Tuberoses

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.