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8 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



May 30, 1907. 



THE BIG LEMON. 



The accompanying illustration is re- 

 produced from a photograph of a Pon- 

 derosa lemon growing and fruiting in an 

 Indiana florist's greenhouse. The size 

 of the fruits is not exceptional, although 

 it is not a usual thing to find so many 

 well developed fruits on one plant. In- 

 stances are common where these lemons 

 have weighed two pounds each and in 

 many cases florists growing them in the 

 greenhouses have been able to secure 

 much good advertising through calling 

 public attention by means of news notes 

 in the local papers. The reporter usu- 



ally thinks the lemon the greatest nov- 

 elty of the horticultural world and writes 

 enthusiastically about it, which brings 

 the whole neighborhood to see. With 

 an Otaheite orange and a Ponderosa 

 lemon one would have a combination that 

 would draw crowded houses. 



The picture reproduced would have 

 been much better, and j)robably the 

 plant would have been more interesting 

 to visitors, had the cycas and other sur- 

 rounding plants been cleared away. It is 

 never possible to get a good picture of 

 a plant when the area in range of the 

 lens is filled with other objects. 



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SEASONABLE 



SUGGESTIONS 



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Eaxly Planting. 



One more Memorial day will have come 

 and gone when these notes appear in 

 print. We hope it will be a busy and 

 profitable holiday for all Keview read- 

 ers. The late season has made it diffi- 

 cult to execute orders for bedding out, 

 which are usually filled before May 30, 

 but late frosts and snowfalls, with con- 

 tinued abnormally low temperature for 

 the latter part of May, have combined 

 to make this work risky. We have seen 

 some beds of coleus and alternanthera 

 which present a rather sorry appear- 

 ance. Nothing is gained by early plant- 

 ing of this sort of stock. On the con- 

 trary, the chilled plants never make any- 

 thing like the show they would, had 

 they been kept under cover ten days 

 longer. Still, if customers insist on early 

 planting and are willing to take the 

 risks, it need not cause us any special 

 worry. Bedding out will occupy much 

 of our time for the next two or three 

 weeks and home work may be neglected. 

 See, at least, that watering and ventila- 

 tion are carefully attended to. 



The Compost Heap. 



The compost pile, prepared probably 

 last fall just before freezing up weather, 

 if not already attended to, should be 

 weeded and turned over, chopping up 

 the larger and more fibrous pieces of 

 turf. There soon will be much planting 

 to do inside, and it is poor policy to 

 have your stock ready to plant and no 

 properly prepared compost to use. Per- 

 haps you grow a variety of stock and do 

 not want to bother with separate piles 

 of compost for your roses, carnations, 

 violets and mums. We have for some 

 years taken the same mixture for all 

 four classes of plants and none has 

 seemed to do poorly in it. If you have 

 not added the bone to your compost, 

 sprinkle some in as you turn it over, but 

 do not mix in a lot of green manure 

 from the cow or horse barn. Than to 

 do this it is much better to plant in 

 comparatively poor compost and feed 

 judiciously as required. Compost piles 

 are more important than many growers 

 give them credit for being. How often 

 do we see them a wilderness of rank- 

 groAving weeds, which must be mowed 

 down before the loam can be reached 

 at all! 



Plants for pot culture should have a 

 pile of pure turfy loam, without any 

 manure added, reserved for them. 



Possibly cut-worms, June bug larvss 

 and similar pests abound in your soil. 

 If sterilization cannot be carried out, 

 you can clear out many of these pests by 

 buying a bottle of bisulphide of carbon 

 and dropping a little in holes bored at 

 intervals of a foot and a half to two 

 feet apart each way over the pile. Care 

 should be taken to fill the holes up 

 quickly and not to use any matches for 

 any purpose, as the fumes are explosive. 

 This bisulphide may also be used on 

 the benches and ddes not injure the 

 plants at all. 



Ferns and Palms. 



That mosit useful of all foliage plants, 

 the Boston fern and many ' ' improve- 



gone, hardly worth carrying any longer. 

 Utilize such a bench for your ferns. Of 

 course, *they will need some shade, but 

 far too often the various varieties of 

 nephrolepis get too much of it and are 

 made soft and flabby. While they do 

 not appreciate direct sunshine, they do 

 much better* when rather lightly shaded. 



All the nephrolepis varieties grow 

 much faster on benches than in pots, and 

 any young stock you may have should 

 be placed in four or five inches of loam 

 to which a good dash of sand and leaf- 

 mold has been added, if kept well 

 watered, shaded carefully until estab- 

 lished and given common-sense treat- 

 ment, they grow surprisingly fast. Use 

 a cloth along the front of the bench for 

 a time, at least, to keep the beds closer 

 and less exposed to the air. 



Small ferns in pots for growing on 

 should not be allowed to become too 

 much potbound before being repotted. 

 Look out for snails on adiantums and 

 lay traps in the form of hollowed por- 

 tions of potatoes or cabbage leaves, ex- 

 amining them daily. 



Be careful that enough shading is 

 given the palms, or the kentias will eas- 

 ily scorch or turn yellow. If you have 

 forgotten to repot any needing it, take 

 an early opportunity to do so. As the 

 weather becomes warmer and the trees 

 become heavy with foliage, some of the 

 hardier ones may be placed outdoors un- 

 der some high-branched and shady de- 

 ciduous tree. The latania, corypha, 

 phoenix and rhapis all do well outdoors 

 from early June until the danger of 

 frost threatens in September. 



Lily of the Valley. 



This is one of the flowers of which 

 few people seem to tire. At present it 

 is in full beauty in the open and seldom 

 liave we seen finer spikes or larger 

 V)p11s, thanks to rich treatment and an 

 abundant rainfall. Every florist doing 

 any retail trade, or having a call for 



Otaheite Orange, Selaginellas and Leucothoe. 



ments ' ' or rather variations of it, 

 should now be receiving some attention. 

 Probably you have some carnations get- 

 ting spidery and, after Memorial day is 



funeral work, should have a bed of val- 

 ley. While the plants prefer a little 

 shade, they will succeed well in the open 

 if the ground is rich and the soil deep. 



