FALLEN LEAVES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 20

FALLEN LEAVES

That Harbour Disease Leaves fallen from the fruit trees should not be allowed to lie about the garden or orchard. These leaves will shelter many a pest and may also be disease-carriers. Collect 'them up as frequently as possible and burn them immediately. Also burn a'l fallen fruits. Leaves fallen from rose trees and bushes should also go on the garden bonfire. They, too. are likely to be pesty and disease-ridden. LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY Time to Plant Crowns Those who would grow lily-of-the-valley should endeavour to obtain crowns as early as possible in order to get. them well established before winter. During this month is a favourable time in whieii to plant, and the site for them should be prepared now. They are often found under hedges and trees, where insufficient light and food are to be found, but a cool, moist site suits them better, such as may be found in the shade of a wall or boarded fence, where the summer sun does not reach them at midday, otherwise a few hours of sunshine morning and evening, are not detrimental. The soil that suits them best-is a medium loam, deeply dug, to which a good dressing of leaf soil or well-decayed manure has been added. In this, place the crowns an inch deep and abqut 3 inches apart each way, making level and watering them with a rose on the can, if conditions are dry at planting time. Lily-of-the-valley Ims a tendency to get out of bounds wherever planted, always searching for light and food. The best way to confine them is to place tiles or slates about 4 or 5 inches deep where the boundary is desired, so that they cannot penetrate it. Beds two years old and more will greatly benefit if a dressing of leaf-soil is given in winter and a little weak liquid manure when the flower spikes are forming; this will tend to increase the size of the flowers and enable the bed to continue several years in good order. herbaceous~Torders Overhaul Them Now The herbaceous border should be the outstanding feature of your garden scheme —always beautiful when there are any outdoor flowers at ail, always delightful in its colour schemes. If your border was unsatisfactory in any way this summer, now is the time to put things to rights. It is the time, too, when new borders should be made. .So far as the border to be remade is concerned, the first job is to lift all the plants, label them if you have not already done so. and heel them in in some convenient piece of ground. You are then in a position to dig the border thoroughly, manure it well, and make a fresh start.

sVhere it is proposed to start an entirely new herbaceous border, a strip of ground facing north should be selected if there is any choice, though you have every prospect of success in any but a southern aspect. The faults in so many borders are the unequal distribution of bloom, alternating dull and bright periods, and the clashing of colours as when a crimson paeony is planted near a blue flag iris, a purple Michaelmas daisy near a rec hollyhock, a scarlet Oriental poppy near an orange Alstromeria, and so on. You must be able to see the beauty of every plant from' the front of the border, and in order to do this set alternately wherever possible. Bushy plants such as phloxes, paeonies and red-hot pokers look best when planted singly, but plants with less leafage—like pyrethrums and the dwarfer campanulas—should be set in small groups. If there is a fence behind your border, you might cover it with rambler roses, clematis, or Virginia creeper. ' CORRESPONDENCE Answers to Inquiries Hedge for Windy Corner.— One of the most satisfactory hedges for closing up a windy coiner is Acacia srerticillata.5 r erticillata. It stands severe priming and always looks well. It Is smothered in yellow blooms in spring. Plants are inexpensive.—“ Blizzard,” Nelson. Violets Front Seed.— Yes, it is eas.v to raise violets from seed, but such plants show considerable variation. They reach flowering size in 18 months. —Miss C. 8., Lower Hutt,