October, 1916 
THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 
91 
blossoming they may as well be thrown away 
and the bowls refilled. There is no use 
trying to “ripen ofF” the bulbs and keeping 
them for another year. 
The soil used for our bulbs last winter was 
composed of three measures of rather heavy 
garden loam (Hobson’s choice, no other 
available), two each of sand and of rotted 
strawy litter — the decayed debris of stable 
manure raked off the lawn the previous 
spring, packed and slightly covered with 
soil in a shallow trench during the summer. 
To this was added a handful of pulverized 
“complete” commercial fertilizer for each 
bushel of mixture. Ground bone, nitrate 
of soda and muriate of potash (equal parts) 
make a good combination. The garden loam 
was too heavy so the sand and rotted straw 
were added to lighten it and give it a 
better water holding capacity. From former 
experience I believe that sand or moss would 
have done as well so far as flower production is 
concerned, but we wanted to have some plant 
food in the soil so the hardy bulbs could be 
allowed to mature, for we wanted to plant 
them out of doors this autumn. While bulbs 
grown in the house or the greenhouse do not 
make as good plants the first year after being 
forced as do new bulbs, yet in another year 
or two they do well in garden borders;- it is 
often worth while to ripen them off for this 
purpose. 
Ripening off consists merely in keeping the 
plants growing well after flowering until their 
leaves begin to turn yellow. Then they 
should be watered sparingly until the green has 
disappeared from the leaf, at which time the 
pots should be laid on their sides in a cool, 
shady, airy place until the soil has become dry 
as dust. Lastly, the bulbs should be separated 
from the soil, cleaned of all trash and stored 
in a dry, airy place until autumn when they 
may be planted where desired out of doors. 
There is no use trying to grow them in the 
house a second time because they won’t pro- 
duce good flowers two years in succession. 
Most of our bulbs were planted in five inch 
and six inch flower pots in the bottoms of 
which were ’ placed a few pieces of broken 
crockery, clinkers or pebbles for drainage. 
Some earth was placed upon these pieces, the 
bulbs pressed into the soil so that when fin- 
Place a tube over the growing bulb to " draw ” it up and 
get a proper length of stalk 
ished by adding more soil the tips were just 
below the surface and the surfaces half to 
three-quarters of an inch below the rims of the 
pots. Labels were then thrust in the soil and 
the pots stood in a tub of water almost as deep 
as their rims. This is the surest way to have 
the soil get thoroughly wet. When the water 
had risen to the surface and the soil had turned 
a darker color the pots were removed, allowed 
to drain for half a day or longer and then stood 
in the coldest, darkest part of the cellar; in 
fact, some were covered with empty boxes to 
exclude all possible light. Weekly watering 
Do not try forcing a second year for the bulbs cannot stand 
it. Here’s a case! 
was given but nothing else was done until the 
buds had growm an inch or more above the 
pots. There was considerable variation in 
this — a month to six weeks in some cases — 
due to the development of the individual bulbs. 
This allowed for a succession of hloom. A 
better way to secure succession, especially if 
the cellar is not very cold is to plunge the pots 
of newly planted bulbs rim-deep in sifted coal 
ashes in a coldframe or a box out of doors. 
If the cellar is dry, ashes may be used to 
advantage in the same way. The coldframe 
should be covered with litter to prevent 
alternate freezing and thawing. We lost 
several dozen bulbs last winter by not taking 
this precaution with some that were placed 
out of doors. 
Last winter we had one dismal failure (with 
Freesia) and two only partial successes (with 
Crocus and Puschkinia). Out of one hundred 
Freesia bulbs we produced not one flower (!) 
simply because the cellar was too warm for 
this bulb. The Crocuses developed spectral 
white sheaths of parchment-like tissue from 
which the flowers could not escape. Some 
crocuses stored in a rather moister, cooler 
place than the rest gave better results — about 
fifty per cent, of the bulbs blossomed. From 
about a dozen bulbs of Puschkinia we secured 
only one flower — a rare beauty, however. "I his 
bulb has the reputation of doing much poorer 
in the house than in the open ground, but as 
we had a total failure with this plant out of 
doors last spring we concluded that the bulbs 
were of inferior quality. 
Among the most satisfactory of indoor 
bulbs is Scilla sibirica, a beautiful little blue 
flower that continues fresh for several weeks. 
A dozen to a score, depending on the size, 
may be placed in a six inch pot. 
The Roman Hyacinth we liked specially 
because it is less stiff than the Dutch; but we 
had both. Several of the latter threatened 
to blossom without developing any stalk, but 
we cut the ends out of tall salmon cans which 
we placed over the plants to make the stems 
“pull” or “draw up to the light.” The 
illustration shows two plants so treated, one 
with the can still in place. 
We had several score of Tulips, three to 
five in a pot. By choosing varieties carefully 
and by successional plantings we had three 
“seasons” of bloom, each for two to three 
weeks — the first in late January with Jacoba 
Van Beyeren (pure white) and Queen of the 
Netherlands (lovely blush pink); the second, 
in late February with Cramoisi Brilliant 
(vermilion red); and the third in late March 
and early April, with the charming Yellow 
Prince. 
Of all the bulbs in our collection the various 
Narcissus gave us the most pleasure. Every 
bulb, except among the Poet’s — because of 
poor quality bulbs — produced its stalk of 
bloom, sometimes two and even three stalks, 
and those species which bear blossoms in 
clusters gave as many as twenty and in one 
case almost thirty flowers. The Emperor, 
“the finest deep yellow trumpet-flowered 
Daffodil in cultivation” was easily the leader. 
Though slow and late in coming into blossom 
it makes up for this by the majesty of its 
flowers, often more than three inches in dia- 
meter. The Empress we did not have, but a 
neighbor had good success with it. In this 
variety the perianth (or frill) is white instead 
of yellow as in the Emperor. The only regret 
we had concerning these two varieties is their 
lack of perfume. This lack is more than 
made up by the fragrance of the Jonquils 
(Campernelles). The one we had was rugu- 
losus which has clusters of large rich, spicy, 
golden flowers that last a long time. 
How the Crocus behaved because the cellar conditions were 
not right 
