Achimenes

Achimenes, sometimes called nut orchids or Japanese pan-sies, grow from rhizomes shaped and constructed like small pine cones. The plants are easy to grow, unusual enough to make good sellers, and sure-fire material for hybridizers. In warmer sections, they can be planted directly in the shaded outdoor garden or rock garden. I have liked them in a window or patio box and for hanging baskets in lath house or greenhouse.

?The demand for achimenes is good; the supply is short. Culture is the same as for gloxinias except that they can be planted four rhizomes to a 4-inch pot, five to a 5-inch pot, etc. Some of the plants grow upright; others (usually depending on the amount of light) trail over the pot edge. This makes them ideal for hanging baskets. Achimenes, like gloxinias, need a rest after flowering. Store them in their pots at 55 degrees F., or depot them and store in sacks of vermiculite.

Flowers of achimenes are similar to petunias, with upturned faces in colors from white through pink, red, blue, and purple. Collectors’ favorites include the red-flowered Master Ingram; Mauve Queen with red dots on a golden throat; white Margarita; bright red A. coccinea with ferny leaves; and purple Wetterlow’s Triumph. The best known variety is Purple King.

Propagate achimenes through the rhizomes (which multiply each season), by rhizome divisions (each scale acts as a seed), or through seed.

Trichosporum

Bright red tubular flowers from leathery vaselike calyxes, waxy oval leaves and a graceful vinelike growth distinguish aeschynanthus (trichosporum). These make excellent pot or hanging basket plants. They can be grown in any soil suitable for gloxinias or African violets, in any of the mixtures, as peatmoss, sphagnum moss, and chicken grits or equal parts of osmunda fiber or shredded bark and peatmoss, and in the same temperature recommended for African violets. Culture is easy.

Aeschynanthus lohbianus has dark green leaves and scarlet flowers spilling from purple-brown calyxes; A. marmoratus is characterized by variegated light and dark green leaves, maroon beneath. The flower, less showy than that of A. lobbianus,

is reddish orange. A vigorous species with long waxy green leaves and bright orange flowers is A. speciosus. Propagate these plants through cuttings or seed.

Columnea

Columneas are handsome trailers. One grower who specializes in orchids and columneas considers his older columnea plants covered with flowers more spectacular than many of the orchids. Species include the yellow-flowered C. tulae var. flava, the red-flowered C. Alleni, C. Banksi with shiny leaves, and C. gloriosa with small, hairy, near-brown leaves.

Grow these trailers in soil or “substance” as suggested for aeschynanthus. They are warm-house plants responding to the same light conditions as African violets. Propagation is through cuttings or seeds.

Columneas are collectors’ items for you to grow only in the warm greenhouse. C. tulae however makes an interesting house plant, and being a yellow-flowered gesneriad, it is popular with African violet and gloxinia fanciers.

Cuttings of these plants ship well and most collectors will purchase rooted or unrooted ones. A single, well-grown, 2-year-old plant will produce a dozen or more cuttings which sell generally for about 35 cents apiece unrooted, 50 cents rooted.

Episcia

While this is a gesneriad, and so related to the Saintpaulia, it is not a “red violet.” But the common name of Flame Violet may stimulate sales. We can use it and still be ethical only by including the proper identifying word, Episcia, in all advertising and promotion.

I know of no company that purchases episcia seeds by the ounce. I sell seeds in mixtures at $5.00 per thousand. One company buys about 20,000 a year, two others each 5,000. This amount of seed is taken from plants in two flats each measuring 14 by 27 inches.

The wooden flats hold the episcias for 2 years. Then I dump them out (in the fall), trim out dead pieces, and replant in fresh soil. By this time they have multiplied enough to fill 6 flats of the same size.

Episcias send out stolons (runners) very much like the strawberry begonia (saxifrage). Flowers are white, yellow, pink, lavender, and red.

Episcias seem not to have the flower-producing capacity of African violets. However, many growers reduce bloom unnecessarily by putting plants in a spot lacking sun. True, they make excellent cover plants for under benches and in shady greenhouse nooks?and the foliage on the hairy ones become deeper colored in shade. But flowers are always scarce on plants grown in this way.

