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18 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



December ^8, li>ll. 



moist at the root and growing, whereas 

 they need to be kept tolerably dry at 

 the root, to ripen their wood after the 

 flowering season has passed. I would 

 advise keeping them much drier at the 

 root, starting now. Never mind if much 

 of the foliage falls; that is only to be 

 expected. Prune back the plants well 

 before starting them into growth again. 



Give the soil about them a good loosen- 

 ing up, remove the upper portion and 

 give a top-dressing of loam, sand and 

 cow manure. Syringe freely until the 

 plants break, but don 't water too freely 

 until growth is well started. If rested, 

 pruned and started up thus, you should 

 have no trouble in getting an abundant 

 bloom on them. C. W. 



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SEASONABLE 



SUGGESTIONS 



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Antirrhinums. 



Where late mums are being cleared, 

 snapdragons make an excellent succes- 

 sion crop. Some growers dot gladioli 

 among them, but it is far better to keep 

 the two crops separate; one only spoils 

 the other. Be sure to give the soil a 

 liberal manuring and spading over be- 

 fore planting the snapdragons. 



Blooming plants which are now giving 

 a fine crop of spikes will require occa- 

 sional waterings with liquid manure, 

 and a top-dressing of bone or sheep 

 manure lightly scratched in about them 

 will be appreciated. 



Tliere^ is a great and growing demand 

 for rooted cuttings of antirrhinums. 

 People are only beginning to appre- 

 ciate them as winter flowers. Pink 

 sells much the best, then white and 

 yellow. As all flowering shoots carry 

 an abundant crop of cuttings, it is pos- 

 sible to do a lot of propagating with- 

 out in any way sacrificing flowering 

 shoots, as for instance with carnations. 

 These root readily with carnation cut- 

 tings. Do not allow too many shoots 

 to grow up from each plant if you 

 want fancy spikes. If, however, you 

 have a better sale for small or medium 

 spikes, you can let them all grow. 



Wallflowers. 



Now is a good time to place a batch 

 of wallflowers in a cool greenhouse. 

 They dislike much heat and the flow- 

 ers are entirely lacking in substance 

 when grown warm. Wallflowers are a 

 popular market flower in Europe, their 

 delightful odor being pleasing to prac- 

 tically everyone. Here we, unfortu- 

 nately, cannot grow them outdoors ex- 

 cept in the warmer states, but there 

 is a good demand for bunches of them 

 in the big flower markets in winter 

 and early spring. All the up-to-date re- 

 tailers keep a steady supply on hand 

 when obtainable. The popular colors 

 are blood red and golden yellow. In 

 order to secure the big wallflower 

 plants, which will give a wealth of 

 flowers in winter, the seed should be 

 sown in May or June, not later. Too 

 often the sowing is delayed until 

 August, and the plants started this 

 late, while thev will flower, are too 

 small to be profitable. 



Marguerites. 



For winter flowering it is neither 

 practical nor profitable to have the 

 marguerite plants in benches, unless 

 they are unusually shallow and the 

 plants have them well filled with roots 



before winter. Marguerites, to flower 

 them early, should have their roots con- 

 fined in pots or narrow boxes. These 

 can be stood on a bench wit>h soil below 

 them, so that they can root through. 

 They will then give a good winter 

 crop of flowers. Where flowers are 

 needed through May and June, it is 

 a good plan to bench them, as by this 

 method strong stems and fine flowers 

 are to be had. Plants in pots for 

 Easter flowering will still need some 

 pinching. This may be discontinued 

 after January 10. Give them any nec- 

 essary repotting, using a rich compost, 

 and be sure to always give them an 

 abundance of water. The new double 

 white variety, Mrs. F. Sander, has un- 

 doubtedly come to stay. It is an even 

 better winter bloomer than Queen Alex- 

 andra, from which one should judge it 

 was a sport, and makes a nice pot 

 plant. 



Freesias. 



Never mind if you did not succeed 

 in getting your freesia crop in for 

 Christmas; the chances are that if you 

 had grown them warm some would 



have opened, and it would have caused 

 the stems to become weak and the 

 flowers soft. First-class freesias, espe- 

 cially the variety Purity, are always 

 in demand at good prices through Janu- 

 ary and February. Keep the pans, pots 

 or flats close up to the glass. Water 

 abundantly and feed frequently but in 

 weak doses; heavy doses of liquid 

 manure will cause the ends of the 

 leaves to turn brown, thus largely dis- 

 figuring the plants and entailing a lot 

 of trimming to make them salable. 

 Heavy fumigations, especially with to- 

 bacco stems, will cause the same brown- 

 ing, as will hydrocyanic acid gas. If 

 the freesias are cut with long st;em8 

 close to the ground, it will hot pay to 

 carry them over another year; if, on 

 the other hand, the foliage is not sacri- 

 ficed, they will produce splendid bulbs 

 which can be relied upon to flower free- 

 ly the following year. 



Easter I<ilies. 



Now that Christmas crops are out 

 of the way it is possible to take out 

 the lilies, which are probably crowded 

 on some of the benches or below them, 

 and give them every possible attention 

 and care from this time on. Longi- 

 florums should be through the soil now. 

 In the case of multiflorums a tempera- 

 ture of 55 degrees at night will suffice, 

 while Formosas will do nicely 'iit 50 

 degrees as a minimum, but with gigan- 

 teums, which after all are the leading 

 variety grown for Easter, the plants do 

 much better if given warm treatment 

 from start to finish. (Hve these, there- 

 fore, 60 degrees at night and if they 

 are backward 65 degrees will be better. 

 If, perchance, the plants are already 

 four to six inches high, let them have 

 the cooler end of the house. Remem- 

 ber that for two months now we shall 

 have the lowest temperature of the year 

 and if you want your plants in flower 

 at Easter, which comes April 7, or 

 nine days earlier than in 1911, buds 

 must be showing plainly in the last 

 week of February. 



IT MAY BE A SPORT. 



We are sending under separate cover 

 some samples of chrysanthemums. The 

 pink ones are supposed to be Enguehard, 

 which we grew for two years. In the 

 third year the white ones appeared and 

 we have been growing them since that 

 time. We should like to know whether 

 the white mum is a sport or a variety 

 that is known in commerce. The type 

 seems to be well established and it is a 

 good, strong grower. We have never 

 grown it to a larger size, as this is a 

 good size for our trade. 



W. A. W. 



The blooms were completely gone 

 when the samples reached me; so I did 

 not have an opportunity to see them at 

 all. If the foliage is identical with 

 Enguehard in every respect and the 

 flower is the same, flowering at the same 

 time, it is evidently a sport. I do not 

 know that Enguehard, so far, has sported 



white. As a rule pink varieties do not 

 sport white, but of course there are ex- 

 ceptions to every rule. 



Next year W. A. W. can, if he wishes, 

 readily ascertain whether or not it is a 

 sport of Enguehard, by sending it to 

 the committees appointed by the Chrys- 

 anthemum Society to judge seedlings 

 and sports. If six flowers are sent, ac- 

 companied by one of the parent flower, 

 then its identity can be readily estab- 

 lished. 



The reason I think it entirely possible 

 it is a true sport, is because this year 

 we are distributing a bronze sport of 

 Enguehard, called Antique, and when 

 a plant begins to show a sportive ten- 

 dency it often sports at practically the 

 same time in widely scattered places 

 and also sports in one or more colors. 

 The bronze sport came two years ago 

 and it is quite possible that a white 

 came at the same time. 



C. H. Totty. 





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