ilABCH 15. 1906. 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



U27 



PERSONAL OPINIONS. 



[A paper by Joseph P. Kllmmer, read before 

 the Chicago Florists' Club, March 8, 1906.] 



Before I begin the narration of these 

 experiences I want to say that 1 hope I 

 will not tread on anybody's toes. It is 

 not my intention to do any variety any- 

 thing but justice and I shall relate my 

 experience of the past season and my 

 plans for the next with full understand- 

 ing that mine may not be at all like the 

 results obtained and conclusions reached 

 by other growers in other soils and with 

 other methods of culture. By this time 

 every carnation grower should have his 

 plans ready for next season; he should 

 know which varieties he intends to plant 

 next fall and what varieties he has to 

 discard. 



There are quite a few growers like 

 myself, always ready to try a reason- 

 able amount of those liberally adver- 

 tised novelties, and now, after trying 

 them for a season, the question is, did 

 they pay and did they give satisfaction? 



Fiancee. 



We will take Fiancee for a starter. I 

 discarded Marquis for the new love be- 

 cause, after seeing it at three different 

 seasons at Joliet, I supposed it was time 

 to make the change. Last August I 

 planted in the bench the 410 plants I 

 had left of the 500 I had bought. They 

 produced in October 625 first-class 

 flowers, which sold even in the chrysan- 

 themum season for from $4 to $6 per 

 hundred. During November I cut 169, 

 during December sixty-nine, during 

 January thirteen, and in February four. 



This is a rather astonishing record, 

 but I believe it is to a great extent my 

 own fault, because I treated my Fiancee, 

 in the first week in November, to a fair- 

 ly liberal dose of manure and bone meal 

 and in return got an immense crop of 

 fantastic looking "splits" which nobody 

 would buy. I wonder will we ever learn 

 to let well enough alone? I am con- 

 vinced that if I had left the fertilizer 

 off sixty-five per cent of the splits would 

 have been salable flowers and Fiancee 

 would have been a fairly well paying 

 proposition, at least up to Christmas. As 



it is, I have sworn off flirting any fur- 

 ther with anybody else's Fiancee. 



Cardinal. 



Next on the programme is Cardinal. 

 The most of my plants were affected 

 with rust and I could not get rid of it. 

 They produce quite a few black and dis- 

 torted flowers, but they also give me a 

 very liberal amount of good, first-class 

 flowers with fairly strong stems. Right 

 among the rusty ones we had about thir- 

 ty plants which kept entirely clean and 

 certainly came up in every respect to the 

 introducer's description, so I shall give 

 Cardinal another trial. 



Some of the plants I have now potted 

 up in 4-inch pots. They will be planted 

 out as early as possible to give it a trial 

 as a summer bloomer. Cardinal is an im- 

 provement on Estelle, which has been my 

 best summer bloomer for the last five 

 years. 



Lieut. Peary. 



Next is Lieut. Peary. This is, in my 

 estimation, the best of last year's intro- 

 ductions. It has not the elegant finish, 

 and it is not such a glistening white as 

 Lady Bountiful, but it is one of the very 

 best keepers and shippers. It is a strong 

 upright grower, a steady and even 

 bloomer, makes no surplus grass and is 

 entirely free from rust or any other dis- 

 ease. Although it brings some sleepy- 

 looking and some split flowers, still on 

 the whole I believe it will be in the run- 

 ning for some years. 



Estelle. 



In scarlet I grow Flamingo, Estelle 

 and Cardinal and in addition will also 

 have 300 each of Robert Craig and Vic- 

 tory. I need Estelle for a good, common 

 scarlet in the winter, and early in April 

 I take up the old plants from the bench, 

 cut them back severely and then plant 

 them out for summer blooming. One can 

 depend upon those plants to furnish a 

 good, steady supply of flowers from the 

 middle of July until frost, at an average 

 price of $1.50 per hundred. 



Flamingo. 



Flamingo is considered by our Chicago 

 retail florists the best scarlet winter car- 



nation on the market and as far as I can 

 judge 1 believe that either Robert Craig 

 or Victory will have some trouble to beat 

 it. Flamingo has been a failure in a 

 good many cases, in some undoubtedly 

 because the soil did not suit, but in most 

 cases I believe it is the treatment. The 

 plants must be good and strong when 

 planted out. Do not pinch them back any 

 more than is absolutely necessary to keep 

 them in trim. After August 1 pick off 

 all buds high up on the stem until Oc- 

 tober 20; then let them bloom all they 

 can until March 15, when they should be 

 thrown out to make room for spring 

 stock. 



Flamingo needs to be planted in sandy 

 soil, or soil with a liberal quantity of 

 half rotten horse manure to make it por- 

 ous. Give it plenty of water but do not 

 feed at all, because the flower is large 

 enough for all practical purposes and 

 any feeding is likely to spoil the keep- 

 ing quality and produce more splits. 



Contradictory Experiences. 



As an explantion I can state that the 

 first 500 Flamingo I bought, in .January, 

 made large and elegant plants that came 

 into bloom in August. I pinched those 

 flowers off before planting them in the 

 house, and let them come into bloom 

 again in the latter part of September, 

 but had to pick those flowers off also, 

 because they would not keep, but in the 

 latter part of October, when the weather 

 got cool, they improved rapidly and by 

 Christmas I had cut an average of thir- 

 teen flowers per plant, ranging in price 

 from $4 to $12 per hundred. By March 

 10 we had an average of eighteen' 

 flowers. Just about then flowers get 

 spotty and the plants grow so much to 

 grass as to be almost entirely worthless. 



Seeing that my first lot did so well I 

 bought 200 more in the fall, all good, 

 healthy plants from the field, but con- 

 siderably smaller than my own. These 

 plants had, from September 20 on, the 

 same treatment, were planted in the same 

 soil and in the same bench, but I did not 

 cut a flower from those 200 pl^ts until 

 January 11, and then they only i|i,veraged 

 not quite six flowers per plaid^ up to 

 March 10, when they also gave^t. Dur- 

 ing the last winter I had tha^'^ame ex- 

 perience with plants of my ojjili growing 

 and also noticedJ|^6imilar resullt at some 

 of my neighbors' places. Thiff'shows in 

 my mind why some people have such 

 great success with Flamingo, while with 

 others it is almost a failure. 



Another important point i^:in disbud- 

 ding. In rubbing off the bvjd next to 

 the flower, the main stem ;iB/ .very liable 

 to be injured and the flower will have a 



Display by Wietor Bros, at the Carnation Show of the Chicago Florists' Club, March 8. 