Since I grow my episcias almost exclusively for seeds, I plant rooted cuttings of several varieties in each wooden flat of peatmoss, sand, leafmold, and light loam. The bottom of the flat is first covered with clay pot chips and charcoal pieces. All varieties except the blue-flowered ones are placed where they receive 1500 foot-candles of light at 12:30 P.M. on a bright summer day. They are always kept well moistened and?note well?they require more water than African violets. In this bright spot, they produce maximum bloom. After pollination, the seed capsules form; they resemble bunches of small grapes. The red and lavenders are most congenial, hybridizing easily one with another. Here are some of my favorites?all easy to propagate, all generous with seeds:

Episcia acajou; Chocolate Soldier; E. cupreata, which doesn’t take full sun, but without some sun will fail to flower, the variety, viridifolia, which must have a blaze of light to bring out foliage and flower color; Silver Sheen; lilacina; and the long?time favorite reptans (fulgida) ? (which most people think of as the “red violet”).

Episcia dianthiflora and E. punctata are of easy culture but they have one point of difference from other episcias, it takes 5 to 9 months for seeds to ripen, whereas the usual ripening period is 6 weeks.

Greatly prized among collectors is the reptans variety Lady Lou, a variegated pink-green and brown-leaved form. Most people find it more difficult than the parent plant, and it often reverts back to the brown and green leaf coloration of E. reptans. The brown-leaved, pink-flowered Pinkishia, fairly new, is easy to propagate. Tropical Topaz should prove as easy as the plants it resembles?E. viridifolia, but I have found it somewhat difficult (though it may be that I do not have the true one). My plant came directly from Panama, as did the one bearing the species name. If it does prove easy, it will make a hit with window and greenhouse gardeners.

Episcias are best propagated through stolons or seeds; leaf cuttings take too long to produce sizable plants. Plant the stolons directly into pots or flats of light soil?or any good growing media. You can sell them from 2- or 3-inch pots?several in a pot or hanging basket?or as cuttings.

If you propagate through seed, you will get a variety of colors and forms from a mixed package. I have reports from customers of several pink-flowered sorts springing up among seedlings grown from my seed mix. And foliage is as varied as that of coleus. These plants are a hybridizer’s dream, and flowers come in white, pink, lavender, red, and yellow.

In the episcia blossom, pollen ripens several days before the pistil is ready to receive it. When the pistil elongates and shows beyond the petal edge, pollination time is at hand. Choose pollen from a one- or two-day flower, and apply it to the pistil with a brush or your finger tip. You may have to pollinate on two successive days to assure success.

The rounded seed capsule ripens in 6 weeks. Each seed has attached to it a tiny blob of albumen which sustains the embryo.

Seeds are larger than those of African violets but require approximately the same care and seedlings flower in about the same time.

?

?

?

Sales of un rooted leaves from just one or two plants of newer varieties may bring you enough cash to pay for greenhouse necessities?fertilizer, insecticides, etc.

Rooted Leaves

Given good conditions, African violet leaves root in a month to 6 weeks and they sell for about a third more than un-rooted kinds. Growers who sell rooted leaves can remove them and sell them direct from flats. If you want to pot them in small thumb pots you can add another 15 cents to the price.

Small Potted Plants

If you aim to sell potted plants, put them into thumb pots as soon as the plantlets are about an inch high. Should several small plants appear at the base you can separate them for this first potting or let them grow until shifted to a 2-inch pot. Weekly feedings of M strength fertilizer will hasten growth.

Selling Small Plants

You may be able to dispose of small named plants?even when not in bloom?at plant counters. Or you may have a friend in some type of retail business who might want to handle a few plants on a commission basis. Small dress shops, variety stores, dry cleaning shops?all are possibilities.

Then too, you might offer your violets in dozen or more lots to other greenhouse growers. Many of the larger greenhouses do not grow their own African violets and are delighted to purchase well-grown stock at a price low enough to give them a fair mark-up.

Small plants are easily shipped in paper pots or by removing them from their original pot and wrapping the root ball in foil. The plant is then placed in a cellophane or plastic bag and wrapped lightly with newspaper. Thus packaged, it will reach its destination in a safe and sound condition, barring long exposure to severe cold weather, of course.

