Decbhbeb 24, 1908. 



The Weekly Florists' Review* 





specimen Plant of Chrysanthemum Mrs. J. R. Tranter. 



flowering qualities of the zonal section, 

 but are so showy that they always meet 

 with a fairly good sale in April and May. 

 Many customers buy them at bedding-out 

 time for piazza use, and if carefully 

 tended they last in flower a long time. A 

 cool house grows these best ; nothing over 

 45 degrees at night is required. Keep 

 the plants pinched for some time yet and 

 pot them along as needed, using a com- 

 post of fibrous loam, broken cow manure 

 and sand, to which can be added a dash 

 of fine bone or Thomson's plant manure. 

 Keep a watch over green aphis. These 

 plants are special favorites of this pest 

 and will quickly be smothered with them 

 if not regularly fumigated. 



Cinerarias. 



Midwinter is the time when cinerarias 

 make their most rapid growth. The 

 early batch will soon be in bloom and 

 will prove useful for retail trade in Janu- 

 ary and February. Later plants are 

 ready to go into their blooming pots. 

 Owing to their fast growth, it is now 

 necessary to respace them quite frequent- 

 ly. When so doing, scratch over the sur- 

 face soil and remove any bad foliage. 

 When well established in their flowering 

 pots, liquid manure can be used freely, 

 for cinerarias are gross feeders. There 

 are some attractive colors in cinerarias 

 and some much the reverse. Some day 

 we may get a hybridizer who will give us 

 scarlet and golden yellow shades. These 

 in the stellata type would be specially 

 valuable. Cinerarias should always be 

 grown cool and do not like a bright 

 house. 



Hybrid Roses. 



Hybrid roses are not, grown by country 

 florists to anything like the extent that 

 they were flfteen to twenty years ago. 

 The reason customarily assigned is that 

 there is no money in them. To some ex- 

 tent this is true, and under existing mar- 

 ket conditions it "may be inadvisable to 



grow them except to a limited extent 

 for home trade. There are always, how- 

 ever, some wide-awake retailers who are 

 on the lookout for some of them. There 

 is a freshness about them that is lacking 

 in the regular forcing roses, although 

 their keeping qualities are hardly so good. 

 Plants potted late in the fall and kept 

 in a cold pit, close to freezing, since 

 housing, will now have the canes well 

 hardened and a small batch can be start- 

 ed at any time. To get strong shoots, 

 prune back fairly hard. Cut away weak 

 shoots altogether. Leave four to five 

 buds on the strong canes and two to 

 three on those of more moderate growth. 

 Start cool; 40 to 42 degrees at night is 

 ample until they break. Spray over at 

 least once a day. Any plants carried 

 over summer in pots will, of course, break 

 much stronger than fall potted ones and 

 give better flowers. 



Azaleas. 



Quite a number of the early azalea 

 plants will have been cleared out for 

 Christmas by this time. It is, of course, 

 much too early to think about starting 

 any for Easter. These must be held in 

 a cold house or pit, just clear of frost. 

 There is always a sale during the winter 

 for a limited number of nicely bloomed 

 azaleas, however, and it will pay to start 

 a few plants each week to fill these de- 

 mands. Look over those being held back 

 for Easter trade once a week at least. 

 They will not require much water in a 

 cold house, but if once allowed to become 

 dust-dry the flower buds will probably be 

 destroyed. 



Lorraine Begfonias. 



It is just a trifle early to commence 

 the propagation of Lorraine begonias 

 from leaves, but do not sell all your 

 strong, healthy stock, leaving weaklings 

 for working up stock from for another 

 year. Kemove the flowers from as many 

 as you want to propagate from and keep 



them in a light, sunny bench, so that the 

 foliage can become tough. Leaves such 

 as these will not damp off as will the 

 soft, green ones generally used. While 

 the Christmas market for Lorraines is 

 the one most growers depend upon for 

 cleaning out their stock, this fine begonia 

 is really in better condition early in 

 January and nicely flowered plants will 

 sell for a couple of months yet. Do not 

 keep the plants in a warm, moist house 

 when in flower; a carnation temperature 

 will be found better. 



Poiosettias. 



The poinsettia trade finishes with 

 Christmas; in fact, apart from that holi- 

 day there is little call for the brilliant 

 bracts of these flowers. Sufficient plants 

 should be retained to give an ample sup- 

 ply of cuttings for another season. The 

 pots or pans can be turned on their sides 

 under one of the benches. If the plants 

 have been grown on the benches, they 

 can be lifted and closely set in flats of 

 soil and kept dry until a crop of cuttings 

 is wanted. Some growers use the same 

 old stools year after year for culture in 

 beds. We saw some a few days ago with 

 bracts running up to twenty-two inches 

 in diameter, produced on stools which 

 were at least a dozen years old, each 

 plant carrying six to twelve bracts. The 

 old stools were to be thickly packed in 

 dry soil iii a shed, we were told, until 

 the time came around to start them again. 

 We doubt, however, if it pays to carry 

 over plants so long. Cuttings are so 

 easily rooted that it would seem more 

 economical to start a fresh stock annual- 

 ly, even for bench culture. 



Gardenias. 



December and January are critical 

 months for gardenia growers, who are 

 banking on an abundant winter crop. 

 Practically anyone can flower these plants 

 freely in spring if only they have the 

 necessary heat, but some skill is required 



