1566 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



April 19, lOOG. 



turns trade into other channels. The 

 man who places Easter on a pedestal 

 and looks to nothing else finds himself 

 minus his profit. Steady crops for every- 



day markets are far more profitable than 

 great supplies of over-ripe flowers ac- 

 cumulated for Easter at the expense of 

 weeks both preceding and following. 



Shift the Spring; Stock. 



It was most pleasant to walk into the 

 greenhouses on Monday morning at 9 

 a. m. and notice that what last week 

 was a brilliant bench of bloom is 

 changed to a bare bench, ready for other 

 crops — and right welcome are these bare 

 benches. 



The zonal geraniums you shifted into 

 4-inch pots three or four weeks ago will 

 be much in need of spacing. When 

 doing this is the time to scatter some 

 spent hops, decayed leaves or some such 

 material between the pots. We will 

 hardly call it plunging, but if it is only 

 two inches deep it will save much evap- 

 oration and drying out. Its advantages 

 are many and as for expense of time 

 and labor you will more than save that 

 by the less frequent watering the plants 

 will need. They will not burn with the 

 hot sun of May and will need no shad- 

 ing. The plants will be of much better 

 quality and better fitted to go outdoors 

 in the sun and wind. 



Seedling annuals, particularly asters, 

 will need to be transplanted from the 

 seed pans or flats into other flats, one 

 inch apart, and when doing this do not 

 forget to insert the little plants down to 

 the seed leaf in the new soil. Be sure 

 to firm the soil around their roots, not 

 so much at the surface, but deep down 

 where the roots are. 



The cannas which you started in flats 

 are now five or six inches high. They 

 must be lifted and potted at once. A 

 4-inch pot is large enough to make a 

 good bedding plant. Be sure to give 

 them a light, bright bench. A canna 

 grown in a warm, shaded house is in 

 poor order to plant in a flower garden. 



The big Caladium esculentum was al- 

 so started in flats three weeks ago and 

 is already wanting a 5-inch pot. Put 

 these also in the fullest light. If grown 

 soft they are blown to pieces by the 

 first big wind and look like the battle- 

 scarred flags seen in a parade of the G. 

 A. R. 



The tuberous begonias intended for 

 bedding will now want potting into 

 4-inch pots and the sooner you get them 

 into a mild hotbed the better. 



If you are in the bedding plant busi- 

 ness there will be no end of things which 

 want their last shift and the next two 

 weeks will be a busy time. 



Starting: Poinsettias. 



You can take from beneath the bench 

 your old plants of poinsettia that have 

 been resting there since New Year's 

 perfectly dry. Shake off all the old 

 soil, shorten back the stem only when or 

 where it is still green or decayed and re- 

 pot in a size smaller. Start growing 

 in a temperature of 60 degrees, with 

 frequent syringings. They will soon 

 start and break into new growth, which 

 will give you plenty of material for 



cuttings. Although this is the right time 

 to start, yet there is plenty of time for 

 cuttings, for the very early struck cut- 

 tings become quite tall and often much 

 pot-bound and then lose their foliage. 

 Those propagated in July make fine 

 plants, either for pots or planting out 

 for cutting, and as late as August and 

 even September will do well for pans. 

 We found at last Christmas that the 

 single plant in a 5-inch or 6-inch pot is 

 no longer the thing. Nearly everyone 

 wanted a pan with five to eight plants. 

 I don't blame them. 



Care of Left-over Plants. 



There is very little left-over stock 

 that is worth bothering about. Azaleas 

 are an exception. Pick off all flowers, 

 especially old seed pods, and put them 

 in a temperature of 55 degrees to 60 

 degrees and there they will make a 

 good growth until it is time to plunge 

 them outdoors in early June. 



Any hard-wooded plants, like the 

 bottlebrush or Acacia armata, can be 

 cut back to within a few eyes of last 

 year's growth and given heat and mois- 

 ture and they will make growth for next 

 year's blooming. Cytisus is not worth 



carrying over. They become white ele- 

 phants on your hands. 



Unless you are in a neighborhood 

 where rhododendrons do well, do not 

 bother with them one minute unless you 

 have ^a neighbor against whom you want 

 to have a joke; then present them to 

 him. But best of all, we hope you have 

 little or nothing left over. 



William Scott. 



THE CALLA LILY. 



And Other Stories. 



The calla lily is not the popular plant 

 it was twenty-five years ago, when it 

 was in great demand, not only for fu- 

 neral designs, but used in bunches, and 

 in those days the question was often 

 asked, "How are your callas, " not 

 * * How are your lilies, " as it is today, 

 meaning L. longiflorum. 



Callaa are grown singly in pots or 

 planted out on a bench. Of late a dis- 

 ease has appeared which has destroyed 

 many roots. Here is a bed of callas 

 which has evidently escaped all disease, 

 grown by Wm. Ehmann, of Corfu, N. Y., 

 the little rural village of Genesee county 

 which has gradually grown to be quite 

 a carnation center, where the writer has 

 spent many innocent and virtuous days, 

 consequently happy ones. 



Something has occurred of late in the 

 town of Pembroke that has brought out 

 some ruminating thoughts. It has taken 

 a vote whether the town should or should 

 not have licensed hotels. While the vil- 

 lage of Corfu said "Let's have two or 

 three hotels," the town, which com- 

 prises several villages, said no license. 

 A strange coincidence is that Corfu, 

 which has six or seven florists, voted for 

 license. The villages that have no flo- 

 rists voted "no." This is merely a co- 

 incident, from which nothing is to be in- 

 ferred. 



A Hoosier Florist's Easter Greeting:. 