How to Scoop the Market

Most African violet hobbyists have every available inch of window space and under-fluorescent-light space crammed with plants. These are the collectors who prefer buying small started plants or leaf cuttings and growing them to specimen plants.

A good way to get a scoop on the newest in African violets is to attend the national conventions..

At these conventions, which are held in a different city each year, you will find commercial dealers set up and ready to give you all kinds of information as well as sell you the newest varieties. Usually they have plants in 2- or 3-inch pots and most of them take orders for varieties in short supply. However, you can bring home from a convention some of the very newest kinds. Assuming that you cater to the collectors in your area, you will find it advantageous to insert an ad in your local paper informing your customers that you are off on a buying trip to obtain for them the most exciting new African violets.

Buying securities is somewhat like buying an automobile. The decision to buy something is relatively easy. What, specifically, to buy is an altogether different problem. Before you drive your new car home, you have to choose a certain make, a certain model, certain upholstery, a certain color scheme. You decide between six cylinders and eight, between regular shift and automatic transmission, and say yes or no to white walls, radio, heater, and a dozen other optional extras.

So with securities. Although there are only two major categories?bonds and stocks?to select from, the variations and refinements and optional extras are as numerous as they are confusing.

For many investors, one factor may be sufficient reason to determine a choice. The man of modest means will very likely find corporate bonds at $1,000 apiece too steep and their 3 per cent interest payment too small for what he is trying to achieve. A wealthier investor might be fascinated by the potential in common stock but find that he would obtain a greater yield from tax-exempt municipals. All investors, however, will do well to become familiar with the various kinds of securities represented in corporate capital structures in order to understand their effect on each other and their bearing on the choice he eventually makes for himself.

The corporation is an entity marvellously adapted to the requirements of all parties involved. It developed in response to the needs of the business community for funds over and beyond its own resources to enable it to build, expand, and grow.

The basic, one-celled form of business life is the individual entrepreneur?the store owner who merchandises goods, the artisan supplying services, the small manufacturer?whose capital needs are met out of savings or through a modest bank loan.

Somewhat more complex is the partnership, the pooling of the resources of several individuals to share in a joint venture. Presumably the credit of the group is somewhat stronger than that of the individual. The partners also assume responsibility for management of their company, participate in all profits accruing, and are legally liable for all debts outstanding.

As long as firms remain relatively small, either type of organization is adequate. As opportunities for expansion present themselves, however, when new plant and equipment are required, when greater amounts of raw materials must be stockpiled, and branch offices and distributors underwritten, and personnel increased, the individual and the partners are hard pressed. Their surplus generally is too small, their normal lines of credit too limited to do the job.

Enlargement of the partnership is no answer. Outside investors willing to take on the mutual responsibilities of partnership, or to immobilize their funds in a partnership agreement, are hard to come by. In any event, the range of financial needs at this stage usually is so great that only by increasing the partnership to ridiculous proportions could they be met.

The solution? A public stock corporation. Ownership thereby is spread among as many hundreds or thousands of people as are willing to buy in, their proportional part of the firm being represented by the amount of stock?or number of shares?they hold. Their reward is likewise a proportional share of their firm’s profits. Their control is exercised through the board of directors they elect. And because their stock is a standardized, known quantity?and because there are stock exchanges?they can readily withdraw from the company and sell their piece of ownership to someone else.

The corporation, once established and in being, is an impersonal thing of indeterminate duration. Directors and officers may come and go, investors may buy in and sell out, but the corporation has a momentum and life force which may enable it to run on indefinitely.

?

?

Slender-stemmed varieties, ideal for baskets, include the rose-pink Mrs. H. J. Jones, silvery pink, The Blush, and white-and-rose Enchantress.? Rapid growing trailers, perfect to drape walls, are the pink Galilee, light purple Diener’s Lavender, and scarlet Intensity.

Zonal Geraniums

The zonal geranium is perhaps the most popular plant for Memorial Day sales, but it goes well at any time.

