Rules for Winter Flowering.
No collection of winter flowering plants can nowadays be considered as complete if it does not include such bulbs as Roman and Holland hyacinths, narcissuses, and Bermuda lilies, better known as the “Easter lily,” and catalogued as L. Harrisi. No flowers are easier to grow, if properly treated, and none afford more pleasure. I have not included the tulip in the list, because I find it quite difficult to grow well under amateur treatment. The care expended on it will give much greater returns when bestowed on more tractable plants. Bulbs in pots demand a light, rich, rather sandy soil. Garden loam answers the purpose very well, if lightened by a liberal admixture of sand and well-rotted manure. Work it over until it is fine and mellow. If you can not obtain cow manure,—the ideal fertilizer for all bulbs,—use bone meal in the proportion of a coffee-cupful to a half bushel of soil. I would advise putting several bulbs in one pot. A six-inch pot will accommodate at least four hyacinths of ordinary size. Five or six narcissuses can be planted in a seven-inch pot. It doesn’t matter if they touch one another. The soil below them will supply all the nutriment that is needed. Both these bulbs should be pressed down about half their depth into the soil. Do not cover them. If you can have but one kind of hyacinth, by all means choose the Roman. Its flowers are loosely arranged along the stalk, and are therefore much more graceful than those of the Holland varieties, which crowd one another, so thickly are they set along the one stalk which each bulb produces. The Roman sorts throw up several stalks from each bulb, thereby producing a finer effect, from an artistic standpoint. My method of growing the Bermuda lily is this: I put three bulbs in each seven or eight-inch pot. I fill the pot about one-third full of compost. On this I place the bulbs, crowding them down to firm the soil somewhat. Then I cover them lightly, after which I water them well. I then set them away in a dark, cool place to make roots. When the top begins to grow, I bring them to the light. As the top elongates, I fill in about it with earth. I continue to do this until the pot is filled to within an inch of its brim. The reason for this treatment is this: lilies have two sets of roots, one from the base of the bulb, the other from the stalk above the bulb. A lily planted on or near the surface of the soil in a pot would be unable to develop its stalk roots, because there would be nothing for them to take hold of. But by low planting, as described, and filling in from time to time, we give these roots a chance to develop properly, and the plant is greatly benefited by the treatment. After potting hyacinths and narcissuses, water them well, and place in a cool, dark place, as advised for lilies. I would not advise a place where they will freeze. A room or place where the temperature is low, and can be kept so, answers all purposes, as such a condition favors the development of roots, and does not encourage the growth of top. What we aim at is to secure a root development before top growth begins, thus imitating the processes of nature by which roots are formed in fall for the support of the plant in spring, while flowering. If we pot a bulb and place it at once in the light, the growth of top begins before roots have made much development, and the bulbs often fail to produce flowers, or give such inferior ones that they are not enjoyable. Be sure to leave your bulbs in cold storage until roots have formed, if you want fine flowers from them.—Home and Flowers.