THE GARDEN

Evening Star, Issue 19197, 13 March 1926, Page 11

THE GARDEN

WORK FOR THE WEEK.

AUTUMN WORK THE VEGETABLE GARDEN Clear off all spent crops as they go out of season, particularly such, things as cabbage leaves and stumps. To leave .them is to exhaust the ground to no purpose. At this time of the vear, when every foot of ground should lie trenched, there can be no better place for such refuse than at the bottom off the trench as work progresses. Rotted cabbage and other such leaves become very offensive, and should bo got rid of as speedily as possible. ,I’ly the hoe freely among young growing crops to stimulate growth and keep down weeds. Autumn-sown onions should bo got in at once. There is still time for a last sowing of turnips, but there must be no delay in getting them in. Earth up celery as previously advised. Sow lettuce in a warm and wellprepared bed. Plant out divisions of Globe artichokes. Plant also cabbages (savoys;, and make a small sowing of cauliflower to stand the winter in the seed bed. THE FLOWER GARDEN Early layered carnations should now be well rooted and ready for getting into their permanent quarters. The ground for these should not be too rich with manure, or their growth becomes too coarse at the expense of the flower. AVhnt they like is good fresh loamy or turfy soil well mixed with sharp sand. Ocean Beach sand intermixed with soil inclined to be of a heavy nature will answer well. Make the soil fairly firm about them. Carnations required for pot work should be potted up as soon as possible, using as small pots as is convenient for the size of the layer. For pot work the soil for these should consist of about eight parts rotted turf rubbed through a coarse sieve, with one part of old, well-rotted manure and one part leaf moud and sharp sand. Use clean pots and clean crocks, and pot fairly firmly. It is a good plan to add a little soot to the soil and mix it up a few days previous to potting to sweeten the soil, and in case of wire worm, the deadly enemy to all carnations. After potting place them in a close, cold frame for a time until they become established in the pots; then expose them freely, and pot on ns they become ready for a shift—that is, when the small pots are well filled with roots The tree or Malmaison typo of carnations is much the best for pot or greenhouse decoration. These are a valuable class pf flower, and well worthy of special attention, particularly ns they may be had to flower in winter, this making them particularly valuable. SWEET PEAS

spoonful to two gallons of waterAlso scatter some fresh-slaked lime over the surface soil under the bushes. The free use of potash worked into the soil is a fine preventative, and is also good for the plants constitutionally. H.C. BEAUTIFUL FOLIAGE PLANT A variety of Euonymus radicans, named coloVata, is offered for sale by a Rhode Island ( United States of America) nurseryman. The plant is said to have been first introduced into the United States by the Arnold Arboretum, and is perfectly hard;'. It is a vigorous, large-leaved variety, the foliage being an intense green in summer, but at the first frost it turns to a bright red and bronze, and this tinting is said to be retained by the plant, which is evergreen, until the warm weather in spring. MEDAL OF HONOR The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has awarded the George Robert White Medal of Honor for 1925 to Professor Ulysses P. Hedrick. This medal is considered to bo the highest horticultural honor which can be conferred in America. Professor Hedrick is reputed do be the greatest authority on fruits and fruitgrowing in the United States, and has clone more than any other man to promote the development of new and improved varieties. He is the author of several poinologieal works, including ‘ The Grapes of New York, ‘ The Plums of New York,’ ‘The Cherries of New York,’ ‘ The Peaches of New York,’ ‘ The Manual of American Grapegrowing,’ ‘ The Cyclopaedia of Hardy Fruits,’ and ‘ Systematic Pomology.’ ERITRICHfUM NAHUM “ I awoke and I was at the gate of a garden. I smelt the daisies and the pansies, and once again their scent utterly satisfied mo, as it did when 1 was a child and bought their roots off a barrow, and for a few moments, whilst my face was pressed against their petals, complete unending happiness seemed to be mine. “ Inside the gate i saw the gardener holding a well-shaped trowel in one hand, and in the other a plant of that mountain forget-me-not which I had once seen but never grown. “Wo talked easily together, as people can who are fond of the same things. Ho seemed, unlike most gardeners who wish to do things only in their own way. to have the feeling I have sometimes had, that a plant could almost tell one where it wished to grow. So we planted the forget-me-not together, “ I had never before been quite satisfied with the hole I made for a plant, or with the way I spread out its innumerable delicate roots, still less with the way anyone else did it; but this time wo did it perfectly, and then I saw, too, for the first time, a plant in absolutely the right place. I. turned to praise him, and said, Surely it could not have been better planted by God Himself’; then I knew Him, and I was at home in the midst of the multitudinous hosts of heaven, and loneliness, boredom, and home sickness were over now and for ever.” —From Essays on Life,’ by A. Clntton-Brock.

