plants – School for Housewives

This is the first article in April of the School for Housewives 1909 series published on April 4, 1909, and is an article on planting spring-time bulbs.

Transcribed from the Sunday edition of the The Buffalo Sunday Morning News.

The Bulbs We Planted

IN SETTING pen to paper below the title inscribed above, I confess to a mighty temptation to moralize upon the glamour of human hopes and the varying results that attend upon our planting.

Pushing this aside, I fall a victim to the more sensible inclination to insert here and now an extract from a bewitching letter from a Chicago woman who treats of bulb culture, together with a variety of other topics. If I had a valid excuse for publishing her communication entire, our members should have it. As it passes from theme to theme, swiftly and gracefully, getting honey for each, the rest of the epistle must wait until occasion justifies the publication.

Have I ever told in the exchange the story of the boy who asked his mother “if the old moons were not cut up into little stars when they got too small to be used as moons?” It is one of my pet anecdotes, and I apply it to the letter in hand. The little stars—all bright—will twinkle forth in due time.

Good Luck.

As a beginning: “I will give my experience in raising Chinese lilies, in answer to Mrs. A.R. (Chicago).

“My younger days were passed in California, and every year our Chicago house servant gave us the bulbs, and said if they bloomed by New Year’s Day we would have ‘good luck’ that year.

“If you grow them in water, they will never bloom again in water. If, however, you plant them in the ground after they have finished blooming in water, they will come up every year, and at the end of five years (!) they will blossom again, and every year after that. I did as he told me, and found all true. He said, also, that if they were planted in earth the first time, they would always bloom yearly. I never tried that, so I cannot vouch for the truth of it.

A Showcase Fernery.

“The description and the picture of your fernery made me homesick. I made one, when in California, of a showcase, which may be a hint to those who cannot afford to have an expensive one made. I went to the woods every spring and brought home fresh moss and ferns. It was a constant source of pleasure.

“Some one asked some time ago for the name of the author of a poem beginning:

God might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small;
The oak tree and the cedar three,
Without a flower at all.

“it was written by Mary Hewitt. I have the whole poem of eight verses, which I will copy, if the person referred to has not received it.”

With this true-hearted flower-lover, I am thanking the Giver of every good and perfect gift today that He did not leave the buds and blossoms out of His plan of creation. For in cottage window, in city flats with but one lookout toward sunshine, as in conservatory and greenhouse, the bulbs we planted ten weeks and more agone are answering to the subtle call of spring. The most erudite naturalist knows no more than the illiterate dullard by what mysterious means that call is conveyed to the very heart of the frozen earth. Had we buried our bulbs in boxes of sand and left them in windowless cellars, they would have felt—I can hardly say “heard”—the summons and stirred restlessly in their sleep and darkness. In the reflected sunshine where stands my fernery, and nearer the window, a row of flower pots and bulb glasses, leaves and blossoms (what few there are of these last) lean joyously toward the outer world. I could fancy that I detect an air of anticipation of longer days and a daily slant nearer to their ledge of the vivifying beams which mean warmth and growth the world over.

Mainly Rules.

Hyacinths are the most satisfactory bulbs for the amateur window gardener. They are hardy and sweet natured, as well as generous of fragrance. No other bulb that I know of—if we except that capricious sacred lily of the Chinese—takes so kindly to water. It is better to set them in colored glasses than in clear. The light dallies so long with the roots that the flowering in neglected. I had never heard this until I found out for myself that the blossoms borne by the plants in uncolored and transparent glasses were insignificant by comparison with those set in the colored. I am told that the blue rays are more beneficial to root-growth than any other color.

Apropos of roots, I saw yesterday a curiosity in the form of a sweet potato which was set in the mouth of a Mason fruit jar just before Christmas. The tuber is held in place by a bit of twine, two-thirds of it being submerged in the water that fills the jar. It had not been in this position three days, when hair-like roots shot out from the lower part of the potato, and in a week the top of the tuber followed suit with delicate sprouts, developing into tiny leaves in a fortnight. Now the jar is full of a twisted mass of rampant rootlets that seem to press impatiently against their prison walls, struggling to get into the light. Long attenuated vines hang down on the outside of the jar. Some are two feet in length, some three. All are disconsolate in expression, and the wee leaves are almost white. This, although the jar stands in the full sunlight all day. The strength of the tuber had expended itself on the roots stimulated by the unchecked sunshine.

Some of the Chinese lilies we established, according to rule and order, among clean pebbles in bowls of water hat have been refilled daily have towered aloft into a jungle that looks like a Florida canebrake of spear-shaped leaves, rankly green, but with never a symptom of blossoming. Perhaps they bloomed in water last year, a fact of which the honest florist from whom we bought the bulbs could not have been ignorant. In which case, we must wait four years longer after we plant it in the earth before we may expect another flowering. The revelations of the Chinese butler on this head (or want of head) may well make cautious in our purchases next autumn. Each bulb should be labeled with the date of the last blossoming, and whether this was done by water or on hand.

Freesias have earned a well-merited popularity since their introduction into American gardens a score of years ago. They are easily raised in the window parterre that boasts a fair supply of winter sunlight. I have petted them into pale but odorous flowering in my jardinière, where the slant rays did not visit them until March 1. They take kindly to house culture when planted in rich earth and allow what may be called a living income of sunshine. They are graceful in form, in color a creamy white, with sometimes a dash of warmer orange at the heart, and exquisite in the delicate apricot perfume that is pervasive, yet never cloying.

It would be interesting to know how many of the bulbs we planted at Christmas or thereabouts blossomed at Easter, as we meant them to do. May we not hear from our house gardeners on this point? I promise not to moralize upon the several reports, and to yield hearty sympathy in each experience, be it discouraging or hopeful.

