Search Results

An attendant at our City Park chrysanthemum show one year told me he could easily have sold 5,000 peppers and Jerusalem cherries, the plants used for accent among the chrysanthemums. Then he added, “I didn’t even know of a nearby greenhouse where I could send people to buy them.”

Pepper plants with their fruit in all stages of ripening-white, purple, green and red-and Jerusalem cherries with bright, orange-red fruits, make a most attractive gift for the holidays. And they are so easy to grow.

To get your start on these plants, purchase seed. In some lists you may find Jerusalem cherry listed botanically under Solarium capsicum, and the ornamental peppers under Capsicum fru-tescens. Seeds should be planted in flats of light loam and then given full sun. As soon as seedlings have 4 leaves (usually about 4 to 6 weeks after planting), prick them out into 3-inch pots of average soil. As they mature, shift them into 4- and then 6-inch pots. They fruit and flower about 6 months after the sowing of seed.

These two are ideal for the unheated greenhouse. Started in May, plants are ready for sale in late October and early November. A midwestern greenhouse gardener makes several hundred dollars each year from sales of these plants-all grown in an unheated greenhouse. She wholesales the plants to the dime stores for 50 cents each; and the stores retail them for 98 cents.

If you plan on doing your own hybridizing, it is best to purchase a few of the best varietiesthose awarded the Stout Medal or those remaining consistently high on the Popularity Poll listing. Catalogs frequently list both of these. Seed of the wonderful pink and melon-colored daylilies is becoming easier to obtain. You can get information on award winners-and about daylilies in general-by joining The American Hemero-callis Society, 416 Arter Avenue, Topeka, Kansas. The Society publishes three small quarterlies and a large, illustrated, yearbook issue.

Rooting Proliferations

Use your greenhouse, too, for rooting daylily proliferations (small plants growing out of the flower scape). You will naturally want to propagate rare varieties as rapidly as possible. Cut the proliferations from the mother plant, place them in sphagnum moss or moist sand, and set them in the greenhouse. Here they grow rapidly and will continue to grow all winter. You will have blooming plants from them the following season. Otherwise you would have to wait 2 or more years for them to flower.

Southern Daylilies in a Northern Greenhouse

I have had gift plants of daylilies arrive from the South in November. This is too late to plant them out in my garden. These plants, being potted, continue growth in the greenhouse. Since most Southern-bred daylilies contain evergreen growth factors, they seldom die back in the greenhouse but remain green. They flower in early spring, long before our garden-grown daylilies.

Rosebushes in the greenhouse

Growing roses for cut flower production is generally unprofitable for the owner of a small greenhouse. However, if you wish to stock and sell cut roses as part of your retail florist operation, it will pay you to make arrangements for a supply of cut roses from a reliable grower or wholesale house.

You can make a nice profit on rosebushes, especially with an unheated greenhouse, by purchasing dormant plants and starting them into growth-or even into bud and bloom-for resale to home gardeners. You can buy them already potted or you can purchase bare-root bushes and pot them up yourself.

The container most widely used is a length of tar paper, cut and fitted to form a cylinder with a bottom, and held together by staples. An opening for drainage must be left in the bottom. Wh’en dealing with bare root roses, cut away enough of the roots of each plant so that when it is placed in the container, roots will just touch the walls. Use good fibrous, porous, potting soil such as a mixture of loam and peatmoss. Place a layer of charcoal at the bottom of the container, and then start building a mound of earth in the middle. Place the center of the rootstock on top of this mound. Fill the sides of the container with soil and cover the rootstock until the knobby graft union is about 1/2 inches above the soil. Water thoroughly and your potted rosebush is on its way.

In your selling (and advertising), you should promote the many advantages to the gardener in purchasing potted, growing stock. He can be certain the plants are alive, and if the plants are in bloom, he can be sure of getting exactly the colors he wants. Among the well-known rose growers in our city is Mrs. Alice Foss, who attends every annual convention of the American Rose Society. After viewing the newest in roses, she places orders for spring delivery. The bushes arrive in late February and early March. Mrs. Foss fitted up a shed with windows to let in all possible light and furnished it with potting benches. Here she works in comfort while potting up the roses. While the house is not artificially heated, the windows admit sunlight from morning until night. The rosebushes are safe here, and continue growing until the time arrives for gardeners to come by and pick up their orders.

A low priced plastic house of almost any type would also be ideal for this type of rose growing.

