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"You've got to love flowers to grow 'em successfully," says Soules.

Obviously he does—and is, for last year in his ninth year with pelargoniums, he sold over 9,000 young plants grown in his tiny back yard, only twenty-five feet wide and sixty feet long.

Imagine knowing intimately over 600 different "parents" of thousands of baby plants, and being able at a glance, to tell their histories, habits, and whimsies. Imagine knowing accurately whether the flowers will be shaded, solid, or variegated, single, double, or ruffled; whether they will grow tall or slender, spreading or bushy, be early, or late bloomers, generous or otherwise with their flowers, and temperamental in their reactions to different climates or good old reliables in any part of the United States.

Soules can do that and more. He can make fascinating listening of it all because he is so full of enthusiasm and affection for his flowers. He coddles them and talks of them as if they were his children. He can tell you where, how, and when he acquired each plant without referring to his detailed and accurately kept loose-leaf record book.

SOULES TELLS you proudly that he is a Spanish War veteran and that he was 20 years and 10 months old when war was declared and he enlisted. He returned to become a building contractor, and until he had an accident in his middle sixties and lost an eye and partial sight of the other, his interest in flower-growing was no more than the spare-time interest of so many others—just a back yard hobby.

When his accident enforced retirement from his life work, Soules tried to accept it gracefully, and did for several years, but inactivity and curtailed income kept him dissatisfied and not at all happy. His flowers were his main interest.

It was natural that he began eventually to make a connection between love of flowers and desire to supplement his income. He started investigating and asking questions of nurserymen. He realized he could not make a profit selling only one or two plants at a time, nor could he raise a variety of plants in his limited space.

He consulted several Bay area nurserymen as to what plant would adapt to the weather of San Francisco, be most saleable, and remain in demand. Almost unanimously they told him—pelargoniums.

"You know there are fashions in flowers the same as in women's clothes," says Soules. "Pelargoniums were in high fashion right then—I knew that. Everybody was crazy for them, as they are over African violets now. I wanted to be sure I wouldn't find myself high and dry with a lot of plants no one wanted when the fad died out."

So he kept talking to different nurserymen who might become prospective buyers and kept getting the same answer—that pelargoniums adapted well to the climate, had such a long flowering season, and there were so many varieties that the market had been steady before the fad, and would certainly continue indefinitely. Their predictions proved accurate, but Soules decided to make his own test of the market.

He had learned of a Middle West grower who could supply him at once with young plants in quantity. That was all he needed. On that assurance, he went on a selling campaign to nurserymen in the adjoining area around San Francisco. With surprisingly little effort he came home with orders for 3,000 young pelargonium plants before he had a single young plant to sell. His hurried order for 7,000 plants from the Mid-West nurseryman readily sold. He was in business. He was convinced that pelargoniums were the right choice, and he says he has never been sorry. He named his garden "The Garden Nursery."

PELARGONIUMS, according to Soules, are sometimes called the "show" or "fancy-type" geraniums. The wife of the first President loved the flower so much that she grew many varieties at Mount Vernon. It was because of her interest in their propagation and culture that her name was given to these beautiful pansy-faced blossoms.

Pelargoniums have been extensively propagated and crossed in European countries as well as in this country since they were discovered as wild flowers in South Africa.

They will grow in most parts of the United States, in pots, in window boxes or in the open ground, in any temperature where there is no night frost. They cannot be left in the ground in areas where there is frost. In these localities they grow best in pots or boxes where they can be moved inside whenever frost danger threatens. Some varieties are more susceptible to frost damage than others. Where frost comes unexpectedly, most varieties withstand it but are merely frosted back a little or retarded temporarily. But they do not withstand several frosts or an unusually heavy one. They crave a lot of sunshine and are drought resistant. Their flowering season is one of the longest of flowering plants.

A certain variety, however, may bloom riotously in one part of the country and do poorly in another. There are so many types and varieties and their popularity is so wide in all parts of the United States that nurserymen in most areas can suggest the varieties that are best suited to each locale. In four-season areas the blooming period is usually shorter, but in milder climates, pelargoniums begin to broom about April and continue until fall.

TODAY, SOULES owns a collection of Martha Washingtons that is unique in its many varieties. From April to early fall his tiny back yard is a riot of delicate colors. He owns nine patented varieties for which he must charge more but all other plants sell for fifty cents each in four-inch pots. He continues to buy new varieties wherever he can find them and at a wide range of prices. He has paid as much as $10 for a plant and has acquired varieties from Europe as well as from many parts of the United States.

