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Septembbs 17, 1908. 



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The Weekly Florists^ Review* 



that freesias are more often ruined by 

 too little water at the roots than too 

 much, and when watering these see that 

 the pans or flats are thoroughly soaked. 

 Scratch the soil occasionally and pull 

 out the little weeds, which will be plen- 

 tifully showing themselves by this time. 



Sweet Peas. 



The early sowings of sweet peas are 

 BOW commencing to climb up their sup- 

 ports and will flower a little by the 

 iirst week in October. They will grow 

 better and make stockier haulms as the 

 solar heat declines. Plants should not 

 have been left any thicker than two 

 or three inches apart and, if you want 

 fine flowers, have courage to thin where 

 they have germinated too thickly. It 

 will pay you well in the end. 



This is a good time to make an addi- 

 tional sowing in pots where it is intended 

 to follow early chrysanthemums with 

 them. Keep in a cool, airy house, or, 

 better still, a frame. The seeds will 

 soon germinate and care must be taken 

 to give the little seedlings light sup- 

 ports before they fall over. There can 

 be no better varieties to sow now than 

 Christmas Pink, Mont Blanc and Wat- 

 •chung. It is too early to start any of 

 the regular outdoor varieties, but any 

 of the Zvolanek sorts can be sown at 

 any time. 



Do not give sweet peas any fire heat 

 until obliged to. They will not be in- 

 jured by the temperature falling to 45 

 degrees on cold mornings, or even a de- 

 gree or two lower. 



Marguerites. 



Excellent cuttings of marguerites are 

 now obtainable on stock plants outdoors. 

 Get in a good batch before frost comes. 

 These can be grown along into shapely 

 6-inch or 8-inch pot specimens for Easter. 

 The yellow varieties, beautiful as they 

 are, appear to make much blind wood 

 and give much fewer cuttings than the 

 white sorts. If some of the old plants 

 are cut back fairly hard now, they will 

 soon give a nice crop of suitable cut- 

 tings. Select those which do not show 

 flower buds. These latter will never make 

 plants. 



Plants carried over the summer in pots 

 make useful Christmas plants. Pinch- 

 ing of these may now be discontinued. 

 Keep them outdoors as late as possible, 

 and when housed let them have a cool 

 but ^unny house. 



Smilaz. 



It will not pay to delay stringing the 

 benches of smilax. Unless this is attend- 

 ed to before the plants start to run, 

 there will be an unenviable job in trying 

 to disentangle them. If the plants are 

 looked over once in three or four days, 

 there will be little danger of their run- 

 ning wild. 



If you are carrying old plants over, 

 it is to be hoped you have not forgotten 

 to give them a mulch of well decayed 

 manure. Sometimes cutworms are de- 

 structive on smilax. Lay poisoned sweet 

 bran as a bait for them if they ap- 

 pear. 



Stevia. 



While a mere breath of frost will kill 

 stevia, it should be kept outdoors as 

 late as possible. The plants all should 

 have been lifted and potted before this 

 time and should stand io a sunny place. 

 As the shoots are extremely brittle and 

 would be broken or bent by wind storms, 

 place a moderately stout stake in each pot 



Peony Wagner Park. 



and tie the leading shoots to it. When 

 threatened frost necessitates the housing 

 of stevia, place in the coolest house you 

 have. 



Propagation. 



Frost may come any time after the 

 middle of September, so that it will be 

 good policy to get in batches of cut- 

 tings of any bedding plants which may 

 have been overlooked, especially those of 

 a tender nature, including coleus, achy- 

 ranthes, alternantheras, heliotropes, cro- 

 tons, dracsenas, pandanus and abutilons. 



All of these root better where they can 

 have a little bottom heat. Do not trouble 

 to lift any scarlet salvias. They are so 

 much more easily raised from seed. 



Peonies. 



September is the best month in the 

 year to divide and transplant peonies. 

 The ground" for them should be liberally 

 manured and plowed deeply. Plants 

 should be set three to four feet apart 

 each way. The more room they have, the 

 better chance is there to properly culti- 

 vate them. Do not bury the eyes over 

 four inches deep, and if you do any re- 

 tail trade in peonies, see that they are 

 correctly labeled. Better discard some 

 of the poor, washed-out colors and pro- 

 cure from a reliable dealer varieties of 

 pleasing shades, which are sure to at- 

 tract purchasers. 



Dutch Bulbs. 



The early shipments of Dutch bulbs are 

 coming to hand and appear to be of fine 

 quality. Unpack and lay the bulbs in 

 boxes on arrival until you find time to 

 get them into the soil. Prepare a good 

 pile of compost and get fiats, pots and 

 pans in readiness for compost. Use well 

 decayed cow or horse manure one-third, 

 or in place of it a similar proportion 

 of that from spent hotbeds, and two- 

 thirds fibrous loam. All bulbs like a 

 good proportion of sand in the soil and 

 a few shovels of soot and some fine 



charcoal are also useful ingredients, al- 

 though good bulbous flowers can be 

 grown without these latter. It is bet- 

 ter not to use bone or any chemical 

 fertilizers. These will do more harm 

 than good. In a later issue, the special 

 culture of the various Dutch bulbs will 

 be referred to in detail. 



PEONY WAGNER PARK. 



At Sidney, O., the Wagner Park Con- 

 servatories has for several years devoted 

 much of its attention to peonies, and 

 it has found these one of its most satis- 

 factory items of stock. Although a 

 large line of hardy material is grown 

 for landscape gardening, there are few 

 items which aflford such opportunity for 

 profits as does the peony: cut blooms in 

 the spring, autumn wholesale deliv.erie3 

 of roots to other growers of cut blooms, 

 and plantations in practically every job 

 of landscaping. 



In addition to trying out all the lead- 

 ing sorts in general cultivation, the Wag- 

 ner Park Conservatories has raised some 

 new sorts of its own, which have been 

 introduced to the trade. One of these is 

 shown in the accompanying illustration. 

 It is named for Wagner Park, where 

 B. P. Wagner established his business. 

 Mr. Wagner says that this peony re- 

 sembles the American Beauty rose and 

 he considers it to stand among peonies 

 as the Beauty does among roses. It is 

 a large, well-formed flower and can 

 be cut on stems of great length. An- 

 other valuable variety introduced from 

 this place is named Mary Elizabeth. It 

 is blush white with creamy center, a 

 strong grower, with large flowers on long, 

 strong stems. 



Please discontinue my advertisements 

 of anthericums, geraniums and hydran- 

 gea cuttings in the Review, as I am 

 about sold out. Your paper certainly 

 sells the stuflf.— G. E. Fink, Roselle, 

 N. J. 



