How I became a horticulturalist

Hi! My name is Jill. I live in Mississauga, a suburb of Toronto. A year ago I got a divorce (good riddens!) and had to find a new place to live. My kids are all grown up, thank heavens, so it was the beginning of a brand new life.

I bought a house with a large, basement rec room. The settlement was large enough to last me a couple of years, but I’m the kind of person who needs a hobby to occupy me.

I always had a passion for carnations. I even learned their Latin name, Dianthus caryophyllus. About the same time, a friend had to leave the country quickly and he had all sorts of indoor growing equipment, which I bought off him for very little money.

Setting up a carnation growing operation in my basement rec room wasn’t easy. I needed help. I looked around on Google, and found a very helpful website, which had a technical help line listed. I called, and my life as a horticulturalist had begun.

Advanced Nutrients told me that the six High Pressure Sodium lights were perfect for the size of my rec room—12’x 20’ or 240 sq. ft. I could fit 36 eight and a half inch pots under each light, with two carnation plants in each pot. This would produce 432 single stem carnations per four months growing period.

I found out that Fusarium Wilt and Fusarium Rot were the major problems in carnation growing, so I bought my seedlings from a reputable garden shop and treated them with No Shock, in order to minimize the dangers of damping off and other seedling diseases.

I decided to grow straight stem, cut-flower type carnations, rather than spray-type, free flowering ones, since I checked with two florists in my area, and they seemed to prefer them. Even though growing carnations started off as primarily a hobby and a passion, it didn’t hurt to have found a market for them.

In order to ward off Fusarium and other pathogens, I treated my perlite and rich soil mixture with Scorpion Juice, Barricade, and Protector. These three products guarantee pest, disease, and pathogen free plants and flowers. Advanced Nutrients is the only company that guarantees all of its wonderful products, and I can attest to the fact that they do what they claim to do.

I wanted a gentle, 100% organic fertilizer to help boost the quality and size of my flowers. I chose Mother Earth Super Tea Grow and Bloom, which can be used both for hydroponic or soil gardening. Their macro and micro nutrients are balanced just right to aid at different stages of the lives of my carnations.

I’m looking forward to my third harvest this September, and with each new crop I learn something new. I found out about Colossal Bud Blast, a magic foliar spray, that enhances the size of my flowers and accelerates growth. Some of my carnations are almost twice the size of the ordinary ones at the flower shop!

Growing carnations has not only filled my life up with hundreds of colorful blooms, but also took my mind off my divorce. I’d rather enjoy the palette of crimson, pink, lavender, orange, lemon, white, and cherry colored flowers, than worry about the man who is no longer a part of my life.