Of all annuals the sweet pea is the most valuable. Indeed, few flowers equal it for usefulness for decoration, both for the room or garden effect. The two main seasons for sowing sweet peas arc spring and autumn, the latter being much the best, for the reason that they give a much longer period of flowering,, and produce finer flowers. To grow first-class peas it is essential that deep digging or trenching and good drainage should be given thorn. They may be grown in various ways. One that is very effectual is to grow them in round clumps, using one color for each clump. Dig large, round, and deep holes, providing fot good drainage, so that the water may escape. Fill in the bottom with rather rough material. On this place some good rotted manure. Then fill up with rich and free turfy or sandy loam in corporated with wood ashes or burnt garden rubbish, putting in plants or seed around Gin to 9in from the margin. Then drive in long manuka branches, tying them at the top. They then require no other support. Again, sweet peas may be used for covering or hiding an unsightly object or grown in long trenches, up trellises or fences. Whichever methods are adopted, let the ground be properly worked. Where good animal manure is not procurable use artificial manures. Sufficient lime is essential in all cases—in some ■ ground more than others. Soot is also an excellent manure, whether dug in or worked into the soil or used as a liquid manure. The phosphatic fertilisers mostly used are basic slag, bone meal, end superphosphates, but for sandy soil basic slag should not be employed. Potash manures consist of wood ashes, burnt garden rubbish, kainit, etc., which should he dug in when preparing the ground. Superphosphate and bone meal should be used at the rate of 2oz per square yard, worked in on the surface.

GARDENS MY HOBBY FOR THIRTY YEARS [By Compton* Mackenzie, in the ‘Home Magazine.] It always astonishes me that amateur gardeners do not devote more of theii attention to growing things from seed. It is the cheapest way to slock a garden; it is the easiest way to learn about gardening, it provides yon with more plants and shrubs than you want, so that you have always something to “ swap.” The plants themselves are much healthier and much happier. Incidentally, plants suffer a great deal more from loneliness than people imagine, and the habit of buying one plant is not fair to the flowers. No doubt many gardeners will accuse me of sentime.realising, but 1 have been gardening hard for over thirty years, and I know that 1 am not sentimentalising. The great -objection that people always make to seed-growing is the time one has to wait for the result-?; but by choosing carefully one may bar« p-ants that will keep one amused every year for nine years, and if one sows a certain number of shrubs and trees for twice that time. Do I make myself clear P 1 mean that every year you will have something new to look forward to. A flower that everybody wants to have in his garden is the lily; but the only lilies you usually see are the Madonna lily (candidum), the tiger lily (tigrimim), and perhaps the orange lily (crocoum), which a lot of people suppose to he the tiger lily. Why? .Because they are the cheapest. For the glorious royal lily (Lilium regale), a comparatively recent introduction from Western China, you have to pay about 3s Cd for a bulb that may grow 2ft and give you a couple of flowers the first year. What about this as an alternative? A shilling packet of seed will give you in two years at least a dozen bulbs, three or four of which will have a single flower, and one or two of which will have a couple. In three years, with any luck, all of them will have a couple of flowers, and some more. That is to say that in two years you will have caught up with that solitary 3s 6d bulb with a dozen of the same size, and every year onward those lilies will grow, until in six years you ought to have a dozen of them 6ft or oft high, each one wlih six or seven great white waxy trumpets suffused with yellow inside, barred wiMi ruby outside, and scented fit for tbe Queen of Sheba. A LILY FROM CHINA. This is how it is done. Sow in August in a seed pan (not a box) in a soil of one part peat and two xmrts irdiiiary garden soil. You need not better about bottom heat. Keep them shaded from the full sun, and leave them iicue for a couple of years. Keep olf -the worst of the winter with a frame. Let them flower first in their pans, hut content your curiosity with one flower and pinch the other buds off. Then cauy in September (April in New Zealand) choose a’ border where the roots ran be sheltered from the sun, and plant your bulbs' 2in deep, top-dressing with dry leaf mould annually. If your soil is very heavy surround them with sand, and work in some peat, hut in any civilised garden soil which has not been over-manured they will not bother a great deal about peat and sand. Then leave them' alone to grow more beautiful every year. And even if you fail it will only have cost one shilling and twopennyworth of trouble.

