Banded Shrubs & Evergreens (Continued) 
(About Rhododendrons) 
All of these might be grouped together from the 
standpoint of growing them into finished plants. 
They always sell for high prices, but many nursery- 
men in the “heavy soils” areas have given up in 
their efforts to produce them. Yet there are some 
IT APPEARS THERE 1S MUCH 
TO LEARN ABOUT THEM 
very handsome profits awaiting you if you can finish 
them satisfactorily. 
Indeed, it appears that there is much to be learned 
about them. We wish to make no effort to establish 
ourselves as authorities on the subject. Do, however, 
permit us to say that we are now producing hundreds 
of thousands of fine liners of these varicus sour-soil- 
loving plants. There are a few things which we 
believe we have learned about them. This is intendea 
to be only a chronicle of our experiences. 
For a number of years we ‘““monkeyed” with all kinds 
of soil mixtures and spray programs. While the 
plants are very young, they respond (or pass out) 
more quickly than those further advanced. It is 
logical, therefore, to carry on the experiments with 
Ale plants. These youngsters provide the quickest 
ata. 
In order to grow Azaleas, Rhododendrons, etc. here 
we did, for quite some years, experiment with var- 
ious combinations of peats, soils and soil conditioners, 
as well as fertilizers, sprays and dusts. It didn’t 
take long to learn that probably one of the first 
requisites is light, fluffy, sour soil which would drain 
well and would not compact from rains and water- 
ings. 
Combinations of peats, soils, well decayed sawdusts, 
leafmold and almost every other medium we could 
learn about, were tried. As time went on, more and 
more peat moss was used in the mixtures of these 
combinations. 
Someone here wisecracked that if a lot of peat moss 
was so good for these plants, why wouldn’t straight 
peat be better. It didn’t sound unreasonable; so peats 
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