,. n^,,,- 



Septembkb 20, 1904. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



895 



Freshly Imported Azaleas. 



Last week I had something to say 

 about azaleas that had been summered 

 over. The new importations will soon 

 be arriving. They are almost all grown 

 in beds in the open ground in Europe 

 and, what with their wonderful prepa- 

 ration of soil and splendid care, they 

 arrive here with large clumps of roots, 

 larger than we can conveniently get into 

 a proper size of pot and look well. For 

 instance, a plant with a head fifteen 

 inches in diameter would look over- 

 potted in anything larger than a 7-inch, 

 but you can, with a big, sharp knife 

 or hatchet, reduce the ball of roots con- 

 siderably without doing any harm to 

 the plant and you can do this with all 

 sizes, so that they will go into pots that 

 will be in suitable proportion to the 

 plant. 



Frequently the ball of roots will be 

 found quite dry when the case is opened, 

 although we must admit they are al- 

 ways excellently packed, whether they 

 are dry or not. After you have trimmed 

 the roots, dip the ball in a tub of water 

 for a few seconds or until it is thor- 

 oughly wet through. Tlien pot firmly. 

 As there is little room between the 

 ball of roots and the side of the pot, 

 there is a good excuse to use a blunt 

 stick to firm the new soil. 



A light loam for one half and the 

 other half leaf-mold is as good a com- 

 post as you can give these finely rooted 

 plants. If you use any manure, let it 

 be thoroughly decayed. I have seen 

 azaleas root very finely into well 

 rotted refuse hops, but they will do very 

 little rooting, whatever you give them, 

 for some months. Put them in a cool 

 house and syringe occasionally for the 

 first week or two. 



Moving Herbaceous Plants. 



The coming two or three weeks is an 

 excellent time to transplant almost all 

 our well-known herbaceous plants. As 

 is often remarked, you can only get at 

 an herbaceous border at the time of 

 planting except with a top dressing, and 

 therefore it cannot be too deeply dug or 

 too heavily manured. 



The herbaceous plants that are profit- 

 able to a commercial florist as cut flow- 

 ers are very limited, but there is an 

 ever increasing demand for them by our 

 customers, particularly that class who 

 have summer cottages on the lake or 

 river shore or at the thousand and one 

 summer retreats where our people of 

 means very sensibly nowadays prefer to 

 spend their summers. 



All herbaceous plants, even if as 

 hardy as a peony, should be protected 

 with leaves, stable litter or evergreen 

 boughs after winter sets in. They are 

 not established and, if they were, we 

 rob them of their natural protection, 

 their own withered foliage and the 

 leaves of the forest where, or near the 

 margins of woods, most of them are 

 native. 



Easter Lilies. ,j,i(.,,t'.j'^ 



The Bermuda bulbs that were received 

 in .July have come along nicely, devel- 

 oping less disease than formerly, but still 

 they are not of that uniform quality we 

 used to get a dozen years ago. As soon 

 as they made a growth of a few inches in 

 the cold frame they were removed to the 

 houses in batches and by this time all 

 are growing and on the road to flowering. 

 The fact that these early forced bulbs 

 spread their flowering time from the end 

 of November until the end of January 

 is no disadvantage to the grower, who 

 only forces a thousand or two, for you 

 want these indispensable blooms every 

 day. 



There is nothing to do from now on 

 but give them a night temperature of 

 60 to 65 degrees and keep them free of 

 their chief enemy, the common green 

 aphis. When once the buds are visible 

 the fly is easily kept down by fumigat- 

 ing, or, better still, by the slow-burning 

 tobacco dust, which spreads plenty of 

 nicotine through the house without the 

 deleterious effects of dense, hot smoke 

 which arises from burning tobacco stems. 

 By the way, having used this method of 

 burning the dust in two pie dishes in a 

 rose range all last winter, we noticed 

 not the slightest injury to the roses, 

 while without a doubt the dense smoke 

 from stems does injure the opening buds. 



Some growers still depend on the Ber- 

 muda bulbs for Easter. Remember this 

 great florists ' day is very late next spring 

 and the plants intended for Easter can 

 remain in a cold frame for another six 

 or seven weeks, but protected from heavy 

 rains or hard frost. 