His home, where he and his wife have lived for forty-seven years, is typical of many San Francisco houses built on lots only twenty-five feet wide. Each house is attached to the house on either side. The garage is on the ground level with its entrance on the street. The living portion of the house is on the level above.

At Soules's garage door, visitors push the bell over his "Please Ring" sign and are admitted by an ingenious invention of ropes and pulleys. They proceed past his truck, bin of potting mixture and potting accessories, to the rear where they are met by smiling Soules as they gasp in astonishment at the rainbow beauty in front of them.

Twelve-inch high concrete pots—he makes them himself in a set of three molds he owns—sit close together in neat two-tiered rows on elbow-high shelves down the full sixty-foot length of both sides of his garden and across the back. Through a rear opening, another row has spilled over into the back of his neighbor's yard.

"They're glad to have their yard kept neat and orderly and have such a colorful sight from their windows," Soules explains.

Beneath each large "parent" pot, neatly labeled with the name and assigned number of each plant, sit groups of "sale" plants, each holding a colored redwood stake marked with the corresponding number of its parent.

In the middle of the garden plot Soules has built a glass house where he does all his gardening and houses his young plants. Part of this area is now used for growing fuchsias which do well under cover. Pelargoniums respond better to sunshine from which fuchsias have to be somewhat shielded.

PELARGONIUM GROWING is a year 'round job as it takes about six months to grow a young plant ready for market. The flowering season terminates in the early fall, so September and October are the months in which cuttings are taken. It takes approximately two months for cuttings to root well enough to be moved from the starting flats of river sand to two-inch pots, and approximately seven weeks more before they can be transplanted into four-inch pots. They are usually ready for sale about the middle of April and selling goes on until September when the cycle begins again.

Different cuttings and different varieties mature in different lengths of time. Some root heavily and quickly, some are slow, some get pot-bound in the little pots very quickly, and some do not root rapidly. Soules plants a great many cuttings more than he sells. Many of them do not mature satisfactorily or are weak or not too saleable. These he disposes of completely at the end of the season. The better ones that are not sold are kept over for another year.

To prepare cuttings for the sandbox Soules cuts them about six inches long removing the lower leaves. He makes an effort to make as many as possible from what he calls "heel" cuttings. These are cuttings that are just below a thick, knotty connection of new growth to old. "Heel" cuttings always mature better and send out more roots. All cuttings do not come from a "heel" point. These he cuts just below but reasonably close to an eye. He cuts away from the eye, so that there is some of what he calls "meaty" portions of the wood behind the eye on the stem.

He fills a flat with coarse river sand almost up to the top edge and moistens it thoroughly. Then he takes a round stick which he has whittled to a point. This stick is somewhat smaller than the size of a broomstick. He punches a hole with this stick and places the cutting deep down in the sand toward the bottom of the flat and makes a row across the end of about eight cuttings. Then he takes a redwood board the width of the flat and pushes the sand around the cuttings. Laying the stick across in front of the planted row to act as a measure between rows, he puts in another row of eight more cuttings, continuing until the flat is filled.

SOULES USUALLY grows his cuttings without using any rooting chemical, but recently he has been experimenting with different kinds of rooting solutions. When I visited him, he was making two boxes of cuttings alike. One flat of cuttings of the same type he moistened with one kind of rooting solution and the other flat with another. He followed package directions for mixing. Then he dipped the six-inch cuttings into the solution, leaving them in for a few minutes while he was working. He took the wet cuttings out and put them into the flats of sand. When one flat was full of cuttings, he sprinkled some of the leftover rooting solution over them and kept the rest to use for watering until the plants rooted enough to go into two-inch pots.

He makes his potting mixture of one part cow manure and four parts soil. No leaf mold or anything else is added. Pelargoniums do not want rich or acid soil—they do better in sandy or alkaline soil on the neutral side. His combination of potting soil is adequately fertilized for at least a year, and no other fertilizer is given to the cuttings which he transplants to this mixture.

"If you feed or water pelargoniums too much," says Soules, "they will make nice foliage but few blooms. The dryer you keep them the better for blooming. The blooms may be a bit smaller but they will be profuse. Water according to the weather, but not often."

Soules tells all his customers to plant pelargoniums deep, regardless of the soil line, and to put as much as possible of the hard wood stem below the ground level. Only the soft new growth needs to be above the ground. He plants his parent plants almost at the bottom of his twelve-inch concrete pots if they have enough old wood stem to do that. The plants will be much stronger and sturdier and will not become top-heavy. Pelargoniums are deep rooters and roots will grow from all the eyes.

