NASTURTIUMS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 286, 30 August 1935, Page 24

NASTURTIUMS

The Improved Types

Within the last few years nasturtiums have been improved more than the gardeners of long ago would have dreamed possible. Formerly, they were regarded as cinderellas, to be sown in any odd corner where other things wouldn’t de. Really, those old stagers were worth little better treatment, for all you got was a great cluster of leaves which effectually hid a small quantity of inferior blooms. The modern race, however —thanks to skilled work by the hybridist—is superbly beautiful and must lie given a place in every garden. Consider first the exquisite Tom Thumb kinds. All these kinds grow about a foot tall and if sown now will be a solid mass of gay bloom from midNovember until late' autumn. They are admirably adapted for bed and border display in the best parts of your garden. For clothing sunny fences, walls, or arbours quickly,.nothing could be more charmingly appropriate than the clinifcing nasturtiums. But this isn’t all. More recently there was introduced the almost double, rich yellow, sweetly-per-fumed kind. Golden Gleam. It has been followed by the vivid Scarlet Gleam, and the Double Gleam Hybrids, which embrace a wonderful range of brilliant and delicate colours. Truly there are glorious things in the nasturtium line to-day. Sunshine is a vital need. Nasturtiums are only weedy coverers of the ground in shade. You get an abundance of leaves, but little bloom.

Dig the ground a foot deep, incorporating with each square yard half a packet of fairly well-decayed stable manure, and lime freely. After making the soil fine, tread it very firm (firm soil is essential) and, when raking, work into the surface 4in. of each square yard 2oz. of steamed bone-dust, which all summer will yield a supply of colour-intensifying food.