“PLANT PILLS.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20536, 11 October 1928, Page 7

“PLANT PILLS.”

GROWING FLOWERS IN THE HOME. “ Plant Pills,” soon to be obtained from the nearest druggist at small cost compared with what one pays for cut flowers in midwinter, will enable amateur gardeners to throw away their spades and forks, trowels, and watering pots, and produce their own flowers, any month in the year, in window boxes, jars, tin cans, or any other receptacle that will hold water. In a box the width of an ordinary apartment house window, half a dozen rose cuttings, clipped from the parent bush in August, will supply blossoms for the Christmas table (states the San Francisco Chronicle). No soil is required, no fertiliser is needed The secret is a small, white • ■■ I lump of the size of a pigeon’s egg- that is to say, about two inches long by an inch in diameter.

This wonder worker among flowers, which H. H. Dunn describes, in Popular Mechanics, is the product of sopie seven years study by Dr W. F. Gericke, of the University of California. More than 200 varieties of plants, numbering nearly 2000 individuals, have been made to produce their blossoms at any selected dnt. m doors and out. at the un' v In addition to flowers, any other plant which is transferred from seed oeu cu„.uden or field, can be so controlled by starting the seeds in water containing the pill In the case of roses for the home indoor garden, cuttings arc taken from the bushes in August, or any other summer month, and placed in two or one-quart glass jars, as space may allow, or in tin cans. The open top of the jar is covered with a cork or cardboard, cut to the shape of the jar, through which the stem of the cutting is passed, permitting the lower end l to rest on the bottom of the jar, the top, with its leaves, extending well up into the open air. The jar is then filled from ha,lf to threequarters with water, and the height of the water marked on the outside of the jar, so that it can be maintained by additions as evaporation and absorption lower the level. The water is never changed, merely added to. Either before or after putting in the water, the pill is dropped in, one being sufficient for each plant up to and through blossom time. The period required for root growth and blossoming has been calculated exactly for more than 200 varieties of flowering plants and varies materially, the range being 60 days to nearly six months.