MONEY IN SPRING FLOWERS.

Evening Star, Issue 19662, 15 September 1927, Page 11

MONEY IN SPRING FLOWERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —May 1 utilise your space for the purpose of pointing out to cottage gardeners, especially to young women, the handsome returns that may be mndo from growing spring flowers for tho market round about Dunedin P Last Friday tho retail price of North Island >u.. issi ranged corn 3d por bunch of a dozen stalks to Is for best, whilst locally grown narcissi ranged from Is ‘id to 2s (id per dozen. Dl bio yellow dalfodils. esteemed on account of their deep yellow color and lasting qualities when cut, found ready sale at Is per dozen retail. Tho bulbs are cheap to fniy. anJ if planted early in a warm snot will in normal seasons bloom in August. Wo have had of late years no normal season, but possibly tlje cycle of wot, cold years lias, or soon will be, run out. Much more remunerative than narcissi, which only produce one ilowcr pei bulb, are primroses; all the single varieties and colors and the double mauve bloom all winter, and arc saleable for three months at least. 1 used to sell them for live months of the year'at 3d per bunch of twenty-livq blooms tied in little bundles. The best for this purpose were, first and foremost, tho double mauve primrose, now seldom seen—a flower indifferent to tho coldest weather, and asking only to bo lifted and cut up every two years. Every liny piece of the thick butt, cut up and placed in tho ground, will grow, and a bed or border of large size may bo produced in a couple •of years from half a dozen plants. Each plant throws up six or eight flower stems at a time, and there arc never sufficient of these flowers to meet local demands; and they do bettor round about Dunedin than in Christchurch. Tho single varieties are also popular in white, cream, pink, and blue, and resound to the same mode of cultivation. Polyanthus primroses, however, nro always a drug in the market. Everyone grows them, and hundreds try to sell them, but the single section is entirolv neglected. Violets of the sweet scented variety arc another sideline that even children can make lucrative. Put in the roots now, pegging down the runners, and lob thecae plants spread. In the autumn pinch oil tho unwanted runners, and gather the flowers as they come out Pick off any seed pods, and die- tho plot right in every year, and replant from tho strongest runners, and the violets will prove very remunerative. Tho wholesale price lor sweetscented violets is never less than Od per 10 stalks, and for many weeks run nearly to Is lid per 100. These throe lines—narcissi, primroses, and violets — are out on their own as a sideline, and. by a liberal use of lime and artificial fertilisers, the ravages of slugs are easily prevented. For thirty-five years I grow those flowers with much profit to"myself for Dunedin florists; and now that these lines arc so neglected, letting northern growers have a monopoly of these most paying flowers, I thought I would just pen those lines as a suggestion to cottage gardeners with small gardens. _ 1 never made much money by growing summer flov,> ers; my space was too limited, and the demand very erratic, but the small flowers are very well worth attention primroses and violets for preference, on account of the longer flowering season. —I am, etc. . Coitacf. Gaudknkh. September lb.