Fancy-Leaved Geraniums

The fancy-leaved geraniums are prized by collectors and find favor, too, with the gardener who wants a “different” pot or bedding plant. Although the leaf colors are varied, they do not clash when planted together. Grow them in strong sunshine to bring out their full beauty.

One profit-gardener makes a specialty of these. She grows masses of them outside on a sunny slope and sells cuttings directly from the bed.

Popular among the fancy types are Happy Thought, Marshall MacMahon, Bronze Beauty, Skies of Italy, and Mrs. Pollock. Beckwith Pride, Hills of Snow, and Attraction are among the silver- and green-leaved; Gold Leaf, Verona, Cloth of Gold, and tiny Dwarf Gold Leaf have gold leaves.

Unusual and Fine-Flowering Types

These fascinating varieties have sales appeal for the collector as well as those who want unusual house or garden plants. In this group are the Bird’s Egg pelargoniums with the lower petals of the flower touched and splashed with darker color. There are few of these listed by dealers. If you can secure plants to propagate, you will be assured of a stock item with exceptional sales value.

Less rare but popular is the notched-petal group listed as Jeanne, Carnation, or Sweet William. These flowers have “pinked” petals?like a carnation.

The Rosebud geraniums have very double flowers like tiny partially opened rosebuds. Favorite varieties are Apple Blossom, Magenta, and Scarlet Rosebud, whose flowers open wider than the others.

Then there is the Poinsettia group with narrow, uneven petals of varying size. Red Poinsettia has short petals of lavender pink. The pure white one, Noel, may be listed under Cactus-flowered.

Another group is called Phlox because its eyed-florets resemble the garden phlox. Both Phlox and its variety, New Phlox, are popular.

Hints on Culture

The geranium (Pelargonium) grows in any ordinary soil, provided it is not deficient in potash, and in a minimum temperature of 55 to 60 degrees with full sunlight. Contrary to popular belief, plants require constant watering. Keeping them on the dry side delays flowering. Good growth and heavy flowering depend on steady fertilizing. Give weekly doses of half strength fertilizer as the buds form.

Pythium, commonly called black leg disease, is a form of rot. To prevent it, sterilize the soil before planting and spray with 2-2-50 Bordeaux to keep older plants free of this infection. One commercial geranium saved an entire collection by repeated dosages of the tar derivative, Carco-X. Another effective fungicide is Orthocide.

Propagation

Propagate geraniums by seed or cuttings. Sow the seeds in a loose soil, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Cover lightly with soil and set in a warm greenhouse. As the seedlings grow, prick them off into 2- and finally 4-inch pots. Seeds sown in August produce spring-flowering plants.

Geraniums respond well to hand pollination; the slender seed pods ripen in about 6 weeks. Do not depend on these homemade hybrids for your first saleable crop, however. Seeds sold by specialists are gathered from selected varieties and will give you just the type of plant you want to sell.

Cuttings strike root easily when taken in September. Insert them in a flat of moist vermiculite, spacing them so that leaves do not touch. They will be ready for sale within 4 months. These plants need not be shifted from small to large pots; instead pot them directly into 2- and 3-inchers.

?

?

Start fertilizing as soon as you see flower buds, and continue at biweekly intervals until the plant reaches its peak of bloom. Use a fertilizer which contains the minor or trace elements (boron, manganese, etc.). If these are not present in the brand you are using, switch to another, or buy packaged trace elements and apply them in conjunction with the major-element fertilizer.

Light and Water

Plenty of light is essential but avoid direct sunshine which burns leaves and wilts flowers. On the shaded top deck in the greenhouse, where I grow most of my gloxinias, they receive on a summer day about 2000 foot-candles of light at 12:30 P.M. Plants raised in poor light tend to grow too tall and are slow to bud.

Gloxinias grown under constant water level, that is, where the soil is always kept moist, bud much faster than those wa?tered only when the soil obviously needs it.

Health Program and Storing

Thrips, red spider, cyclamen mite, and crown rot, are the worst annoyances. Good culture is the best preventative, but any of the “medicines” prescribed for other exotic house plants will work on gloxinias. If you are loath to use poisonous sprays and powders, try Carco-X on gloxinias and other tuberous-rooted plants. This tar derivative practically exterminates all the usual pests and is a marvelous fungicide as well. After plants finish flowering, gradually withhold water to dry off the tubers. I like to lay the pots on their sides while tubers are being dried off and, when they are dry, store them so in a 50-degree room. Or tubers can be removed from pots and stored in plastic sacks of vermiculite.

