WORK AMONG THE ROSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 282, 28 November 1931, Page 6 (Supplement)

WORK AMONG THE ROSES.

When the garden soil is light and "apt to dry up quickly, the rose season is a short one and the blooms inferior. Much can- be done to prevent these troubles and improve the bushes by putting on a layer of a mixture of cow manure and chopped turf, using two parts of turf to one of cow manure. Artificial manures may be applied, bonedust and fish guano being recommended. These should be sprinkled round the bush at a. distance of about a foot or so from the stem. Allow about one ounce to each busli, but this depends on the Bize of the bush. The use of liquid manure is to be recommended. It may be obtained by placing some cow manure in a bag and allowing it to soak for twenty hours, then diluting to the colour of weak tea and using it. Suckers are sure to be coming up through the soil, and should be cut away at once. Pull the soil away, so as to get at the point where they start from; cut away cleanly with a sharp knife. Frequent hoeing of the soil is necessary, and dusting the plants with sulphur or spraying with Bordeaux is necessary to combat mildew and black spot. Both these diseases, and also bronze beetle, give the promise of being very severe this season, unless precautions are taken. For bronze beetle arsenate of lead must be used, and although it will spot the open blooms and also some of the foliage, better this than to liavethe plants defoliated and all chances of any further blooms spoiled. It is a good method to dust the plants with flowers of sulphur every ten days or so and to add to the sulphur, in the proportion of about I—B, some dry arsenate of lead powder. Actually it may mean the use of more material than a wet spray, but it is so much more easily and conveniently applied that the extra cost is warranted, especially where a small number of-plants are grown. Well mix the arsenate of lead powder and sulphur before applying.

MULCHING-. Mulching is chiefly practised in the fruit and kitchen garden, and to a certain extent in the flovper garden also. It; consists of placing a layer of some material on the soil over the roots of ;he plants it is desired to benefit. It. is lone with two objects: one is to supply nutriment to plants that are surfacerooting, and consequently unable to be assisted in any other way; the other is to protect roots near the surface and the surface soil from sunshine, thus preventing the too rapid evaporation of moisture. Incidentally, it also eaves much labour, as, naturally, less watering will he necessary. The material used for mulching will therefore depend on the purpose in view. Many fruits are mulched with decayed manure, and the rain and watering wash the nourishment down to the roots. It would be impossible to dig in manure without doing a great deal of, damage to the roots. Raspberries and gooseberries are examples. Roses, beans, peas, etc., are mulched with manure to provide additional assistance to that already given by digging in manure. Almost anything can be used when it is merely desired to keep the soil and roots moist find cool. . Lawn mowings, leaves, strawy material, or even soil, can be employed for mulching. In summer the plants to be mulched should be first thoroughly watered.

MANURE PROM WASTE. After you Lave run the lawnmower over your lawn, what do you do with the cut grass? Perhaps you let it stay and disfigure the green with its brown deadness, or perhaps you sweep it away and burn. it. But if you are wise you do neither of these things; you use it as manure, for after a few months' keeping it turns into a most valuable mulch. Weeds,, too, form a good manure if they are,dug into the soil just as they are peeping through and before they have time to seed; 'they tend ta keep the soil open. It is cheering to realise that they are useful for something, for, if allowed to flourish, they ■ not only appropriate to themselves moisture and food that should go to the rightful inhabitants of the bed, but they encourage slugs; and other similar abominations. Probably the most valuable potash manure for root crops is obtained from the burnt tops—heads, leaves and Btems —of the sunflower. The ash obtained from burning these tops is extremely rich, in potasb—containing, in fact, 62 per cent—and the total amount of potash to be got from an acre of sun-flowers-may be realised when we take into consideration the fact that this area yields from ,30001b to 40001b of top. * From 30001b of top there would be produced 1601b of ash, so it can easily be seen that the amount of potash to be obtained is considerable. After the seeds have been gathered, the tops should be collected and _ burnt, on a dry day. The ash must, of course, be kept in a dry place until required for use. About loz of ash per square yard should be spread on-the ground before the potato,' or other root crop, is planted. EVERY GARDEN MEANS A HOME. Nowhere does beauty wait so eager to reveal itself and so eager to instruct and educate as in the garden. Here anyone who seeks may find, whether the scene of their efforts covers a mountain and a valley in extent or is confined to the little square of a town garden. Moreover, each one who has found has something to offer all the rest, regardless of their field of research, for the beauty that lies in any garden always has something to suggest to another gardener. It is high time that we change our point of view about gardening and consider what it will do for us, instead of what we may or must do for it. For embraced as an opportunity to create a beautiful thing, apart from the natural beauties of flowers and shrubs which go to make up its adornments, a garden becomes altogether different in its effect upon its inmates from the rather grim utilitarian plot which the word signifies to too many of us. There are indeed no limits to the possibilities of a garden, even though its actual area is very limited. For even as a miniature painted by a master captures as much of beauty and true art as the broadest canvas, so is it j possible to embody in a tiny garden supreme loveliness. Gardening, indeed, is every man's medium, let every man employ himself therewith diligently— Ion"- before he is 40 preferably, but certainly by the time he is. Especially if the times are out of joint for him then, let him acquire a garden and turn himself loose in it.