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The Greenhouse, Month to Month 
By W. R. Fowkes, New York. 
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APRIL'S balmy days, with its increasing sunshine 
and eternal vigilance on the part of the grower, 
brings the best out of plant life. 
If success is to be attained next winter, all that is 
necessary now is to attend to every minute detail and 
if good attention is bestowed on the young plants the 
former will follow. 
In the pot fruit department the nectarines and peaches 
will for the most part have set all their crop and the 
disbudding having been attended to be now careful of the 
drainage. 
Water once weekly with one tablespoonful of vermine 
to three gallons of water. It will drive insects and worms 
out of the pots and sweeten the soil. It is effective and 
cheap. 
The ants are always troublesome among the fruits and 
especially the kinds we are discussing. By the regular use 
of vermine they will be destroyed. 
Amaryllis that have flowered should be kept watered 
and also fed with Clay's fertilizer to finish the growth of 
the bulbs. If first-class exhibition plants are required 
next year this is the point to remember. Oftentimes they 
are carelessly thrown under a bench and left to wither 
and next year when half of them fail to produce a flower 
it causes surprise, but the great secret of these magnificent 
plants is to take pains and when the foliage assumes a 
yellow color then gradually dispense with the water. 
Azaleas should have all dead blooms picked oft' and 
be given the same treatment as the early flowering ones 
that have now finished their growth and have set buds 
for next Christmas. 
These should be kept cool and quiet, not excite them 
into pseudo growth or their future will be spoiled. If a 
cool, deep frame is at hand, place them there. 
Orchids should be shaded from strong sunlight. Spray 
over head twice daily. 
The Cattleya Gigas should ^be near the light and its 
rapidly advancing bulbs will produce better blooms in 
July. 
Cyprepediums should be well watered and will do finely 
in the palm house. 
Calanthes should be potted. Place one strong bulb in 
a five-inch pot well drained in a compost of peat, good 
sod, cow dung and charcoal. Place on a shelf near the 
glass in the warmest end of the palm house and give little 
water until nicely rooted, when they require well syring- 
ing and watering. 
Lettuce and Burpee's Wayahead is a grand variety to 
succeed the earlier kinds. Sow a few melon seeds on 
pieces of sod. They will be earlier than the usually out- 
door sown and the frame or cool house is ideal for this 
useful work. 
Cucumbers in large pots should be allowed to develop 
one main shoot four feet or to the top of the trellis, then 
take out the point and laterals will develop. After two 
fruits are formed or two or three joints take out the point. 
Cucumbers revel in very moist house and the place 
should never become dry. 
Carnation plants in the frames should be carefully at- 
tended to and to prevent stem rot, spray faithfully with 
Fungise every ten days. There is no finer remedy apart 
from good culture. 
If the ]ilants are not to go into the benches luitil July, 
they should be planted out in the garden in an open 
spot and the soil treated first with lime and wood ashes. 
Chrysanthemums will grow fast and must have plenty 
of water or premature buds will develop, retarding and 
upsetting the proper date of fixing the buds. 
Single and pompon vars should be pinched to en- 
courage a bushy growth. Cyclamen should now be in 
three-inch pots in light soil, and in the cool frames when 
danger from frost is over, leave the sashes off at night 
and the leaves will develop freely. 
About May 15 is a good time to plant the Rose house 
and usually the side benches are too near the glass for 
good roses, and it is a good plan to plant the Gardenias on 
the side of the stumy house. They succeed fine in rose 
soil but add some peat dust to the compost and if heavy 
some sand; keep lime away and plant sixteen inches 
apart. After the benches are cleaned of old soil wash 
out with lime and sulphur. The Rose soil should consist 
of one-half good manure and a sprinkling of pure bone. 
Grafted plants succeed better in light soil. The Manetti 
is a shallow rooter and the five-inch bench is deep enough, 
but the union should be below the surface and not ex- 
posed to the light so it is necessary to plant out of small 
pots, not larger than three-inches. Plant sixteen inches 
apart and it will be seen later on that the plants will de- 
velop stronger thereby. Own root roses require heavy 
soil and instead of sand substitute clay, and the dif- 
ference will show later on. 
Any benches of Roses that are producing finely now 
should be well fed and watered. Many shoots will burn 
or scorch if the roots are allowed to get dry. More and 
heavier syringing is necessary. 
Cut flowers early and place in ice box or cellar. They 
will keep for a long time in a temperature of 48 degrees 
in the ice box in clean water. 
Carnations likewise should be cut before the sun fades 
the blooms. Do not pick but cut with the knife, they 
will last so much longer if cut. Do not allow the fires 
to run the temperature too high. Save the coal also the 
]ilants like sun heat. 
Cinerarias and Calceolarias for early Fall should be 
sown ; place the seed in light soil in pans or flats and cover 
with glass and start i na cool frame. These cool subjects 
shoidd never be raised in heat or their vigor will be im- 
paired. 
Palms should be now watered once weekly with soot 
water and sprayed with aphril to keep down the scale. 
All palms must be well shaded or streaks will spoil their 
usefulness. 
Hanging baskets of Asparagus Oxalis and Achimenes 
should be immersed in a tub and not played on with the 
hose. 
Tuljeroses Legonias for blooming in pots should be 
grown in a temperature of 60° at night and be shaded 
from bright sun. Do not syringe but damp the floors. 
Crotons will also need shading and sponge every two 
weeks to keep clean. 
Gloxinias that have commenced to flower should be 
raised on inverted flower pots to protect the thick foliage. 
Crive a feed of cow manure liquid each 10 days, and these 
l)laiits do not like the great heat usually given them. 
I'"iftv-five to 60 at night when they commerce to bloom is 
far better than 70 usually given them. 
Farleyense Ferns should be repotted if necessary. A 
{Continued on pa;^c 162.') 
147 