A plant produces about one eye to an inch of growth. Each year in the fall, Soules cuts his larger, stronger plants at the second eye above the cutting of the year before. He usually cuts younger or smaller plants at the third eye.

Whether cuttings are to be made or not, pruning should be done each year following the flowering season. If not, the plants will become "leggy" and awkward because flowers and foliage appear only on new growth. Pelargoniums are extremely hardy and will survive a merciless lot of cutting back. The next season the plant will be fuller and more symmetrical. To add to the fullness of the plant the centers should be pinched out of the first new growth. This will induce side shoots to form, and the plant will fill out better and give more new growth on which flowers will form.

Soules does not do any cross pollination, but he has produced a large number of new plants from "sports," A sport is a branch on a regular plant which has mutated or altered and produced a different color or type of flower or leaves. Cuttings can be taken from this branch to produce new plants like the sport.

THERE IS an increasing trend among nurserymen, particularly in the retail trade, to purchase many of their young plants from growers who specialize in a certain type or variety, rather than to grow all their plants themselves. This trend developed first in the West but is now quite universal throughout the United States. Many people who began plant or flower-growing as a hobby have made it pay by becoming the source of supply of a certain type to nurserymen in their area.

Mr. Soules was aware of this type of buying by retail nurserymen when he contacted a number of them seeking advice as to what plant he could grow that they most needed and would buy. The answer was pelargoniums by so many who were right then potential buyers, that they became his first customers as soon as he was able to supply them with plants. Some of them are still his regular customers. Through them and his own solicitation he has a clientele of regular buyers of quantities of plants that must be ready early in the season. Naturally these sales make up the larger part of his plant-selling income and enable him to estimate in advance his needs in quantities and varieties.

But Soules's love of flowers and of flower-growers with a kindred interest give him the pleasure in his job. They call to see and buy one or two plants, remain to chat and compare notes, and usually go home heavily laden with far more plants than they intended to buy.

A garden editor of one San Francisco paper, and the hobby editor of another have written stories about Soules, and these started the large number of visitors he how has from April to September except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he is "not at home to callers," as he says. That publicity and word-of-mouth advertising from those who have visited the nursery seem to provide a steady flow of visitors. He does no advertising except to hand out singly or in batches to his callers, his personal cards. On one side is printed:

THE GARDEN NURSERY
All the good old varieties and many new
Pelargoniums
Martha Washington Geraniums
Closed Tues. and Thurs.
Visitors welcome after 10 AM.

Below that is his name, address and phone number and "call only between 5 and 6." On the back of the card is printed a detailed map with landmarks showing how to reach his garden by street car, bus, or automobile.

Soules decided against doing any mail order business, as that presents a separate set of problems and he found all the market he could supply without mail selling.

THE OUTSTANDING impression one gets of Soules on a first visit is that he is both systematic and ingenious. His self-opening garage door, "Welcome" in bottle caps in the dirt at the garden entrance, cartons cut down to size for four-inch pots and labeled with crayon with the exact number of pots each will hold, drop seats along the paths, cans hanging beneath the large overhead fuchsia pots to catch drippings of water, a lighted color slide display in a large frame, showing most of his varieties (taken by a friendly neighbor who is an amateur photographer), a disappearing rack which hold flats while he is working but will disappear under the bench when anyone wants to go down the path, his trick money drawer which remains locked, except to his secret touch, although it sounds a warning bell if tampered with—these are only a few of his interesting devices.

He makes all his large pots himself in three six-sided, twelve-inch molds. He says he always pours the concrete in the morning but must remove the forms by night. They will not come off if left overnight. He attaches a frame to each pot in which a wooden label will be inserted with the name and number of the plant painted neatly in weather-proof paint which will last five years. All his labels, stakes and markers are made from California redwood which will not rot. Different colors of paint on both pots and markers indicate the years in which the plant was purchased, or the cutting started, as for example: red for this year's plants, and yellow for last year's.

For tie wires, he uses old telephone cable whenever he can get it. It is small but very strong wire covered with rubber. He also buys covered wire on spools, about 250 feet for $1, but it breaks much more easily than telephone cable. He keeps a supply of cut wires on a rod at his workbench.

"My record book is my bible," Soules says proudly, and he had reason to be proud of such a systematic and accurate record. It is made of wide sheets folded over twice, and separated with alphabetical dividers. On each page, in column form, plants are listed alphabetically with their official name, the source from which he obtained them, the code number he has assigned, and a detailed description of each plant. The book has a much-used look in spite of his seeming unfailing memory for all its contents.