■i"i;;y' 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



July 18, 1907. 



ARISTOCRAT IN SUMMER. 



The accompanying illustration will be 

 of interest to the large number of car- 

 nation growers who have bought stock 

 of Aristocrat, because it shows how good 

 a producer this variety is right up to 

 the date when replanting of the benches 

 becomes necessary. The illustration is 

 reproduced from a photograph made 

 July 1 at the establishment of the Chi- 

 cago Carnation Co., at Joliet, 111. The 

 plants in this house had been blooming 

 continuously since early in the autumn 

 of 1906 and at. the time the photograph 

 was taken carried a splendid crop of flow- 

 ers on long, strong stems. Not only 

 were the flowers of excellent size for 

 hot weather, but what was especially no- 

 ticeable is that the color is less af- 

 fected by the hot weather than is the 

 color of any other pink variety. 



CARNATION NOTES.- WEST. 



Effects of Ra«n. 



During the last ten days we have had 

 an excessive amount of rain, which has 

 thoroughly saturated the soil in the field 

 and the carnations are showing the ef- 

 fects of it in a rapid growth. It is for- 

 tunate that it came at this time and not 

 a month later, when we will be lifting 

 the plants for benching. If you have 

 beds ready and intended planting now, 

 you would better put it off a few days 

 to let the plants check up a little and get 

 into proper condition. If lifted while 

 in this soft condition, wilting will be se- 

 vere and nothing will be gained in time, 

 and quite a loss of plants is liable to 

 occur. As I have said before, the date 

 of planting does not count for so much 

 as having the proper conditions. 



Be Ready for PIanUii£. 



Your preparations for planting need 

 not cease, however; in fact, they should 

 proceed as rapidly as possible, so that 

 when the proper conditions do come you 

 can hurry all your plants in while they 

 last. It will do no harm for the soil to 

 remain on the benches unplanted a few 

 weeks, but if you use raised tables do 

 not leave the boards exposed to the hot 

 sun any length of time. Get the soil 

 back on them as soon as you can. 



New Benches. 



If you are having to put in new 

 benches this season, get it done at once. 

 Such jobs invariably require more time 

 than one counts on and they usually 

 throw one late with the planting. Let 

 me urge you to put in at least a small 

 bed, such as we are using exclusively 

 now, and which I have described in my 

 notes a number of times. I think the 

 chances are that you will like them so 

 well that the first one will be followed by 

 more of them. If you do not like them, 

 not much will be lost, either in work or 

 returns from the stock. There ought to 

 be no loss from the latter source. If 



you construct one of these beds, do not 

 stick it up in a corner or in a place 

 where you were never able to grow good 

 stock, but give it a good location, so 

 the trial will be a fair one. "• 



Th^s year we are making some ex- 

 periments with tile in connection with 

 the cinders, and will watch the results 

 with interest. We do not expect a great 

 deal, if any, improvement, but if im- 

 provement is possible we want it. A 

 small improvement in quality or increase 

 in quantity will justify putting them in.* 



A. F. J. Baur. 



CARNATIONS IN SOLID BEDS. 



Would carnations do well planted in 

 beds with the sides raided six or eight 

 inches; that is, with 6-inch or 8-inch 

 plank for sides, placed on the ground 

 floor of the greenhouse and filled with 

 good soil? My floor ground is sandy 

 land. The heating pipes are overhead 

 and on the sides of the house. Does any- 

 one plant that way? D. H. J. 



There is no reason why your carna- 

 tions should not do quite well if planted 

 as you suggest. The main thing to pro- 

 \'ide for will be perfect drainage, and 

 if your floor soil is a sandy loam, no 

 fear need be entertained along that line. 

