Soft-Wooded Plants for Florida Gardens 
F. W. Fletcher, Orlando 
Soft-wooded, or herbaceous plants, in¬ 
clude all the annuals and most of the per¬ 
ennials generally used. Without them we 
could have no real gardens. I am not go¬ 
ing to weary you with a long list of botan¬ 
ical names and dry-as-dust generalities, 
but will give you a brief talk on this sub¬ 
ject so full of interest to all garden lovers. 
First, I will briefly describe a few of the 
newer or less known plants, and then give 
a list of such flowers as we have grown 
or seen growing successfully in Florida 
gardens. 
Among the newer introductions per¬ 
haps the zinnias deserve first place. You 
all know this once rather common or 
plebeian flower, but the newer varieties 
are in an entirely different class. Picture 
to yourself a dahlia flower, four inches or 
more in diameter, with 18-inch stem, in 
all shades of color except blues, growing 
on a zinnia plant. This is the dahlia- 
flowered variety, recently introduced. 
Seed is only obtainable in mixed colors at 
present, but we are promised the separate 
colors in another year. Another new va¬ 
riety is the cactus-flowered, with blooms 
closely resembling that of the cactus dah¬ 
lia. Still another is the picotee, with 
flowers delicately edged with pink. If I 
was asked to name the best plant for mid¬ 
summer bloom I would answer: “Zin¬ 
nias, and then—more zinnias.” 
Another plant, rather old in cultivation, 
but new to most Florida gardens, is the 
Watsonia. This, grown from corms. is as 
easily handled as the gladioli, and is a gem 
for Florida conditions. The flowers come 
in white and two shades of pink. Plant 
bulbs or corms from September to No¬ 
vember in Central and South Florida and 
expect bloom from late February to May. 
The yellow calla (Elliottiana) is a 
splendid thing for winter and spring flow¬ 
ers. Grown from tubers, planted as soon 
as procurable—usually November. Re- 
• quires a moist soil and partial shade for 
best results. As we cannot have the daf¬ 
fodils in our gardens this calla is an ac¬ 
ceptable substitute. 
All know the gladioli, but are you ac¬ 
quainted with the new Primulinus hy¬ 
brids? With more slender, graceful 
stems, soft pastel colors and beautiful 
hooded flowers, this new race is, for dec¬ 
orative purposes, ’way ahead of the older 
types. I had a bed of about 1,000 plants 
this season, no two plants with flowers 
alike, that was the feature of my garden 
from February to the middle of April. 
For shipping it is not as useful as the 
older varieties. Bulbs planted, a few each 
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