Title: The American florist : a weekly journal for the trade
Identifier: americanfloristw40amer (find matches)
Year: 1885 (1880s)
Authors: American Florists Company
Subjects: Floriculture; Florists
Publisher: Chicago : American Florist Company
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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Croton Reedii. Other stock is grown here which aids materially in the made-up work and all spring flowering stock such as deutzias, spireas, azaleas, cinerarias and others ■were in excellent shape for the holiday. Out at Schiller's on West Madison street we found Geo. Asmus smiling and busy. The new store has now got down into good working order and is especially suitable for handling a large trade. The large double fronted store is roomy and open with fine expansive windows, these and the store being floored with mosaic tiles. At the rear of the store on one side there is a large consei-vatoi-y in which stock is grown and shown and this runs clear back to the rear where goods may be delivered without going through the store. The workrooms, coal room and store rooms on the other side of the store are along the same ample lines, everything being finely arranged to handle a brisk trade. The underground cool room is an excellent idea, the temperature keeping cool without ice yet not too cool for the stock which matures and keeps in splendid order there. We noticed a pretty idea here for Easter window dec- oration. Pretty little pink everlastings were wired on boxwood and the dee^i green of the bos showed up the pink of the flowers finely. On approaching the store we thought that the muUions and sides of the windows were draped with Lady Gay or Dorothy Perkins roses until we got close enough to see what it was. It is a decidedly good idea as it is not costly and lasts extremely well. Mr. Asmus also used it on the handles of his Easter baskets with good effect. All seasonable stock was in good shape and well displayed and a magnificent lot of lilies were handled. Altogether the store is one of the finest and most commodious in the city and very finely equipped. Ch.\mp.\ign, III.—Lee Woodard, foreman for Thos. Franks & Son, has resigned his position and on May 1 takes charge of a greenhouse he has purchased for $4,-500 at Indianapolis. Messrs. Franks have secured a good successor to Mr. Woodard. Notes on Crotons. Crotons will always be popular as small plants for table, vorauda and other deco- rations as well as for summer bedding, and those plant growers who do not grow them are missing a profitable branch of the business. Although cro- tons require considerable heat, their cul- ture, when this is given, is very simple and may be taken in hand with every prospect of success by anyone having ex- perience in ordinary plant cultivation. .\ stock of plants is easily kept up where there are old plants of suitable varieties for the purpose, but it takes some time to work up a good stock from the small plants sent out by market plant grow- ers. The present is a good time to com- mence, though croton growers have been working stock all through the fall and winter—since fire heat was used in the houses. Cuttings are made by taking wood that is only half ripened—wood of the previous season. Cut this about four to six inches or more in length according
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Croton Baronne de Rothschild. to the variety and insert the cuttings in a bottom heat of 80° or 85° in sand kept always moist. The cut- tings may be set fairly close together, as in this way they help to sup- port each other, and the leaves are kep; upright or nearly so. while the short time they are in the sand pre- vents any injury to them: these may, in fact, be kept on and help to increase root action if ordinary care is used, both at potting and in the after treatment. Respecting their care while in the sand, keep the house or propagating case close and moist, and damp the heads of the cuttings regularly as well as the sand. When rooted, which will be easily seen by a stiffening of the foliage, they may be potted in 2%-inch pots and stood on a bench in the same house they were struck in, standing them fairly close and spraying the leaves regularly two or three times daily according to the weather. For a time after coming out of the propagating bed the temperature must be kept well up and abundance of atmospheric moisture maintained, but as the plants get established the tempera- ture can be reduced and less moisture al- lowed, though at no time must crotons be exposed to a dry atmosphere while growing—only when the plants are be- ing hardened for sale or for planting out. As a rule it will be most convenient to remove the young stock from the house in which they were rooted as soon as the roots are running well in the new compost, but this, of course, is a mat- ter for individual growers to arrange and will differ according to circumstances. In any case the more gradual the change from the too enervating conditions ob- taining in the propagating house to the more natural temperature of ^the grow- ing quarters the better. Sudden changes in the temperature will cause the foliage to give way and fall, or at least to check its growth, and must be avoided. In the growing quarters proper the plants must be stood well apart in benches surfaced with ashes or gravel to allow of plenty of light reaching them from all sides and also to enable the grower to spray regu- larly the under sides of the leaves and damp between the pots. From this on the growing is a simple matter of shifting the plants to larger pots as becomes necessai-y, and always maintaining^ a genial growing atmosphere around them. Crotons delight in sun, and nothing else will bring out their fine coloring. It is seldom necessary to shade them except iu the hottest and brightest weather, and then only a thin shade is needed to just break the rays of the sun, yet insure plenty of light at all times. A more rapid method of obtaining good plants is by the old plan of ringing and mossing. Make an incision in the bark at a convenient place according to the size of the plant it is intended to take off and bind this with moss. Never let the moss get dry or the plants will not root. When roots can be seen coming through the moss cut the plants oft below the incision and pot in the usual way, re- moving any loose moss without injuring the young roots. After potting, the plants should receive the same treatment as advised for newly rooted specimens from cuttings. Another interesting

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