The Japanese bulbs are again late in 

 arriving. Perhaps the Marquis Oyama 

 has most of the gardeners on the west of 

 the Yalo. It is generally understood 

 that the principal object in forcing the 

 Japanese bulbs is to get them well root- 

 ed before bringing into the house. There- 

 fore a cold frame is the place for them 

 until at least the first of December, un- 

 less we get such an early and severe 

 winter as the last. We have never found 

 any trouble in getting the Japanese 

 lilies into flower, even when Easter came 

 in the first days of April. The coming 

 spring you have three weeks more. Gret 

 them well rooted before any forcing is 

 done and then they will endure and 

 thrive in a good brisk heat. As you 

 will have plenty of room on the benches 

 by the time these lilies need bringing in- 

 doors, put them at once into the pot in 

 which they are to flower. 



Deciduous Trees and Shrubs. 



After the first hard frost, or if that 

 does not come, by the middle of October, 

 the time has then arrived for planting de- 

 ciduous trees and shrubs. Early spring 

 may be the surest time, but we know 

 how short that season often is. You 

 need not wait for the dropping of the 

 leaves. Pull them off. I don't recall 

 any shrub that is really hardy in our 



northern states but what can be trans- 

 planted iu the fall. If it is a great, big, 

 overgrown shrub and in digging has 

 lost most of its working roots, it may 

 not survive and would not at any sea- 

 son. 



The great majority of shrubs should 

 not be over two to three feet high when 

 planted for your customer. They will 

 want something bigger, but your elo- 

 quence should convince them that it's 

 better in every way to start with a 

 small, compact shrub. If such are 

 planted then you can defer any pruning 

 until spring. They are pretty sure to 

 be quite a little winter-killed and will 

 need pruning then, whether killed back 

 or not. 



There are a few exceptions to fall 

 planting and better left until spring. 

 Among them are the althaeas, the African 

 tamarix and the Prunus Pissardi and, 

 with us, most decidedly the hybrid per- 

 petual roses, whether budded or on their 

 own roots. This may not be good ad- 

 vice for those south of Philadelphia, 

 but north of that the H. P. rose is only 

 just hardy and runs an excellent chance 

 of being killed root and branch if 

 planted in the fall. I always say: 

 "You had better defer planting the 

 roses until spring. They will be no 

 show or pleasure to you this winter and 

 I may as well take the risk of losing 

 them." That advice is always followed 

 and the writer is no more a philan- 

 thropist than the rest of you. 



You will be asked to plant some 

 hedges this fall. Two shrubs you can 

 plant with safety. They are Berberis 

 Thunbergii and the English privet. In 

 fact, the former you can plant, it seems, 

 any day in the year that you can get 

 a spade into the ground. The English 

 privet is absolutely hardy in our most 

 northern states. The California privet 

 was cut to the ground all over the north 

 last winter and cannot be recommended 

 with safety, fast growing and beautiful 

 though it is. William Scott. 



RED ANTS. 



Can you advise us as to what we can 

 use to exterminate the common red ant? 



T. S. C. 



We have never seen ants in the violet 

 house where we used the hydrocyanic 

 acid gas to kill the brown aphis. Yoii 

 may be afraid to use it, but if used ac- 

 cording to formula published in the 

 pages of the Review last winter, it is 

 harmless to any plant. Briefly it is 

 this: One pint of water, one pint sul- 

 phuric acid and two and one-half ounces 

 of cyanide of potassium (a deadly poi- 

 son) and leave the ventilators shut all 

 night. The above quantities are for 

 every 2,000 cubic feet of air space in 

 your house. 



Granulated sugar with enough Paris 

 green to only very slightly color the 

 sugar is also used to give ants their 

 last supper. Put it on chips and re- 

 move when you water or syringe. This 

 is also a good mixture to destroy sow 

 bugs. W. S. 



ASTERS AND GLADIOLL 



I would like to know when to sow 

 asters and gladioli for early spring in- 

 side flowering and what varieties of 

 same to use. L. F. W. 



For asters that are to be grown 



on 



