Practical Gardening.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 137, 9 June 1917, Page 16

Practical Gardening.

By DIANTHUS.

Correspondents will greatly oblige by observing the following ruUs in mending questions for publication in these columns: — /. hellers should be addressed Garden Editor "Star" Office Auckland 2. Wr-.te one one side of the paper, and make all communications a» concise as possible _ Flowers, etc., sent for naming must be sent separately and, if possible, packed in a tin or irooden box —e_r<f&oa-£. boxes are very liable to be broken in transit and the contents dam-aged. 4. The full name and address of the sender must ahoays be sent, but a norn de plume or initial may be given for publication.

THE WEEK'S WORK. THE FLOWER GARDEN. Plant out Stocks, Canterbury Bells, Aquilegias, Pansies, etc. Cut Box Edgings and repair any spaces that have died out. Cuttings will root if planted firmly. Digging of Borders and Shrubberies should be done as soon as possible. Violets should be hoed and weeded and given a dose of fertiliser. Nitrate of soda, loz. to square yard, or blood and bone, 4oz. to square yard, are very good for Violets. Rose tree lifting and planting should be pushed on as soon as the ground is workable. Any shrubs that need lifting and replanting, or any new ones that are to be planted, should receive attention. Trimming the edges of paths, weeding and repairing paths, weeding lawns, and filling bare spaces, pruning shrubs, is work which can be done in weather which will not allow of work on dug ground. THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. Sow Cabbage, Cauliflower, Spinach, Lettuce. A sowing of Peas may be made as soon as the ground is dry enough, and the seeds planted in a warm position. Digging and trenching must be continued. Parsnips and Carrots can be lifted, and stored in soil or sand, should the ground be required. Plant Shallots, Potato Onions and Garlic at any time now. Spraying and pruning of fruit trees should be done during the present month. Hedge cutting and planting must be pushed on as soon as the ground is workable.

TO CORRESPONDENTS. TIM T., Ponsonby.—You can make a sowinj: of pens this month. Choose as dry and warm a position as possible. Use one of the dwarf early varieties, such as Richard .edrion. William Hurst. Keep the surface of the soli along the drills open by frequent use of the hoe. G T., Minamata. — Delphiniums should be cut down tn the (rround now. They will throw up fresh growths and bloom again next summer. AMATEUR. Grey I.ynn.---pinaeh needs a rich, fleep soil, but if the (-round is well due and manured It run he crown with sneeess on almost any soil. Seed can he sown almost all the year round. In Auckland, wuh the exception of during very t2nt , . eH o, her: 7 e ° th .£ w,th "« ™ "t •h y water. The ohi«f Rowin_r_t •honld be made August, October, Novem- ■>«. February, March, April. ASHES. ■?*ft WeTld*.? iburnin e WeedB ' ttgs, etc., ro « e P™nPotash. PotoX 1 *? a lar 8* percentage of •u«e«rf»_ £*£ TLT^ 1 to th * Pan*"-*, and o°io™.Potatoea,0 ° io ™.P ot atoea, carrots, hedge _ there fore, a vi emtable tof ,»<*«*•> that are not W should be tuUr =„? th l re£ ™« burning, and the ash* „i nto .ashes by place till they a is now at a prohibitive ■ *? Potash |s. gardeners, evervtbin pnce for many »eonverted'_.i: r^ g P should be

FILLING BLANKS __. THE ROSE BORDER. When a rose is found to be unsatisfactory, or has died out altogether, it is a common practise to dig it up and plant a new bush in the same place. The result is that a fresh, vigorous plant is placed in a more or less impoverished soil which has been bearing rose bushes for a long time. Should the results next season be disappointing there is no one to blame but the gardener. Dig out a hole at least two feet square and a foot deep; wheel this soil away to another border and bring back an equal amount of good earth from that place; fill up the hole to 7 or 8 inches with the fresh soil, plant the rose in the usual way, treading the soil firm. The benefits of a refreshed site are thus given to the bush. LEAVES. Fallen leaves are now making our gardens very untidy, but they should be raked up, and stored to provide leaf-soil. Dig a hole in some out-of-the-way corner, and deposit all the leaves in it as you .rake them up. Sprinkle salt or lime over each layer as it is added to the hole. 'WrThe'l, ? U the leaVes have falle » Und W itt. a layer of earthen die J.. ne,ct autun »&- You will Und the e_T_,*_". c BUp of leaf-mould, • fr <*Wy-f.S__g *• ÜBed for the