 We have planted carnations in the level 

 ground in beds, with the regulation 

 walks between, and built houses over 

 them in the fall, and with splendid suc- 

 cess. This year we put in our raised 

 semi-solid beds first and have planted on 

 them, and will erect our house over them 

 this fall. This seems a better plan to 

 us than the other in some ways, but 

 watering must be done artificially with 

 the hose, as the beds will dry out more 



quickly. A bed raised twelve to fifteen 

 inches is so much easier to work that I 

 think it pays well for the cost of Con- 

 struction. The plants along the edge 

 are less liable to be broken and rubbed 

 against, too, and in fact there are many 

 little advantages over the level ground 

 method. 



We use a 12-inch pecky cypress board 

 for the sides and fill all but the upper 

 four inches with ' cinders. This gives us 

 splendid drainage, as our soil is sandy 

 and allows the water to sink away read- 

 ily. We prefer to use the cinders and 

 ashes from our own boilers, as they are 

 less liable to contain an excessive amount 

 of sulphur than are the railroad cinders. 

 A season's accumulation of these will go 

 a long way toward fitting up your place 

 with these beds. A. F, J, B. 



TEMPERATURES. 



What temperature suits White Per- 

 fection, Rose-pink Enchantress andr-Vic^ 

 _tory carnation plants best? E. G. 



We have had but one season 's experi- 

 ence with White Perfection and Victory 

 and can not say positively, to a degree, 

 the best temperature for them. Our 

 observations of last winter lead us to the 

 belief that White Perfection likes 52 

 degrees about as well as any. If grown 

 warmer the stem is apt to come a trifle 

 weak for the large flower, and if it is 

 grown too cool it will burst slightly. So 

 a happy medium, run as evenly as pos- 

 sible, would seem the proper thing for 

 it. Victory is best during warm weather, 

 and as it has a splendid, strong stem, I 

 would not hesitate to give it 52 de- 

 grees, with a tendency upward rather 

 than downward. During the short, cold 

 days of midwinter the color comes less 

 brilliant than it does in the fall and 

 spring. Rose-pink Enchantress wants the 

 same temperature as the original, 50 de- 

 grees. These two varieties will give 

 a few more blooms in a higher tempera- 

 ture, but the blooms will come soft and 

 the stems will lack in strength. When 

 grown properly they will grade as 

 fancies and it pays to grow them just as 

 fancy as possible. A. F. J. B. 



^^>n.>^'H.^*'n.y«^n.''«'n.''^'r>.''m'fk'>m^'^'n.>m'n.'m'n.'m'n.<*'^ 



SEASONABLE 



SUGGESTIONS 



ye^^i:9<'^'r^'U^rtie9^-%d,'m^;n.-*t^>'y^9<\dr^'U:9^'iif9<^'U:^'U^^'^ • ■»»; 



Ctoerarias. 



The present is a good time to make a 

 sowing of cinerarias. There are now 

 some fine strains in existence and well 

 grown plants are always salable. The 

 large-flowered type is the more popu- 

 lar with commercial growers, being of 

 dwarfer habit than C. stellata, which, 

 however, is much more graceful and dec- 

 orative. The flowers are much smaller, 

 but are well adapted for cutting, for 

 which purpose the large-flowered varie- 

 ties are hardly desirable. Seed should be 

 sown in a coldframe, or in a north 

 house, in a compost of leaf-mold and 

 fine sand. The seed needs light cover- 

 ing and, after watering, should be cov- 

 ered with a sheet of glass and paper to 

 prevent evaporation, removing these cov- 

 erings when the seedlings appear. Use 



great care in watering, as the little seed- 

 lings will damp off quickly if over- 

 watered in the hot summer months. 

 Cinerarias delight in cool culture and 

 will not make rapid growth until we get 

 cool nights in September. Seed may 

 be sown as late as the first part of Sep- 

 tember and nice plants had for late 

 spring blooming. 



Lorraine Begonias. 



The little plants of Begonia Gloire de 

 Lorraine do not grow fast during the 

 hot weather, but they make up for this 

 when the cool nights set in. Do not al- 

 low them to become potbound. If your 

 plants are small, you can put two or 

 three together in 6-inch pans. These will 

 make nice stock for Christmas. The 

 compost should be light but moderately 