Advantages of Seed

Gloxinias can be propagated from seed, leaf or plant cuttings, or tuber divisions. You get the best return for your money as well as the best-formed tubers when you grow from seed. Species come true to form from seed; varieties do not, and you get a wide range of colors from a packet of seeds.

The seeds are very fine. Sown in February and grown under optimum conditions, they produce flowers by late May or June; those given only general care will not flower until August or September. Sow the seeds on light soil or in vermiculite or milled sphagnum and peatmoss. Sprinkle on top of the moistened medium, press down lightly, but do not cover with soil. Put glass over them and set in a warm house. If seeds are reasonably fresh, germination takes place in 7 to 10 days. As seedlings grow, plant them 2 inches apart in a flat of light soil or the soil recommended for tubers. When leaves touch, shift into 3-inch pots. Another shift?to 5-inchers?is advisable before blooming time. Liquid fertilizer applied at 2-week intervals will bring on a good quantity of flower buds.

Gloxinias from, Leaf Cuttings

Should you want more of some named hybrids, propagate by leaf cuttings. Cut the petiole about an inch long and insert it in any sterilized growing medium. Roots form in 4 to 6 weeks. Sometimes the old leaf dies after forming a new tuber, or it may send up a new plant or two before bowing out. If new plants show, cut off and pot up in 4-inch pots and give the same culture as for potted tubers. Otherwise, keep the tubers in the flat, giving them an occasional watering, until they sprout; then move to 4-inch pots.

?

?

?

Is the Gloxinia Business for You?

Many amateur and professional growers have found gloxinias profitable. Some specialize in seeds, some in tubers. Others carry the plants through the season, selling thousands at Easter and on Mother’s Day. Huge plants, grown for these special occasions, retail for about $25.00 apiece.

Gloxinias also attract collectors. If you sell by mail, you can interest them through a little two- or three-dollar ad in a specialized publication, such as The Gloxinian or The African Violet Magazine. Keep up with things through the American Gloxinia Society, and its magazine. Membership is $2.50 per year. Address: Edith McDonald, Secretary, 310 East 71st St., New York 21, New York.

From My Greenhouse

When I first began selling, I vended small potted gloxinias, in bud only, in 3-inch pots to local plant counters. Today I sell only species tubers and those from my crosses between species and large-flowered hybrids, most of them directly to a commercial seed house which also orders gloxinia seed. The species seem most popular, followed closely by the hybrid slippers.

You will find that standard varieties are always in demand. The older ones were hybridized in Europe and today commercial dealers here still obtain many of these varieties from foreign sources. Since European growers have low labor costs, they are able to sell below most American dealers.

You pay the wholesaler $7.50 to $35.00 per hundred tubers, depending on the tuber size. You can retail small ones for about 30 cents each; the giants will bring 75 cents to $1.25 each, depending on the market.

?

For Collectors

The newer hybrid forms appeal most to collectors. Flowers are wide-throated, open-faced, in a great array of colors. Although no yellow gloxinia has been developed, there are a number with yellow throats, and there is plenty of variety with which to stock your greenhouse. I know of only a few firms selling doubles, so if you discover any among your seedlings, it would pay you to reproduce them.

Popular with collectors are the species. These have downward-facing, slipper-type flowers and pouchlike corollas. Sinnin-gia speciosa, the blue slipper and its varieties, have fair sized slipper-type flowers in blue, purple, white, and rose, and plain green leaves. S. macrophylla, commonly called Brazilian gloxinia, has olive-green leaves red beneath and nodding purple flowers; regina is similar; S. eumorpha displays dangling white bells among shiny green leaves. Baby of them all is S. pusilla with leaves scarcely an inch long and tiny quarter-inch blue-purple flowers. The largest of the species, S. tubiflora, has pointed silvery-green leaves and fragrant white flowers resembling nicotiana.

?