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Dhcbmber 6, 1906. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



147 



Early Sweet Peas. 



Some weeks ago A. C. Zvolanek cau- 

 tioned us to look out for a green worm 

 that would be liable to eat the young, 

 tender growths of our sweet peas. It 

 has arrived, along with the first blos- 

 soms on the plants, the seeds of which 

 were sown in the beds August 22. You 

 can hurry the time of flowering very 

 little by fire heat. Every ray of sun- 

 shine must have full play on the house, 

 with ventilation on all possible occa- 

 sions, and plenty of water at the roots. 

 Hellebore sprinkled on the foliage, or a 

 weak solution of Paris green, may de- 

 stroy the worm, but I would prefer a 

 safer plan: to look over the vines every 

 morning and pick off the worms. Jn 

 appearance it is much like the green 

 worm so destructive to our mignonette 

 in the month of September. 



If the soil in the beds is only five or 

 six inches deep, and well drained, then 

 a mulch of well rotted manure will help. 

 Another attention is the necessity of 

 keeping the leading shoots faithfully 

 tied up to the strings. It is from the 

 top of the leading growths you get your 

 first and most valuable flowers, and if 

 these growths are allowed to droop, the 

 flower stems will assert their natural 

 right to look up to the light, and you 

 will have crooked stems, much impaired 

 in value. 



As soon as you have a low bed or 

 bench of chrysanthemums entirely cut 

 out, you can plant it with another crop 

 of sweet peas. For this purpose you 

 •should have sown a few seeds in 3-inch 

 pots a month ago. If planted now they 

 will be in full bearing by Easter. It is 

 better to trust to the special winter- 

 flowering kinds, for the old standard 

 varieties, like Emily Henderson and 

 Blanche Ferry, will hardly be in full 

 flower for this early Easter. 



Late Chrysanthemums. 



Mums have had their brief but glori- 

 ous day, and most florists will say to 

 them, farewell, but not for ever. Yet I 

 notice a few old varieties looking fine 

 and a promise of good cutting for at 

 least two weeks to come. They are the 

 pure white Convention Hall, that splen- 

 did pink, Helen Frick, and that fine rich 

 yellow, Nagoya. Our specialist will tell 

 you of other and perhaps more valuable 

 late flowers, but these three varieties 

 are fine late kinds and easy to grow. 

 Many florists occupy a great deal of 

 space on their benches with mums, and 

 if it were not that we could fill up with 

 lilies, azaleas, Boston ferns and other 

 Easter stock, the mums would not be 

 profitable in the least; but florists with- 

 in easy driving distance of a city can 

 always find stock to fill up the space 

 when the mums are cut and gone. 



Empty the Mum Benches. 



This reminds me of something I often 

 see done, and which always produces 

 irritation. It is the leaving on the 

 bench the four or five inches of soil in 

 which the chrysanthemums grew. The 



^nit^do it because they want to 

 use tntf^il during the winter or spring. 

 The excuse is that they have not the 

 time to remove it; can't spare the labor. 

 This is not a valid excuse. If it is es- 

 sential and better for the plants to come 

 that the soil be removed, it should be 

 done at any inconvenience. Do you 

 think it is good treatment to put a lily, 

 an azalea, a hybrid rose or cyclamen in 

 this greasy bed of soil? Not only is it 

 most ungardenerlike and cruel to the eye. 

 but it ruins the soil for future use until 

 it has had the atmosphere and frosts of 

 another winter. Get it out and dump it 

 in a shallow and narrow pile, where the 

 frosts of winter will penetrate every par- 

 ticle of the pile. If left there till the 

 sun and winds of May have left it mel- 

 low, most useful this old soil will be. 



Uses for the Soil. 



Most likely it was good, fresh soil 

 when you put it on the benches last 

 spring, and to it you added, perhaps, a 

 liberal quantity of animal manure and 

 some bone-dust which is not yet all dis- 

 solved. In the spring the old soil will 

 do for filling your vases, veranda boxes, 

 for tulips next fall, and for many of 

 your soft-wooded bedding plants. City 

 florists are continually being asked for 

 such soil for a dressing for lawns, and 



spring would be mud, I thought of a 

 piece of tarred roofing paper under each 

 pot. The crop placed on the bench was 

 Bermuda Easter lilies in G-inch pots. 

 The paper was cut in 6-inch squares antl 

 placed under each pot. The worms were 

 safely excluded, and with careful water- 

 ing the soil was not overwet. The fumes 

 of tar are not healthy to plant life, but 

 there was little of it, and no harm was 

 done. In this way the soil was pre- 

 served in good order, and you must ex- 

 cuse me while I finish this earthy story, 

 the program of which was laid out in a 

 more or less feeble mind months before 

 its performance. 



Easter that year was extremely early, 

 March 25. Lilies were all in and sold, 

 and on March 27 two "old bosses," 

 including the writer, spread a heavy 

 dressing of bone-meal on the surface of 

 the bed and then forked it over. April 

 1 we planted the bed with a fine lot of 

 young American Beauty roses. I must 

 now cut this story short, and will only 

 say that it was the best strike and the 

 brightest piece of inspiration that ever 

 fell on us. So if impossible to remove 

 the soil when your mums are cut, do 

 something both for the benefit of the 

 plants in pots and to preserve the use- 

 fulness of the soil. 



Crops to Follow Mums. 



You may have some crops waiting -to 

 occupy some of these beds. Here are a 

 few. If you have calla lilies in pots 

 you will get large flowers and large 

 quantities by planting them out. They 

 should be on a low bed, with plenty of 

 headroom. If you have any antirrhi- 

 nums propagated in silmmer, either from 

 cuttings or seed, plant them on a raised 

 bench where they will get full light and 



Conservatory of Jacob Schulz^ Louisville. 



you are justified in charging a good, big 

 price that will more than pay all the 

 cost of removing it from the benches 

 now. 



A Way of Escape. 



With the intention of using the soil 

 on the bench the following spring, and 

 fully aware that if I stood the pots on 

 the soil its physical condition in the 



plenty of air. A more important crop 

 would be dahlias. They, too, should 

 have headroom, perfect light and plenty 

 of water. About 55 degrees at night 

 will suit them. If planted by the middle 

 of December they will be in flower by 

 Easter. 1 don't pretend to be posted 

 on the best forcing varieties, although 

 we grew fifty feet of a bench two years 

 ago and found a ready sale for all we 



