

W.''v^'i^iyriy>^'^^ 



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The Weekly Florists* Review* 



x\ 



Mabch 2, 1905. 



mercially or otherwise, should take ad- 

 vantage of this opportunity to see a 

 superb exhibition and meet the foremost 

 rosarians of America. Come yourself 

 and bring an exhibit with you. 



Exhibits may be sent, prepaid, care of 

 Wm. Nicholson, Horticultural Hall, Bos- 

 ton. For the convenience of exhibitors 

 at a distance Welch Bros., 15 Province 

 street, Boston, have generously placed 

 their refrigerators and other conven- 



iences of their establishment at the dis- 

 posal of exhibitors who may, if they so 

 desire, ship their boxes in advance to 

 Welch Bros.' care, giving explicit in- 

 structions by mail as to what disposi- 

 tion they wish ma:de of them, whether 

 the boxes are to be kept unopened or 

 whether the flowers are to be taken out 

 and placed in jars of water until re- 

 quired. Instructions will be carefully 

 complied with. W. J. .Stewart, Sec 'y. 



MISCELLANEOUS 

 SEASONABLE HINTS. 



Temporary Shading. 



The sun, so welcome and inspiring to 

 man and daisy alike, now rises higher 

 and higher each succeeding day and its 

 rays are getting powerful. Many days 

 in March the temperature outside will 

 be too sharp to admit of liberal ven- 

 tilation, but the sun will raise the heat 

 under glass much higher than we desire 

 and shading some things will become 

 a necessity. Under poor glass, and all 

 our greenhouse glass is more or less 

 poor, unless it be plate, the young 

 growth of plants will burn and should 

 be protected in some way. It is, of 

 course, many weeks too soon to put on 

 any permanent shade and the very great 

 majority of our soft-wooded plants will 

 just delight in the bright sun. 



Palms, it seems, will burn more easily 

 in March than they do two months later. 

 Palms, particularly latanias and ken- 

 tias, will endure the full blaze of the 

 sun outdoors during the summer with- 

 out harm, but may quickly be disfigured 

 during March or April. 



We believe the prevalent idea that 

 leaves burn readily when drops of water 

 are left on them from syringing is a 

 complete fallacy. Water would be more 

 a protection than a means of injury. 

 Dryness at .the root, which means dry- 

 ness of the^-whole tissue of the plant, 

 is the cause of almost all the burning 

 and bleaching of our plants of any 

 kind, either under glass or outside. One 

 more point. Our plants have been 

 growing all winter under conditions 

 which make them soft. Dark days, 

 with little ventilation, is more the rule 

 than the exception since the middle of 

 December and our plants are in a very 

 different condition from the same 

 plants in October, after a summer of 

 sunshine and fresh, free air. 



Cheese-aoth Best. 



Tack up to the roof, or better still, 

 roll up on a small light rod, some 

 cheese-cloth that can be spread over your 

 batch of young palms. Carnation grow- 

 ers by this time use cheese-cloth to 

 shade their colored varieties, particu- 

 larly Lawson, which bleaches badly under 

 the bright sun. This material subdues 

 the sun 's rays but does not darken a 

 house and the higher it is above the 

 plants, so much the better. In case of 

 colored carnations the cheese-cloth 

 tacked permanently to- the sash-bars is 

 good enough. It will do no harm until 

 August. 



Excuse me for "butting in," but I 



cannot but admire William Weber's re- 

 marks against newspapers for shading 

 propagating beds. I have for years be- 

 lieved that was the most hideous and 

 fungus breeding method you could de- 

 vise. On February 17 I saw a house 

 about 18x80 running north and south. 

 From end to end it was filled with 

 carnation cuttings in all stages of ad- 

 vancement, how many thousand cuttings 

 I don't know. There was no newspa- 

 paper in sight, but four or five feet 

 above the cuttings was cheese-cloth 

 ready to unroll if necessary. You will 

 term me " Mr. Ananias Windy ' ' doubt- 

 less, but at the risk of that vile name 



I beg to say that of these 40,000 or 

 50,000 cuttings and at least twenty 

 varieties, I could not discover one un- 

 healthy cutting. John H. Dunlop may 

 well be proud of his propagating house, 

 for he has the process reduced to an 

 exact science. 



The Propagatins Season. 

 There will be with the general flor- 

 ist a great amount of propagating 

 from now on to the end of April and 

 1 still on during summer with begonias, 

 ' chrysanthemums, poinsettias and others. 

 I never was a believer in a north-side 

 propagating house during the darkest 

 winter months, but from now on their 

 good points are evident, chief of which 

 is low temperature. In the absence of 

 such a bouse a north and south house 

 does very well. Ideal propagating con- 

 ditions, the sand a few degrees higher 

 than the temperature of the atmos- 

 phere, can be controlled about right 

 during December, January and Febru- 

 ary, but from now on they cannot. 

 >The reverse will be the case. The tem- 

 perature of the house will be higher 

 and, with less need of firing, the sand 

 will be cooler. To compensate for the 

 evaporation, which will occur in warmer 

 weather, we must shade and keep the 

 cutting bed saturated. This treatment 

 will root all our soft-wooded plants and 

 the tender growths of many that can 

 be classed as woody. The great ob- 

 ject is to keep dpwn the temperature. 



Cutting Bench Fungus. 



It is many years since we liave been 



Begonia Glaucophylla Scandens. 



