Carnation Culture

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

Carnation Culture

FEW flowers are more beautiful or sweeter than carnations. By giving then a reasonable amount of care and attention, it is not a difficult matter to obtain fine flowers from plants in open ground. At this period of the year a topdreasing is a great help to the planto. Before applying it, all dead leaves should be removed, and the surface

soil well atirred. Tie topdressing should be composed of equal parts good loam, old hotbed manure and leaf soil, together with a moderate quantity of old mortar rubbish and a few handfuls of soot and bonemeal. If the weather is dry the bed should be well watered before the dressing is applied. The compost should be worked well round the- plant* with the hand. Let it be some two inches in thickness.

Another matter which must not be neglected is staking the plants as coon fla the flower stems commence to pueh up. Stakes from 24 to 30 inches long, painted green, are suitable for this purpose. Loosely secure the stems to them with a loop of raffle, green for prefer-

ence, a* it harmonises with the colour of the foliage. Syringing the plants once a week with soft water, to which a little salt (say a teaspoonfuL to a can of water) has been added, will be found very beneficial.

Disbudding or thinning the buds is frequently neglected, but very desirable and, in cases where & few very fine blooma are required, indispensable, as the majority of healthy plants produce considerably more buds than they can properly develop. In thinning the buds

the strength of the plant should be taken into consideration, but generally speaking two or three buds to a stem may be allowed, save when exhibition blooms out of doors are required, in which capo only one bud to a stem must be permitted. Exhibition blooms out of doors must be protected from rain and sun just as the flower begins to expand.

Unfortunately carnation* are liable to be attacked by several troublesome pests.. During dry, hot weather,' green fly often makes its appearance. Syringe the plants at once with rain water and soft soap or dust them with tobacco powder. Earwigs should be trapped by placing small flower pots, half filled with hay, on short sticks inserted in the soil, or by placing hollow bean stalks about the bed. Examine the trans frequently and destroy the insects harbouring in them. \Vireworms are often a great nuisance. Traps for them, made of pieces of carrot fixed on sticks, should be buried just below the surface of the bed. If they are examined daily many wireworms will be found feeding on the I carrot.

The sketches (Fig. I.) show the best way to tie carnations to stakes. The tying material is first fastened to the stake as at A, and then passed round the stem as at B. The usual method of preventing "split calyx" is also shown at B, a light elastic ring being slipped over before the bloom commences to expand. Fig. IT. depicts the wrong way to tie carnations to sticks, the stem being too tightly bound to the stick. A carnation bloom with & split calyx is also shown. Fig. 111. shows a wire coil stake, one of the best forms of support for carnations. Fig. IV. illustrates disbudding. A shows a flowering stem, and B how to disbud it if fine flowers are required, C shows how to disbud it in cases where exhibition blooms are desired, all the buds except the largest being removed.

Fig. V. «diows how to make wireworms traps. A pointed stick should have two holes, as shown et A, and a hole made through the centre of a carrot

lin the sides of which a number of holes have been cut. Then insert the pointed stick through the carrot, place two pins in the holes to secure it in position, and bury it in the ground as shown at « B.