Marion Harland

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Planting Bulbs for Easter

It is a long look ahead for our amateur florist. Every anniversary falls into our lives like a surprise, no matter how long and how carefully we have prepare for it. Easier—the movable feast—seems to require less preparation at the hands of the housemother than the winter holidays.

Yet it behooves those of us who love flowers well enough to take the trouble to cultivate them to lay our plans now for filling our homes with beauty and fragrance on the most joyous festival of the year.

In our Easter talk (if it please the Lord of Life to keep us here and together until then) we will hold sweet converse as to the glorious promise symbolized in each opening bud. Today we address ourselves to homely details, without which we may not expect leaf or flower.

It sounds strange to the ears of country-bred readers to be told that it is not an easy matter to get heath for house plants in winter. For them there is always a corner of the barnyard where a few strokes of the spade will break through ice and snow down into loose soil, black, rich and warm. Our flat-dweller must buy earth for filling flower pots and jardinieres. It will be brought to her in a stout paper parcel, as if it where so much moist sugar. Even then the business of filling pots and boxes with dirt in the bathroom or kitchen is not a pleasant task. It is a relief in such circumstances to recollect that spring flowers may be brought into healthy bloom by substituting water for soil.

Easy to Grow.

Hyacinths take obligingly to this method of window gardening. If you have fruit jars that are not too wide at the mouth to support large-sized bulbs above the surface of the water, you need not go to the expense of hyacinth glasses. The latter are not costly, however, and make a better show in the window than the homelier substitute. Select some blubs of uniform size; fill the glasses with pure water and set the bulb in the mouth so that the bottom rests in the liquid. To submerge would rot it and ruin all. Be sure that the circle containing the foot-gterms is under water, and examine every few days to see that evaporation has not expose the same. When the bulbs are thus arranged set the glasses in the cellar, if you have one; if not, in a dark, rather cool closet.

All this while the water must be kept at the right level. Replenish the supply gingerly from above, stirring the blubs as little as possible, and with water suited to the temperature, of the place in which the plants are kept. Cold would check the growth temporarily.

Once in the sunlight, your nurselings require little more attention. See that water is added before the roots begin to dry out and turn the glasses daily, that the light may visit all parts of the plants impartially, and you will not have to wait long for satisfactory flowering.

Narcissus and jonquils may be brought to blossoming in water, but under different treatment. Have ready enough clean pebbles or broken bits of marble, picked up at a stonecutter’s, to half fill a wide, rather shallow bowl. Dispose the bulbs judiciously among these, so that they will not crowd one another, and that all will stand firmly upright. This done, pour in water until the root central circles are well covered. Lay a piece of lace set over the top of the bowl, fastening it at the bottom, that it may not dip into the yater. This will keep the inevitable dust from coasting and befouling it. Now, put the bowl away in the cellar or closet, as I have directed you to proceed with the hyacinths, and follow these directions exactly in further treatment until the sprouting bulbs are sufficiently advanced to be set in the window. When there they must have sunlight for several hours of each day. Reflected sunshine will not induce blossoming. Replenish the supply of water as it sink below the level in evaporating.

A Water Plant.

The Chinese sacred lily grows better in water than in earth. Indeed, the only experiment I ever made in cultivating them in the latter direction was unfortunate in result. I had brought the comparatively new plants to such beautiful perfection in water, that I reasoned in favor of setting them in the bosom of their mother earth. I knew that hyacinths, tulips, narcissus, freesias, jonquils, etc., accepted water as a makeshift for the nourishing soil. Why should the celestial bulbs be of a different mind? Therefore, I planted them in a box of rich garden mould; left them in the cellar for the prescribed four weeks, brought them by prudent stages into the light, and awaited developments in sanguine calmness. The leaves grew rapidly and rankly, and never a single bloom blessed my sight the season through. Next winter I meekly set the blubs between the pebbles, as of old, and took no risks.

If you can get a china jardinière—an oblong box made for the window garden—it will be more slightly than the bowl, and accommodate itself more gracefully to the dimensions and shape of the shelf which is the improvised conservatory of hundred of thousands of flower lovers.

For those who are poor (or rich) enough to command all the garden and forest mold they want, I add a few simple rules for the cultivation of Easter bulbs. Set those I have named in earth, instead of in water (always excepting the Chinese specimen!) Fill with soil that covers the bulb. Not too deep, as that will give the leaves unnecessary trouble in reaching the light. Half an inch of earth is sufficient to shield the upper part of the bulb from dust and draughts.

The upper stratum should be crumbled fine, and laid in loosely. Keep the pots in the cellar or dark closet until the shoots above the surface are from wo to three inches in height, then bring them gradually to the sunlight. During the weeks of seclusion, water sparingly—not oftener than once a week; and not then unless the earth is dry to the tip of the finger thrust three inches into the mold. The philosophy of this is clear—what you want to accomplish by darkness and quiet is vigorous root growth. The fibers which are to draw nutriment through the sap for the growing plant must strike deeply into the earth in order to extract it. If the surface be kept wet, the rootlets are attracted to the top of the earth, making what we know as “lateral roots,” which depend entirely upon frequent watering and get little sustenance from the soil below.

Calla lilies (which botanists tell us, are not lilies at all, but “Richardia Africana”) require larger pots than do the bulbous plan e have already spoken of. They, too, must be set in the dark until the roots have taken hold of the lower soil and the green blades appear above ground. I have seen them growing in artificial ponds, the bulbs having been set among stones. I think, however, that they must have a foundation of earth to bring them into vigorous growth. I have raised them successfully in flower pots and jardinieres. They hold their bloom longer than they hyacinths and jonquils and have a stately grace that peculiarly adapts them for Easer decorations.

Marion Harland

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