HOW TO PLAST ROSES. Not the least important liciaiis essential to the successful cultivation of roses are the preparation of the ground and the planting of the tree*. Koaes may be planted from the beginning of May till the end of August, but there is no doubt that early planting is the best. This

season, however, the autumn was so wet that planting has been impossible, but as soon a_ there is any improvement anil tho ground yds nt all dry and workable no time should be lost in netting the trees in." An open, sunny situation, sheltered from south, suits roses best, and in preparing the ground by trenching, care must be taken to incorporate

all necessary manure at a sufficient depth to prevent any coming in direct contact with the roots of the trees. Generally speaking, well-decayed farmyard manure is as good as anything for roses, but for light 6andy soils pig or cow manure is to be preferred, whilst for heavy retentive soils, stable manure, to-

gether with some road scrapings, old mortar rubbish, -wood ashes and leaf -oil will improve it greatly. As a rule, ro-i'-do best planted in a bed to themselves,

and good avcragr ulstar.cos to space the trees apart are from 18 to 30 inches, depending largely upon the variety. The depth of planting is a matter of importance. »s burying tho roots too deeply is harmful. For dwarf trw* the holes should be sufficiently dee>p to allow trie union of the stock and scion being about two inch«».. below the surface. Bunching or crowding the roots of t«.c trees together is h 7t»i-t_ke, -whilst although Hrm planting is deelrablc. the soil should not be rammed round the roots. Previous

to planting, any damaged or broken roots should be cleanly cut away with a sharp knife. Planting rose- should be the work of two people, one to hold the tree in position and the other to arrange the roots and fill in the soil. Fig. 1 shows how- to make the holes and arrange the roots of the tree. Tho hole is of ample width and a little higher in the centre, whilßt the roots are well and evenly spread out, Fig. 2 shows a rose tree properly planted, the union of the scion and stock being below the surface. Fig. 3 6howe a rose tree badly planted, the union of the stock being above the ground level. Fig. 4 also chow the wrong way to plant a rose tree, the roots being i bunched and crushed in a s_-_.ll hole, and manure placed at the bottom so that the roots touch it. PEGGING DOWN ROSES. The illustration shows a stronggrowing rose, such as Ards Rover or Hugh Dickson. The old growths are cut away and the vigorous young shoots are pegged down. Exhibition blooms may not be obtainable by this method, but a bed containing a few plants treated in this way will give a greater wealth of bloom than is obtainable by any other method. Almost any of the climbing varieties of roßes are especially useful jfor this treatment.

REPLANTING ROSES. Roses that have been in one place for several years, and have become weak and inclined to run to wood and not bloom, should be lifted and the roots trimmed back. Add some fresh soil, replant the bush, and it will put new life in the tree next season. BOW I WORK MY GARDEN. Under this heading will be given a record of what is dono in tho garden attached to a house on a-quarter acre section. The record will be of work done on Saturdays and evenings, and can lie taken to represent what is capable of being dono and produced from a ftinnll plot by the average man. The weather lately has not been of a gardening character, and tho result is that operations are somewhat bohlnd. The paßt week-end was better than usual, and a certain amount of work was got through. To get room to sow seed of onions, cabbage, cauliflower, and leeks it was necessary to lift the earliestsown parsnips. These are in use now, and will keep quite well covered with a little soil or sand. The main crop of carrots were also lifted, ond the preparation of the ground commenced for sowing early peas. Vegetables in use are spinach, onionß. parsnips, kumaras, chokos, carrots, leeks, silver beet, and beetroot. PLANTS FOR DRY BANKS. Next to the mesembryonthomum tho arctotie is the best plant known for quickly covering sunny- banks. It thrives in almost any kinj of soil, spreads with great rapidity, and is readily increased from cuttings, division, or from seed. Its large pale orange flower-heads and downy silvery foliage are very conspicuous. A grandis is much less common. When fully expanded the flower-heads are some four inches across, the florets being white on the upper surface and shaded with blue on the under side. It grows about eighteen inches high, and is somewhat bushy in habit, with angular and hollow stems that, like the foliage, are covered with a greyish pubescens. A. aureola is a rich striking orange in colour. A. rosea is pink. A. speciosa is yellow, and A. arboreseens has florets white above and pink below. These plants are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and arc essentially lovers of the sun and a comporative dryness of the soil; they do best when sharp grit is mixed with the soil. Seed should be sown from July to S/>tcmber. SOOTY GROWTH ON CAMELLIA. The foliage of camellias and other evergreen trees is often covered with a black sooty substance. The best cure is spraying with kerosene emulsion. The spray should be put on three or four times at intervals of a fortnight. This I will catch each brood of insects as it emerges, as they seem to breed all the I year round.