There is a big field in the hybridizing of daylilies. Recently I attended a gathering of enthusiasts where some new varieties were being auctioned off. One brought $150.00! This was, of course, a rather rare exception, but the majority of new named varieties do sell for $25.00 to $50.00 per clump.

Daylilies from Seed

Daylilies are somewhat easier than iris to grow from seed. Pollination is simple and the seed pods ripen in about 6 weeks.

Southern growers simply plant the seed outdoors, and many of them germinate and become established seedlings before chilly winter weather arrives. The seedlings, able to grow through the entire season, usually flower within 12 to 18 months.

In the North, our growing season is so short that, without the aid of a greenhouse, daylilies may take 3 years to flower from seed. Seed planted in the fall and kept in active growth throughout the winter in a greenhouse will ofttimes flower the next fall or, at the latest, the following summer, thus trimming 1 to 2 years off the normal time from seed to flower. I like to plant daylily seeds in flats some time in November and place the flats outdoors, stacking them one on the other. In February, some of the flats are brought in to the greenhouse and within 10 days to 3 weeks, flats become dotted with green seedlings. (Incidentally, if you lack upper bench area you can slip the flats under your fluorescent lights.) The daylily seedlings can grow right on in the flats or bulb pans until it is time to transplant them into the garden.

When transplanting, cut at least half of the foliage back to make sturdier plants.

Selling iris rhizomes can make money for you. While the older varieties go for as little as 50 cents a rhizome, newer hybrids bring from $5.00 to $25.00 or more per rhizome. You can sell rhizomes directly from your garden, or take them from your garden and force them in the cool greenhouse; you can also purchase and divide clumps; or grow iris from seed.

If you plan on dividing and selling iris from your garden, divide clumps in early fall and plant the divisions in the cold frame. In early spring, remove them from the frame, bring them into the cool greenhouse, and pot the rhizomes separately. You’ll start selling them when they are in bud or bloom in April or May.

If you want to sell the newest varieties, order them wholesale for fall or spring delivery. Handle the fall-delivered ones just as though you had dug them from your own garden. As soon as you receive your spring orders, pot them up in gallon cans or pots made from building paper.

Iris from Seed

It takes patience to raise iris from seed, for the seed may take a year or more to germinate. However, if you have hand-pollinated some of your best stock or have purchased seeds of good stock, you will find that growing them on in the greenhouse speeds the process. If you plan to sell iris as part of your nursery program, you will find this is the cheapest method of acquiring a large number of colors and forms.

Seed can be planted any time of year. Spring sowing can be done in flats or pots and the plantings then placed outdoors. Kept well watered, seeds usually germinate during the summer. If they fail to sprout, wait until the temperature dips to at least 40 degrees and thoroughly chills the plantings before bringing them into the greenhouse. Fall-sown seed can be placed outside and left to chill or even freeze. After this, bring the containers into the greenhouse. Germination will be spotty, but your seedlings will have sufficient start so that they can be transplanted to a cold frame or directly into the garden in early spring. Plants grown this way usually flower the second year, thereby saving a year of valuable time for the hybridizer.

I have had success germinating iris and hemerocallis (day-lily) seeds by half-filling the ice trays in the refrigerator with water and inserting two or three seeds in each cubicle. When the half cube of ice forms, I fill the rest of the tray with water and let the seeds freeze. About a week after this severe treatment, I thaw out the ice cubes and plant the iris seeds in bulb pans of sterilized loam, peatmoss, and sand, which then go into the greenhouse. Temperatures need not be as high as those in my greenhouse-55 to 60 degrees is about right. But I do get good results from this method. However, freezing seeds is not recommended for Louisiana iris.

Perhaps you are not particularly interested in making money from selling potted plants, bulbs, or seeds. Still, you want a self-supporting or profit-making greenhouse. A number of hybridizers use their greenhouses to hasten the growth of many plants, including iris, hemerocallis, and roses. Others devote their houses to the propagation of dahlias. Still others find a greenhouse ideal for promoting the growth of young evergreens which will eventually be sold for landscaping.

If you don’t sell all of the annuals started in your greenhouse, why not set them out in the garden and grow them for cut flowers? Leftover tomato plants can also be handled profitably. A roadside proprietor near us sets his in neat rows out in the garden. When the tomatoes ripen he puts up this sign:

Tomatoes-Vine Ripened

YOU PICK ‘EM

50 per bushel

With no more work than the original planting, and some weeding and watering, this grower realizes hundreds of dollars every season from materials which otherwise he might discard.

