YOU AND YOUR GARDEN.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3161, 4 May 1931, Page 2

YOU AND YOUR GARDEN.

For most of the year I love the trees by which my little patch is all but surrounded, yet for a period each autumn I, even I, have too many leaves. There's a hymn about it, isn't there? Ido sympathise with the writer, though I don't suppose his trouble was the same as mine. In theory Nature may be left alone, leaves in a lane are pretty, we love to see them when they are crisp and dry. But In a garden—no. Protesting, we sweep, or direct others to sweep, though it is rather like ploughing the sand, since still leaves and more leaves fall. You will do the work with more heart if you turn those leaves to good account. Dig a hole and bury them. It won't have to be a very deep one, for as they rot they take little room. Throw earth on them from time to time, leave them severely alone, and later you will be saved the money I was ashamed to have to spend only this year on buying leaf mould.

Why leaf mould? Simply, can't do without it. Of course, there are gardeners who never bother about such aids to success, but they are poor benighted creatures. Leaf mould comes in useful on many occasions, but never more so than when one wishes to grow ferns in some shaded corner which seems to have been made for the purpose. Even common ferns never do well in ordinary garden soil, whereas with leaf mould round them they flourish.