June 30, 1910. 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



18 



OUTDOOR SWEET PEAS. 



While the indoor crop of sweet peas 

 is now getting poorer and full of spider, 

 the outdoor plants are yielding an 

 abundance of splendid flowers. As both 

 roses and carnations are now rapidly 

 deteriorating in quality, it behooves us 

 to take good care of the sweet peas, as 

 they are the most generally useful and 

 popular of summer cut flowers. A gen- 

 erous mulch between the rows is of im- 

 mense benefit, now that we are getting 

 hot, dry weather. Note the color of 

 foliage, height of vines, length of 

 flower stems and general vigor of 

 mulched over unmulched rows. Keep 

 the flowers closely picked and remove 

 seed pods carefully. If these latter are 

 allowed to develop, the vines will 

 speedily decline in vigor. 



Sweet peas love moisture at the root. 

 They also enjoy syringings overhead 

 on the evenings of hot days. We 

 prefer to pick the flowers as soon 

 as the dew has gone in the morning. If 

 picked damp on a hot day and placed 

 in a cold room, the chances are that 

 many will spot. If you cannot 

 afford time to mulch your rows, do the 

 next best thing and keep the soil con- 

 stantly cultivated. Do not be afraid 

 of stirring the soil too much; the more 

 frequently it is done, the better they 

 will grow. 



WINTER SWEET PEAS. 



Could sweet peas be grown for the 

 winter at a profit in a house 20x100, 

 for out-of-town shipment! If so, what 

 varieties would be best for the market? 



A. B. 



The most successful greenhouse 

 cultivators of sweet peas find that there 

 is more money in sweet peas coming 

 into bloom from March to July than in 

 such as bloom from October to 

 February. Some growers, however, 

 make them pay as a winter crop. Suit- 

 able varieties to grow are: Mont Blanc, 

 Florence Denzer and Watchung, all 

 pure white; Christmas Pink, extra 

 early Blanche Ferry, pink and white; 

 Mrs. Alex. Wallace, lavender. In order 

 to have sweet peas early in November 

 it will be necessary to sow seeds not 

 later than the middle of July. C. W. 



ASPARAGUS WITH SWEET PEAS. 



Can asparagus be successfully grown 

 in a temperature of 48 to 50 degrees, 

 in the same house with sweet peast 



F. D. S. 



1 presume you refer to the common 

 garden vegetable and not to A. plumo- 

 8U8 or A. Sprengeri. A sweet pea house 

 is hardly adapted to asparagus culture. 

 Of course, in a temperature of 48 to 



50 degrees it will grow, but slowly; 

 60 to 65 degrees at night would suit 

 it much better. We assume you want 

 to force this asparagus for winter use 

 and would, therefore, advise you to 

 give it a warmer house. Single violets 

 do well with sweet peas. They can be 

 planted between the pea rows and 

 pulled out when the latter shade them 

 too much. C. W. 



tions. They always show the dryness 

 on the edges and other portions of the 

 leaves to a greater or less extent. I 

 fertilized heavily with a barnyard fer- 

 tlizer, usually well decomposed cattle 

 manure. Are the bulbs useless for fur- 

 ther greenhouse use? Shall I secure 

 fresh bulbs? C. D. D. 



WEAK GROWTH OF OALLAS. 



How long will calla lily bulbs be re- 

 liable for winter blooming if thoroughly 

 rested from the beginning of June un- 

 til the beginning of August? What 

 causes the dried, burnt-like parts of the 

 foliage? My callas this year grew tall 

 and the stems were weak. They are 

 from the same bulbs as I have used for 

 two years previously, but they did not 

 formerly develop such weak stems, 

 flowers and foliage. They bloomed 

 freely, gave fine blooms and seemed 

 thrifty, but during the last month or 

 so they have developed this weakness. 

 They were grown in the same solid bed 

 every year and under the same condi- 



I have grown calla bulbs for eight 

 to ten years with excellent success. I 

 plan usually to select a number of the 

 strong offsets and grow several of these 

 in 6-inch and 8-inch pots. I plant them 

 outdoors in rich ground in early June, 

 instead of drying them off. They make 

 splendid bulbs outdoors and, if care- 

 fully lifted and potted, will flower capi- 

 tally the following winter. We like to 

 pot, rather than plant directly into the 

 beds or benches. They do better when 

 partially established in pots first. 



The reason for the diseased condition 

 of your foliage is hard to tell without 

 any cultural data to judge from. They 

 succeed well in a compost of well de- 

 cayed cow manure and turfy loam, such 

 as would grow good violets, chrysan- 

 themums or carnations. A common error 

 is to dry them off too suddenly when 

 the flowering season ends. Do this 

 gradually and you will find the tubers 

 are much better. 



If your stock is all unsatisfactory, 

 it would be better to make a clean 

 start with new roots. Callas, when well 

 established, like an abundant water 

 supply and liquid manure is beneficial. 

 In using the latter, however, care is 

 necessary. This is powerful and burn- 

 ing in its nature, unless well diluted. 

 The safest plan is to fill a bag with, the 

 manure and sink it in a barrel of water. 

 Then apply the liquid, but in a diluted 

 form. C. W. 



PLANTS RUNNING TO BUD. 



I am writing to you to ask for a lit- 

 tle information in regard to my chry- 

 santhemums. I have had them benched 

 a little over a week. They are about 

 eight inches high. All of them, whether 

 early, midseason or late, are throwing 

 buds. I cut them back two eyes and 

 still the buds come. I have never had 

 this trouble before. I am growing the 

 same kind of plants this year as I did 

 last. I have also added five or six of 

 the new mums to my collection, and 

 they are doing the same. There are 

 some kinds that always throw an early 

 bud, but usually, when they are pinched 

 back as I have done, thev start off 

 all right. *A. D. H. 



The trouble spoken of by A. D. H. 

 is a common one at this season of the 

 year. It is caused frequently by the 

 plants having been neglected in the 

 early stages and becoming consider- 

 ably potbound. This, when the plants 

 are not getting an adequate supply of 

 water, causes the wood to become hard 

 and the consequence is that the plants 

 run into bud, instead of pushing right 

 along as they would have done had 



they been grown without any check of 

 any kind. Any variety will do this, if 

 abused in the' manner described, but 

 some varieties are prone to do it, even 

 under the best of conditions and care. 



A. D. H. would have done better if, 

 in place of cutting them back to two 

 eves, he had simply kept the buds close- 

 ly pinched off, and in this case the 

 ]ilants would, after a time, have begun 

 to grow. Now that the plants are cut 

 back, he will have to wait for a sucker 

 to appear for his future plants. 



Kvery spring we get crops of com- 

 plaints' of just this character, and a 

 good deal of it is due to climatic con- 

 ditions, because the weather in the 

 spring is somewhat similar to that in 

 the fall; that is, there is a low tem- 

 perature at night, sometimes running to 

 freezing, with clear, bright days. 



1 have had the theory advanced to 

 me that this trouble only comes on Aus- 

 tralian varieties, showing that the 

 plants have not yet become acclimated 

 in .\merica, and want to flower in the 

 spring, that being the natural flowering 

 period, the months of April and May, 

 in Australia. This is an untenable the- 

 ory, becnuse our native American seed- 



