Tuberoses
from Your Plants
No collection of garden flowers is complete without the Tuberose. For
the spotless purity of its flowers, and for incomparable fragrance, it
has no superior. It is very easy to grow them successfully. Bulbs
intended for fall blooming, should be planted in the open ground from
the first to the middle of May; plant them about two inches deep. They
will do well in any good, rich garden soil, if the soil is occasionally
moved around them with the rake or hoe, after they are up and growing.
Such treatment will cause the bulbs to grow rapidly, and the flower
trusses, when they come into bloom, will consequently be much larger and
finer. As the Tuberose is not hardy in our Northern climates, the bulbs
should be dug up in the fall, the tops or stalks removed to within two
or three inches of the bulbs, which should then be laid away in some
dry, warm place, a dry and frost-proof cellar will do, or better yet,
store them if possible, under the staging of a green-house. In the
spring, before planting, remove all the young offsets from around the
parent bulb; there are usually a number of young shoots clinging to it,
and as the old bulb blooms but once, and only once, it is henceforth
good for nothing, save for the production of more bulbs, if desired.
The young offshoots of the first season's growth will not become
blooming bulbs until the third year, but if you have quite a number of
young bulbs, say twenty-five or fifty, there will naturally be a number
that will bloom in rotation, from year to year, and give some bloom
each season. Some enterprising florists have Tuberoses nearly the whole
year round. In order to do this, the bulbs must be "started" in pots;
the bulbs are potted in the usual manner, so that the top, or crown of
the bulb, when potted, will just show above the soil, and they should be
kept rather dry until they show signs of growing, when they can be
watered freely and set in a warm place. Of course bulbs intended for
winter blooming must rest, or be kept from growing during the summer,
and bulbs to be in bloom in April or May, must be started in January or
February in pots. Tuberoses are rapidly productive; ten old bulbs having
been known to produce one hundred young offshoots in one season. There
are many "fine points" in growing Tuberoses, but the instruction here
given will enable any one to grow them successfully.
Next: C Roses Cultivation And Propagating
Previous: Tropical Bulbs Tuberoses
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