TIMELY TOPICS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 171, 16 April 1937, Page 18

TIMELY TOPICS

Notes, News and Views Garden tools should be cleaned and rubbed with oil to prevent rusting. The lawn mower should be taken apart, cleaned, and all parts oiled before being replaced. * * Beauty is realised by what is left out perhaps more than by what is put. in. Choice, restraint, maintenance, is the trinity of gardening. ♦ * * Because double pyrethrums can be propagated only by division, they are always scarce and consequently are usually higher in price than the general run of hardy plants. That probably accounts for their rareness in gardens. It should, on the other hand, be reason for their more general use, for they have no close rivals as eating subjects during the season of bloom. * ♦ * \ Don’t, especially in a small garden, buy packets of mixed seeds or try all colours of a given flower. In new things try the usual variety first and experiment with the variations later. The original .variety is usually the most reliable if not the most beautiful. Unless you are very experienced, and are willling to give much time and thought, better results are obtained by large groups of one variety and colour arranged, of course, with consideration for the neighbouring masses. » * ♦ Children need to know the joy of setting a seed, watching it push through the soil and come to full growth. There is something in that process and our relationship with it that lifts ou r feet from the clods. The patient tendance upon a garden that is the lot of all gardeners bestows a certain gentleness, patience, and sweetness upon the spirit. I have never known a mean gardener. They live too close to the mystery of life and beauty that most of us call God. —Angelo Patri. CAULIFLOWER SEED For Spring Planting Cauliflower plants for spring planting are in some places somewhat difficult to raise. This is particularly the case in low-lying places subject to frost. Usually all goes well for the first few weeks; then they begin to damp off, or cease to grow. To a large extent raised beds remedy this evil, sometimes entirely so; but some protection is-at times imperative to ensure good plants. There are several ways of raising plants. Some sow the seed in boxes under glass. I think this plan a bad one, because at this dull part of the year such treatment is more than likelv to result in soft plants. I prefer to sow in tbe open. Let the plants remain there till they show signs of stagnation; then lift and prick off into boxes. Put these under glass, but keep the glass off on all fine days. When the plants have become large enough for planting out, the boxes should be placed outside in. a dry situation to harden off before finally planting them out. Cabbage plants should be pricked off into new beds as soon as they are large enough to handle. . The site of the beds should be in a well-drained position and be raised above the ordinary level. Prick out the plants about 4in. or sin. apart. Dealing with the plants in this manner provides a stocky plant, and also accelerates their growth, and that to such a marked degree that when these are finally planted and in good growth those in the original bed will have been so much retarded by crowding each other as to provide plants for a successional bed. FALLING LEAVES Need Attention Now

.There is often a tendency to underestimate the importance of leaf gather ing. It is a tedious job and many gardeners rest content with keeping the paths and lawns free of leaves without worrying about beds and borders. Ordinary tree leaves may be left on the soil until digging time, but not fruit tree leaves and rose leaves. These leaves harbour and propagate the diseases which disfigure apples and pears, or ruin roses with rust and other plagues. Gather them up, all of them, put them straight on the bonfire and burn them.