Herbs and other specialty plants also have a good profit potential.

Chromosomes and colchicine

All plants bear within their cells microscopic substances called chromosomes. These, along with other elements, determine such characteristics as height, contour, flowers, foliage, fruit, and roots, as well as the degree of hardiness of the variety. (For a detailed report on chromosomes see, Chromosome Atlas of Flowering Plants by C. D. Darlington and A. P. Wylie.)

Through the use of the drug colchicine it is possible to alter chromosome numbers, thereby creating new types of plants. Apply the colchicine solution directly to the growing tip of the plant. The changes which occur will show as the plant matures. These may be desirable developments such as a change to thicker stems and larger flowers, which we find in the Supreme types of African violets and in such garden plants as the Tetra snapdragons.

Colchicine can be purchased at drugstores and some seed stores, or directly from Romaine B. Ware, Canby, Oregon. If you procure it from a drugstore, use it as a 0.1 or 0.2 per cent solution (1/5 gram in 100 cubic centimeters of water). Your druggist will help you with these measurements. If you are mathematically inclined, convert cubic centimeters into fluid ounces by multiplying the number of cubic centimeters by 0.03381382.

Mutations

Mutations (or sports) are natural changes in plant structure. They occur with fair regularity, but most of them are not improvements over the parent plant. Occasionally, however, some definitely desirable mutation may appear on a plant in your greenhouse. You can propagate from this sport by cuttings (and sometimes by seed) and grow the progeny to flowering stage to really determine the value and the permanence of its novel characteristics.

Keep an alert eye on new foliage and flower growths. Some of them may be mutants valuable enough to be of interest to commercial dealers. Such dealers may want to buy the variety outright or, if you have propagated it, they may want to buy all the stock you have. Mutations in African violets are quite common and many of our best varieties have been discovered as mutants, then propagated, named, and sold. Daylily and marigold hybridizers are constantly searching for the near-white or pure white flower. Some expert hybridizers feel that the pure white varieties of these two garden plants, if and when they finally appear, will be produced as mutants.

Plant Selection

Plant selection merely entails selection over a period of years of the best plants in any given lot. These are self-pollinated or propagated in other ways, and their offspring grown on. Nothing new, other than the possibility of a mutant, is likely to arise, but through conscientious selection-keeping the best and disposing of the poorer, weaker ones-you can develop an outstanding collection of best-in-their-class plants.

My first step in marketing a new plant is to write to a firm of my choice asking if they would be interested in handling my plant. I always enclose with my letter a stamped, self-addressed envelope and a picture of the plant. If you have a colored picture, it will show the plant to best advantage, but a black-and-white photo is better than nothing. If the firm’s reply expresses interest, I next send them some of the flowers and leaves. These are wrapped carefully, enclosed in a plastic bag, and dispatched via airmail.

If you have commercial dealers in your city, you may not have to look far for a market for your new plants. Why not call on some of them, carrying with you a potted plant or two? These concerns are always on the lookout for good new salable material.

Here are points to consider when you contemplate marketing a new plant.

1. Will the plant be useful over a wide area, or will it be

restricted by climate?

2. Is this plant a definite improvement over existing varie

ties?

3. If it is an entirely new plant, is it vigorous? Will it bloom,

fruit, or produce a quantity of handsome foliage?

4. If it is a pot plant, can it be adapted to household condi

tions so it will be valuable for window gardens?

5. Is it easily propagated?

Any hybrid plant you consider as a prospect for naming and propagation should, preferably, be positive on all five qualificationsa minimum of four anyhow. Point No. 5, for example, has a major bearing on the price you can charge for your new plants. Your packing and shipping costs (for mail orders) will also influence your prices.

The mechanics of hybridizing are simple, as I have shown in the chapters on special plants. Apply the powdery pollen from one plant (the staminate or male parent) to another, the mother or pistilate parent. The plant receiving the pollen will (if the pollination is successful) be the seed-bearing parent.

For your first work in plant breeding, you will probably select closely related plants, merely crossing them for a change in flower color or foliage form. As you advance, however, you may go a step further and select plants that are not so closely related. Here you must be prepared for meager success at the outset and perhaps for quite a while, but if you do develop intergeneric crosses, you generally have something very new indeed in the plant world.

