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NOTBMBER 16, 1905. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



1493 



let the water up? Or do you thing we 

 have kept them too wet on the bench and 

 made them soft? Duckham seems to be 

 troubled worse than any other. H. M. B. 



I would suggest that if, instead of 

 cutting the flowers and shipping direct to 

 the store, you cut them and leave them 

 in water over night in a cool cellar or 

 some such place, you would probably find 

 that the flowers would stand up all right. 

 The store is only a mile away and it 

 would seem to me that if the ends of the 

 stems were recut before the flowers were 

 placed in water and the receptacle hold- 

 ing the water was large enough to per- 

 mit of the stems standing straight up, 

 they should not wilt. 



Ice-box treatment, however, is not what 

 a chrysanthemum likes, any more than a 

 carnation. Keep them in a cool place 

 and keep the stems straight, so that the 

 water can be drawn quickly up the stem 

 and there is no reason why a flower 

 should not keep a week. 



It is true that some kinds, like Merza, 

 have stems so hard that they want care- 

 ful handling to get the water up the 

 stem, but these kinds are not so numer- 

 ous and W. Duckham is not one of them. 



Flowers that are to be shipped any 

 distance should be in water forty-eight 

 hours and when so treated can be shipped 

 1,000 miles and win prizes over stock 

 grown at home and not allowed to soak 

 up before being staged. C. H. Totty. 



BLIND WCX5D. 



I have a house of Bridesmaid and 

 Ivory roses, some of which have made 

 fair growth, but a large percentage of 

 which come blind. I had the same 

 trouble last year, which was my first ex- 

 perience with roses. Part of them are 

 on benches, with good drainage, and I 

 have one solid bed which has eight inches 

 drainage of broken stone, topped with 

 cinders. The soil is a medium heavy 

 clay sod, composted early last spring, 

 with one part cow manure to four of 

 sod. They were planted June 10, young 

 plants from 3-inch pots on benches. The 

 solid beds were planted with stock from 

 benches which were forced last year and 

 given four or five weeks' rest. I have 

 been very careful with ventilation and 

 heat. The temperature has been 58 to 

 60 degrees at night, with a crack of air 

 when possible. I have been allowing the 

 soil to become dry before watering and 

 perhaps have been too extreme in this 

 respect. "Would this cause the blind 

 growth t Would it be best to cut the 

 blind growth back to a good eye? How 

 dry ought the soil get before watering? 



J. P. K. 



eral care of the house seems to be about 

 right also, but care should be taken not 

 to allow the branches to trail on the 

 bench. Keep each shoot tied in an up- 

 right position and do not feed with any 

 material containing an excess of nitro- 

 gen. Bather use a light top-dressing of 

 lime, alternating with bone meal once 

 in three weeks. 



I would not advise thinning out the 

 Maids and Brides. It is sometimes bene- 

 ficial to cut out the smaller wood of 

 such varieties, as Ivory and Golden Gate, 

 when the wood becomes too dense. 



Regarding watering, this is a very 

 difficult subject to give advice on, as 

 the many different classes of soil require 

 special study to determine just how 

 much moisture they will absorb and how 

 long it is retained, but it is safe to keep 

 the soil in such a condition that it will 

 remain plastic and not crumble if 

 squeezed in the hand. With the drain- 

 age as described there is little danger of 

 the soil becoming sodden, and when wa- 

 tering is done the bench should be thor- 

 oughly watered, so that it will be equally 

 moist throughout. Kibes. 



GRUSS AN TEPLITZ. 



. Will the Gruss an Teplitz rose force 

 for Easter as easily and as well as Ul- 

 rich Brunner? A. R. 



Gruss an Teplitz can be forced into 

 bloom for Easter, although it is not one 

 of the best adapted for this class of 

 work. By potting them now and plac- 

 ing them in a temperature of 45 de- 

 grees for a few weeks, until root action 

 commences, and then gradually increas- 

 ing the temperature until it reaches 52 

 degrees at night and 65 degrees in day- 

 time during bright weather, fair results 

 may be obtained. The worst trouble to 

 contend with is in keeping the foliage 

 in good shape as they are so subject to 

 the attacks of mildew. By keeping a 

 careful watch on their progress during 

 the spring and using good judgment in 

 raising or lowering the temperature as 

 occasion requires, they can be brought 

 into bloom for the occasion. Eibes. 



INSECTS AND BACTERIA. 



I am sending some carnation blooms 

 and some cuttings. Please tell me what 

 the trouble is. R. A. 



This question of a surplus of blind 

 wood is very annoying and especially so 

 to a beginner, as when the stock shows 

 a tendency to this character of growth 

 it is always a loss of a few weeks' time 

 to bring it to a check. 



From a careful perusal of the letter I 

 cannot find a sufficient single cause for 

 the trouble, and think it must have 

 arisen from more than one cause. 

 The temperature is a little too high for 

 this class of roses, 56 degrees at night 

 being the ideal, and, whenever possible, 

 with a good supply of air on. 



The compost is all right and the gen- 



You do not give enough data for any- 

 one to form an intelligent opinion. 

 Some varieties are in the habit of 

 blasting a bud occasionally upon the 

 least excuse, sudden check, for instance. 

 Sometimes when plants are left out in 

 the field until a heavy frost has oc- 

 curred, the buds on the plants will par- 

 tially develop and then rot the inner 

 petals just as these two blooms have 

 done. Sometimes thrips will cause it, 

 but in that case you would find many 

 blooms with the edges of the petals 

 bruised. If you keep down these insect 

 pests and keep your plants growing 

 steadily it will no doubt disappear. 



The light spots on the cuttings are 

 caused by bacteria. Opinions differ as 

 to the cause of this trouble. All 

 agree that it is a breaking-down of 

 the cells in the leaf. Some claim that 

 it is always caused by the sting of 

 some insect, while others do not agree 

 with that theory. We have seen many 



instances where a small batch of a 

 variety was planted between other 

 I'arieties and only that one variety 

 would show it. The argument that the 

 insects might be partial to that variety 

 does not hold good, because every 

 variety of carnation, when badly infest- 

 ed with greenfly, will show similar spots 

 and if one variety is so badly infested 

 as to show so much of this spot the 

 insect, if it is an insect, would most 

 likely be operating on the neighboring 

 varieties, too, I do not mean to deny 

 that in many cases it may be brought 

 on by insects; in fact, I know it is, but 

 I do maintain that it is not always the 

 case. Varieties that are in the habit 

 of showing these light spots every win- 

 ter during the dark days invariably 

 grow entirely out of it in the spring, 

 when the sun becomes stronger and the 

 days longer. While, on the other hand, 

 if you allow your plants to become in- 

 fested with aphis at any time of the 

 year, the leaves will bear these marks. 

 I am not prepared, however, to ad- 

 vance any theory as to their origin, ex- 

 cept that it is a sickly condition of the 

 plants. Possibly the insufficient light 

 causes the plant to become unable to 

 assimilate the food brought to it by the 



