

 local cold storage houses to do this faith- 

 fully and have lost a good many roots 

 by their being kept too cold. About 28 

 to 30 degrees is, I believe, the correct 

 temperature. So we got these few hun- 

 dred weekly from a New York import- 

 ing house and they were fine and profit- 

 able. Five inches of sand in any house 

 where the glass is well shaded is all 

 that is wanted to flower these retarde.J 

 roots, except one important point; don't 

 let any draught strike them or they will 

 quickly wilt and be ruined. 



Lancifolium Lilies. 



Lilium lancifolium will soon be giv- 

 ing us bloom and very beautiful and 

 sweet they are, album and rubrum es- 

 pecially, and no one can object to the 

 odor. There is good excuse for people 

 kicking at the use of the gorgeous 

 auratum. Wonderful fl«we» that it is, 

 either outside, in the border or in the 

 conser\atory, it is overpowering in a 

 room and about as much out of place in 

 a design as an old fashioned sunflower 

 would be. The lancifolium lilies may grow 

 and flower in the broad sun in bright, 

 fighting Japan, but grown here in potri 

 they like neither our high summer tem- 

 perature nor bright sun. Keep them in 

 a shaded, cool house and the flowers will 

 be larger and better in every way. 



Put on the Paint. 



Most roses are planted, it is a few 

 weeks early for carnations and yet there 



18 no ra^t for the florist. If you have 

 no benches to build, you have houses 

 to paint, either inside or out, or both, 

 and no-4itoori and expense can be better 

 laid out thanVon a coat of paint. It is 

 a warm job under the glass just now but 

 with a large piece of canvas over rho 

 glass, and moved along as you progress, 

 it is quite endurable. The benefits of a 

 coat of paint to the interior of a house 

 are many. Not the least is the satisfac- 

 tion and thrill of pleasure you get 

 every time you enter the bright, clean 

 house. You get a light house, which is 

 of the greatest benefit to the plants, and 

 you have destroyed countless eggs and 

 spores of your enemies. You have 

 helped to preserve the i^ood. In fact, 

 you have done a mighty good job and 

 one that you will be thankful for and 

 proud of when finished, and it is not 

 such a great effort after all. We do 

 absolutely necessary labor of ten times 

 the volume with the greatest cheerful- 

 ness and perspiration, but shy at paint- 

 ing because you can "get along another 

 season without it." Last year we bought 

 of Benjamin Hammond a barrel of his 

 prepared white paint for greenhouses 

 and found it superior to any lead and 

 linseed oil we could buy and mix our- 

 selves. It left a fine, shiny gloss on 

 the bars. Money laid out in paint is a 

 good investment. 



William Scott. 



ADL«lNTUM. 



I wish some of the wise ones would 

 tell us how to grow maidenhair ferns 

 successfully. Mr, Scott's remark that 

 * * of all greens it is the queen and there 

 is no king" caused me to lay in a sup- 

 ply, but my plants do not at the present 

 writing emphasize the compliment. 



E. T, 



The best method of growing -maiden- 

 hair ferns for cutting is to plant them 

 out on a bench, the usual practice being 

 as follows: 



Fill a bench with four to six inches 

 of good soil preferably composed of rot- 

 ten sod or top soil mixed with one-sixth 

 to one-fifth of dry cow manure, the ma- 

 nure being broken up well among th»} 

 soil. Then take healthy young adian- 

 tums from 3-inch pots, or 4-inch if you 

 have them, and plant in the bed about 

 fifteen inches apart, being careful not 

 to bury the crowns of the plants too 

 deeply. Plant firmly and then give .n 

 good watering to settle the soil, but do 

 not water the ferns too frequently before 

 they get well started into growth, for 

 when the soil gets soured the ferns never 

 make a good start. 



Shade the glass moderately with white- 

 wash or some other preparation that will 

 come off in the fall, for while shading 

 is required now, the growth will be tor 

 soft for cutting if grown with too little 

 light in the fall and winter. Ventilate 

 freely both day and night during warm 

 weather, but avoid strong draughts on 

 the plants, and give a little fire heat 

 when the nights grow cold enough to re- 

 quire fire in a rose house, the object be- 

 ing to maintain a temperature of 60 to 

 62 degrees in the fern house at night, 

 with fresh air in abundance and a reas- 

 onably moist atmosphere. 



If planted now the adiantums should 

 produce fronds in abundance for winter 

 use. but will require watching in case 

 the house in wliich they are planted is 

 infested with snails, these pests having 

 a great liking for the young fronds. 