Some flowers have the ability to self-pollinate. To safeguard against this, prepare your seed-bearing parent by cutting off petals and pollen-bearing anthers-the process known as emasculation. For success, you should know when the stigma is ready to receive the pollen. In African violets the signal is the appearance of a tiny white blob on the tip of the stigma; in gloxinias the stigma spreads to reveal an opening. In rechsteinerias and many other flowers, the pistil elongates, reaching out over the petals and almost invariably showing a white tip. Many flowers have a drop of sticky substance on the stigma when they are ready for pollination. In amaryllis, the pistil elongates and divides into three parts.

If possible, choose a sunny day for pollinating-especially with African violets: you will find that the pollen becomes more powdery and easier to handle.

If you are working on special crosses, bag the pollinated pistil with cellophane or slip a large soda straw over it and bend the end of it shut. This will avoid introducing foreign pollen carried by insects or brushed on with your hand as you water or handle plants.

With special crosses, it is important to keep records. Tag the pollinated flowers with a slip of paper (or use a stationary tag) on which you have detailed the following information: names of seed and pollen parents, date of pollination. If you plan much plant breeding, enter these data in a record book. Such records are valuable, and you will surely need them if you register or sell the offspring of a cross.

Hybridizing, or plant breeding, offers many profit-making opportunities to the new as well as the experienced grower. It is in this field that your greenhouse is most essential-an indispensable time- and money-saver for you. Many of the varieties you originate will appeal to the “dessert market”-collectors and other gardeners who, unmindful of cost, want to have the latest thing. You will find some of these customers in your vicinity, but you may have to rely mainly on mail-order sales.

Commercial men who stock new and different plants may provide an outlet for your hybrids. Still another possibility is supplying smaller dealers with stock on terms whereby you receive a percentage of sales.

My Greenhouse-Grown Hybrids

I have developed a number of unusual hybrids-gloxinias, African violets, and amaryllis-but my most salable plants are my gloxineras. These are intergeneric crosses between rech-steinerias and sinningias. But I don’t spend nearly as much time on hybridizing as I’d like to-and that apparently is the case with most other greenhouse growers. Thus the field is wide open-the market for new pot plants has never been better, and competition here is all but nil. Why not set your hands to hybridizing some of your plants? They can help you get a better profit from your greenhouse if you give them a chance.

Many Plants Can Be Tried

One greenhouse grower in Missouri makes a profit from creating new varieties of ferns. Others in the same area developing and selling hybridized African violets and gloxinias. An Oregon grower has produced a strain of hardy azaleas-all started from seeds in the greenhouse. Amateur as well as professional greenhouse gardeners have developed new chrysanthemums-some as seedlings, others as mutants.

I can’t possibly give the whole story of the “how-to, when-to, what-to-do” of plant hybridizing. But the following ideas should at least give you a start.

How to Color Flowers

For special occasions such as Valentine’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day, or to pick up a definite color scheme, you may have to color flowers red, green, blue, or some other color. You can do this by adding a dye to the water and leaving the flowers in the water for 24 or more hours. Then there’s a liquid dye for dipping them, and a colored dust for dusting them, both methods giving instantaneous color. A new aerosol spray can be used on all flowers, fresh or dried, to give them the color your customer wants. This spray is not harmful to petals or foliage.

If you want to brighten up leaves, use one of the colorless sprays such as Plant Shine. This gives the foliage of cut flowers or house plants a good sheen.

Display Windows

If your shop is large enough to have a display window, keep it interesting with well-designed arrangements and corsages, pot plants, and accessories. Try to have a theme. And especially try to arrange something appropriate for holidays, special days and, of course, the seasons.

Many Ways to Profit

Investigate the profit possibilities in supplying local businesses and stores with regular flower arrangements. Also, look into driftwood and dried-flower arrangements. You may be able to build a profitable volume by offering flower arrangement accessories and supplies to your customers. For this, and almost any other aspect of your business, a close contact with local garden clubs will prove extremely helpful.

A specialized-but big potential-venture lies in flocking wreaths, sprays, etc., for Christmas decorations in homes and offices. You can buy or rent flocking machines which simplify and accelerate production.

But operating a retail flower business, even in a small way, is not a thing to be considered in haste or in brief outlines of operation. You should then find out a great deal before you spend time and money to set up a retail business. There’s much to learn-much more than can be properly presented here. So consider my suggestions about books, schools, and practical apprentice training. The more you know the less risk you run of “getting burned,” and the quicker you will be able to establish a profitable operation. (See the Information Source List in the Appendix.)