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August 10. 1905. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



603 



Lysimachia Nummularia* 



Window boxes of high and low degree 

 are likely to be much in fashion next 

 year. A window box is a small, 

 eramped-up style of ornamental garden- 

 ing compared to our veranda boxes, the 

 drooping plants in which hang down to 

 meet the coleus or oannas or salvias 

 planted in a narrow border at the base 

 of the veranda. Perhaps there is some 

 permanent climbing plant on the pillars, 

 and then on the spacious veranda sit the 

 bald-headed grandpa and two or three 

 generations of liis posterity. Such 

 scenes make our resident streets beauti- 

 ful and homelike. 



In such places we think window boxes 

 would be rather out of keeping. Not so 

 in crowded cities, where no plot of grass 

 or group of shrubs can exist between 

 the sidewalk and the house. There, 

 where nothing but brick and stone con- 

 front the eye, the window box is appre- 

 ciated. Twenty years ago we noticed 

 them much used in the country towns of 

 England and two gay colors were much 

 in evidence, the blue lobelia and Calceo- 

 laria aurea floribunda. Neither of these 

 jtlants is of use to us. The lobelia makes 

 a nice show the day it is put in the 

 box, but is never as good afterwards and 

 in July it goes out of commission en- 

 tirely. 



iNow there are any number of upright 

 plants suitable for these boxes, but free 

 growing drooping plants are not so com- 

 mon and it has taken these preliminary 

 remarks to tell you that one of the very 

 best is the common little money vine, 

 Lysimachia nummularia. This poor, 

 creeping little plant is crushed with the 

 name of a Grecian philosopher or Roman 

 emperor a little worse than Noro. \Vc 

 never have too many nice plants of it in 

 the month of May. In many places it 

 has escaped from vases or boxes and 

 has taken possession of the ground, 

 forming a green matt in place of sod. 



Cut off two or three inches of the 

 tender tops and dibble three of them 

 into a 2-inch pot. Place the tops any- 

 where outside or inside, but you may as 

 well put them in a frame at once, where 

 they are to stay until the end of next 

 March. Protect during the winter with 

 glass or boards or your pots will be 

 cracked, but the little plants want to be 

 frozen up. hard, for that is just what 

 they need. When they are thawed out 

 in early spring, bring them into the 

 greenhouse, pinch off the dead tops, if 

 any, and shift into 3-inch pots and set 

 along the edge of the benches and in a 

 few weeks you will have fine plants and 

 the runners covered with gay little yel- 

 low blossoms. I do not know of any 

 better or prettier plant for the purpose, 

 or one so cheaply supplied. 



There is another weed excellent as a 

 drooper, which wants just the same man- 

 ipulation. It is Glechoma variegata. 

 The green form of this will destroy any 

 grass if it gets a good start, but the 

 VHripgated form makes a fine drooper 

 where so-called vines are wanted. 



Poinsettias. 



Do not let shade from any cause be 

 over your young poinsettias. Keep them 

 on the lightest bench and the pots 

 plunged to keep them from continually 

 drying out. This is a good time to put 

 in a batch of cuttings for use for pans. 

 Do not take them out of the sand and 

 put directly into the 8, 10 or 12-inch 

 pans. Better pot in 2 V^ -inch and when 

 once rooted select for each pan plants of 

 uniform size and strength. You can 

 always depend on a good demand for 

 these well grown plants in pans and 

 there is much more profit in them than 

 there is in some flowering plants we 

 import. 



If your trade calls for cut stems of 

 these poinsettias there is plenty of time 

 yet to plant out young plants in five 



grow named varieties. About the middle 

 or the end of this month cut back a few 

 of each of 'the varieties you want to per- 

 petuate, stir up the ground around the 

 plants and work in a little fine manure. 

 In three or four weeks you will have 

 plenty of young growths, just the stuff 

 for cuttings, which will root much more 

 readily than the old, wiry cuttings that 

 the old growths would give you. 



We look for a return to popularity for 

 this sweet, old, flower-garden plant. 

 Beds of verbenas of one color take us 

 back many years. It seems they used to 

 grow taller and stronger about the time 

 of the Crimean war, for we remember 

 verbenas occupied the center of the beds 

 with an edging of some silver variegated 

 geraniums. In those days whole beds 

 were occupied with heliotropes, which 

 were commonly called "cherrie pie," we 

 suppose from the sweet odor, and we re- 

 member when a very small boy having 

 seen a wild rabbit hide himself in a 

 luxuriant bed of heliotrope. We screamed 

 out much to the amusement of a dozen 

 men with scythes: "Aleck, there is a 

 rabbit in the cherry pie. ' ' The love of 

 hunting or killing game is very early in 

 evidence in boys. It is an honest and 

 natural trait, for we are descended from 

 prehistoric hunters who killed or starved. 



John Westcott* 



inches of good, heavy soil. It should be 

 in a house where it never goes below 50 

 degrees. This may seem a little low for 

 such a tropical plant, but when planted 

 out the roots are sound and active and 

 they do not need as much heat. 



In a bed or bench plant out your old 

 plants that you are taking cuttings from. 

 You will still get cuttings and a lot of 

 useful, moderate size bracts. 



Verbenas. 



There are still a few growers of ver- 

 benas who still propagate by cuttings, 

 which, of course, is the only way if you 



As friend Bell, of Franklin, Pa., beauti- 

 fully says of old brute man: "From 

 stronger beasts he fled, on weaker beasts 

 he fed. ' ' But I am getting slightly away 

 from my text. 



G>ld Frames. 



This is a time of the year when you 

 can make good use of cold-frames. Young 

 cinerarias, calceolarias. Primula Sinen- 

 sis and P. obconica and even, if you 

 have no better place, 3-inch pots of 

 Begonia Lorraine, and more particularly 

 some of the shrubby begonias, such as 

 the improved B. incarnata; all these can 



