Editor Mayflower:
While visiting the florist's near home this spring I watched him at his work repotting Boston Ferns and learned something new. They say there's a trick for every trade and I now believe it, for I found him putting three and four Ferns of the same variety into the same pot, making them all appear as one plant. If professional florists can do so why isn't it good enough to pass along to ambitious amateurs? I have always wanted some Ferns, but as we can't always regulate the heat at night and I find it necessary to be away from home sometimes in winter, I have decided to wait until I have a home in a more congenial clime than this,—not that Montana is not all right, but our home, at present, is high up in the mountains and winter is both long and severe. However, when I do buy Ferns I shall try and purchase at least three of every kind I decide on and pot them together, and then if in after years they are too crowded I can easily repot and divide them at the same time.—Laurel.
MARYLAND
Editor Mayflower:
Outside all is snow and ice, the wind howls and rattles at doors and windows and I feel very sure Jack Frost is trying to get in to nip my few pretty, thrifty window plants, but I do not think he will succeed, for when I shut them up at night in tight boxes, and cover the tops, I do not believe he could reach them though a blizzard raged. I have been looking out at a bed where there are two dozen glass jars showing, or rather their tops are just sticking out, for they are well banked with old well rotted cowpen manure and coarse litter thrown over that—and all now covered over with snow, making little white mounds all over the bed. But I know that underneath these mounds are two dozen little Rose slips—some very choice varieties—and every chance I get to peep at them, which is every chance I get to go outside, they look fresh and green and bid fair promise of much pleasure in the spring and summer when, if they grow as those I raised a year ago under glass jars did, it will be a marvel to watch them. I think it a far more satisfactory way to raise Roses than to buy small rooted plants from a florist; at least, such has been my experience.—Sister Belle.
MISSISSIPPI
Editor Mayflower:
Anyone who has never seen the Giant Browallia in bloom can never realize how very pretty and bright it is. Last summer I saw a lovely stand of Geraniums of various shades and among them was a pot of Browallia in full bloom. The contrast was fine. I think the shade is very much like that of the hardy Plumbago Lady Lapente, though I've never seen the two together. It is a lovely shade of deep blue. With me it has only one rival among blue flowers and that is Plumbago Capense. The latter is a lovely delicate blue while the former is a deep dark blue. I am unbounded in my admiration of both plants. The plants are cheap. I have never seen it only as a pot plant yet I believe it would make a most excellent bedding plant.—Mrs. P. L. Young.
