fBBEOABY 27, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



,''*■-.■'■" 



9 



Partial View of the Trade Exhibition of the Illinois State Florists' Association, Springfieldt February 18 and 19. 



Gladiolus Gandavensis. 



You have probably gaps in your car- 

 nation benches Tvhere plants have died 

 out. If you have planted nothing in 

 their stead, try some of the large-flow- 

 ered gladioli. As a rule, separate colors 

 sell the best and for this reason growers 

 prefer such varieties as Shakespeare and 

 May. They will prove useful for you 

 about Memorial day. 



Speaking of carnation houses reminds 

 us that this also is a good time to plant 

 some sweet peas to run up the iron posts. 

 These will prove invaluable in late spring, 

 when people are getting rather tired of 

 carnations. 



Kalmia Latifolia. 



If you want any of the mountain lau- 

 rels in flower for Easter, start them now. 

 In 1907 they sold well when nicely flow- 

 ered. Treat as you would azaleas and 

 rhododendrons. A temperature -of 55 to 

 60 degrees at night, a moist atmosphere, 

 spraying overhead and removal to a cool- 

 er and drier house as the flowers ex- 

 pand, are the main cultural needs of this 

 beautifhl, hardy evergreen shrub. 



English Ivy. 



The demand for young plants of Eng- 

 lish ivy is fairly constant. In spring 

 many are wanted for cemetery lots, and 

 while it cannot be recommended in our 

 northern states as a reliable evergreen 

 climber, it succeeds fairly well on north 

 walls, doing best near the ocean. There 

 is not such a call for wreaths of ivy as 

 existed a decade or two ago. Yet there 

 is often an order for this class of de- 

 signs and there can be no question of 

 their advantages in winter over others 

 composed of tender flowers. Cuttings 

 put in your carnation propagating bench 

 now and kept moist, will soon form roots. 

 You ought not to sell these plants this 

 season. A better plan is to plunge them 

 in a frame or the open ground early in 

 May, and they will make excellent stock 

 for selling the following year. These 

 plants are of such size and quality that 

 they are well worth a fair price. 



Variegated Vinca. 

 Variegated vinca is indispensable for 



the filling of vases, window-boxes, etc. 

 Your old plants will be sending up quan- 

 tities of nice young shoots now. Get a 

 good batch of these into the propagating 

 bench. They will need planting out in 

 nursery rows during summer and lifting 

 in the fall to provide you with salable 

 plants for the following spring. You 

 can propagate from the older and harder 

 wood by simply, cutting it in pieces, but 

 you must wait longer for roots appear- 

 ing on these. A temperature of 50 de- 

 grees at night will root them. 



LARGE ROSE HOUSES. 



Though it sounds like treason to say 

 anything against large glasshouses, says 

 an American correspondent of the Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle, practical growers are 

 not all in accord with the builders of 

 this class of structure. A span-roofed 

 house fifty feet wide and some hundreds 

 of feet long must of necessity be high 

 at the ridge, and when to this are added 

 low, solid beds instead of the old-time 

 benches, three feet or more in height. 



the young roses, when planted, are a 

 long way from the glass, and do not 

 start as freely as under the older sys- 

 tem. Whether this late start is made 

 up for by the use of grafted stock and 

 ease of working wide houses remains 

 to be seen, but more than one large 

 grower, once partly converted to the 

 large house theory, will, in the proposed 

 additions this year, return to the more 

 moderate size. Leaving the question of 

 height, extreme length has its disadvan- 

 tages independently of the difficulty of 

 handling stock. In a rose house known 

 to the writer, 800 feet long, there is one 

 part where, directly air is put on, a kind 

 of independent circuit is set up, and it is 

 easy to see by the behavior of the plants 

 there that they do not relish the con- 

 ditions. Greenfly and mildew always at- 

 tack at this point, and it is thus a kind 

 of safety valve for the section men. In 

 a house of moderate length these inde- 

 pendent currents are broken up by par- 

 titions or otherwise, and, though this 

 idea may seem far-fetched, there is more 

 in it than at first appears. 



COMMERQAL CARNATIONS. 



[A paper by Wallace R. Pierson. Cromwell, 

 Conn., read before the Gardeners' and Florists' 

 Club of Boston, February 25, 1908.] 



I do not have any intention, in writ- 

 ing this paper, of giving history. That 

 branch may be useful, but it has been 

 covered so many times that to go back 

 to Lizzie McGowan and Mrs. Fisher is 

 useless. We wish to consider just what 

 working materials we have before uS" at 

 the present time, and to learn how to 

 make the most of what we have. 



The carnation after the advent of Mrs. 



Lawson and the carnation before that 

 time are as different in all essential 

 characteristics as the light of a gray day 

 in winter is to the brilliancy of the 

 houses in full sunlight, with 'the glare 

 from the February snow. Daybreak, be- 

 fore Mrs. Lawson, was the sun breaking 

 through the fog. 



Test Your Seedlings Thoroughly. 



We have, to-day, a grand collection of 

 varieties, and there are so many new 

 stars appearing and asking recognition 

 that' we are tempted to ask, ' ' Where will 

 it stop?" 



"Because of the success of some new 



