FREESIAS 373 



or brown tips and perhaps blind buds later on. Provide good 

 drainage, as otherwise they are likely to suffer from over-watering. 

 For those who only wish to grow a few early ones, bulb pans 

 may be used instead of a bench. Six-inch pans are the handiest, 

 allowing about 2 in. of space between the bulbs. The bulbs can 

 also be planted at once in the bench, but for the early ones this 

 really means a waste of bench, space, as they will do just as well in 

 the pots and you may as well harvest your crops of early 'Mums first. 



The Midseason Freesia Crops 



Bulbs scheduled to flower from the end of January to early 

 April may be planted from October on until the end of November, 

 and can also be started into growth in pots and later planted out; 

 or you can use bulb pans or plant in 3-in. flats in which they are to 

 flower. For this purpose five-eighths to three-fourths size bulbs are 

 perhaps the best. Select the larger-sized bulbs for January and 

 FebruEU-y, and the smaller ones for March and April flowering. 



For Easter and Late Flowering 



With Easter coming early in April, bulbs of Freesias should be 

 planted about the middle of December. In using J^-in. bulbs a good 

 way is to plant them in 6-in. pans, allowing not more than 1 in. of 

 space between them and placing the pans underneath a Violet or 

 coldhouse bench. By the middle of February bring into a Carna- 

 tion house, place on a sunny bench and they will start to flower 

 by the end of March or early April. This will give you short, stocky 

 plants, hardly in need of supports, that every florist around Easter 

 can dispose of to good advantage. Another way, if you happen 

 to have a lot of bulbs on hand by the middle of December, is to 

 plant them in a solid bed in rows where even bulbs a little below 

 the J^-in. size will flower if you let them come along slowly. 



Saving Bulbs 



There are always, especially from the smaller-sized bulbs, 

 plants which fail to flower but which, if properly handled, wiU bloom 

 the foUowing year, and there are growers who save their bulbs from 

 year to year, or at least a part of them, and purchase the rest. 

 In the case of plants which have been grown in pots or pans, after 

 they are through flowering, it is just a matter of giving them less 

 and less water and so gradually ripening them. Later on take the 

 bulbs out of the soil, select the large ones and throw away the smaU 

 ones. With plants which were grown in a bench, however, a Httle 

 more care has to be taken. Lift the plants, soil and aU, and carefuUy 

 place below the bench. The less you disturb the roots and the more 

 soil you leave around the bulbs the better, for you want the tops 