Chrysanthemums.—Remove all superfluous growth and disbud—what is called “ taking the bud.” This must bo strictly attended to, and special attention paid them if showing the blooms be the object. Water the plants regularly during dry weather—that is those in pots. Give liquid manure once a week. Care must he taken not to give it too strong; about the color of weak tea will answer. Make them secure against wind by careful staking and tying. Dig, trench, or otherwise prepare the ground for bulbous roots, various kinds of which, taken up after flowering, may be. planted, such ns narcissus, lilies, and other bulbs and tubers.

Clear off spent annuals and replace with such things as wallflowers, aqualegins, polyanthus, and others. Floe, rake, and' keep free from weeds all flower beds and borders. Roll and mow lawns regularly, and lift daisies, dandelions, and other such needs to prevent them casting their seeds and giv 7 ing trouble afterwards. THE TOMATO-HOUSE

The main object now will bo to ripen up as much fruit as possible on the plants left now. The best way to do this will be keep the plants free from surplus young growth. Dead leaves, those showing the least signs of yellowing of the leaf, and others well up the stem, cut back to about half to admit more air and light. It is also advisable to pinch or cut out the points of each plant. By this the fruit will develop and ripen further up the stem than if they were left unchecked. Little water will bo required. Give plenty of ventilation. ANSWERS “ R.B.H.” —M.V note touching upon finishing off tomatoes in the tomato house should answer your question quite well. Seuga.”—The name of the flower forwarded is Cliantbus damperii (tli e Australian desert pea). This plant is generally grown in pots as a greenhouse plant. I have never succeeded in growing it outside here in the garden. It requires a warmer cliuate’ than this. I do not know where It may be purchased. The shrub you mention mav bo transplanted from April onward.

“ Amateur ” (Anderson’s Bay).—'Hie rose leaves forwarded are nffectecl with black spot, a form of fungoid disease. This and mildew on the rose are two verv troublesome diseases. Spray the bushes with formaldehyde, one table

Oar oontrfbatoE, a wsfl-taown gardener, will be glad to answer questions, which must j bo received not later than Tuesday of each week. > fbr thin column must be handed in to the office before 2 p.nu on I Friday.

THREE DOZEN BLOOMS FOR SIXPENCE. I could give you much more elaborate instructions', but I always used to be discouraged by those counsels of perfection in gardening books, and I am proselytising in this article, Ihon there is L. temiifolium, which is an exquisite little scarlet fellow of the Turk’s cap typo from Siberia. You can buy a dozen for 17s 6d, but you can buy a packet of seed for sixpence which will give yon three dozen. Sow in July (January here), and with any luck you will have a dozen in bloom the following June (December here). That is not long to wait for a lot of change out of sixpence. I could go on writing for pages about growing lilies from peed, and if instead of wasting your money next spring by buying L. auraturn bulbs from Japan—poor, wretched, maltreated creatures, full of disease, and in five cases out of six only likely to give you a few malformed flowers before they rot away—-you lay out the money on' various seeds, you will he happier and prouder. Daffodils are worth your attention. Very few of the people who regretfully decide that they cannot afford to pay £2 for that lovely white trumpet they so much admired at the Daffodil Show think of spending half a crown on a packet of seed saved from the finest white trumpets that arc grown. Of course, this does mean waiting, and you will not know for at least seven vears if yon have a white trumpet of your own worthy of being nailed queen of queens. Still, why not begin this summer? Sow in July (January) the glossv little ebony seeds, and leave them alone in the pan for a couple of years. Then plant the baby bulbs out in some disused corner (not too sunny if yon have chosen white trumpets), and one fine April (September) morning, when vou want something to console you for tieing seven years older, you may find a white trumpet more wonderful than any yet seen. ANGELS’ TEARS. However, all daffodils do not require seven years to flower. There are the triandrus hybrids, which give of their best in four vears. Triandrus hybrids! What a detestable name for some of the loveliest flowers on earth! Narcissus triandrus albus lias got an English'name —“Angels’ Tears,” or, as a gardener I used to have, trying to recollect the proper name, called them. “ weeping saints.” The cup is slim and unfrilled; the perianth segments turn back like a hare’s ears. The pollen is very potent, and often gives to its offspring, besides delicacy of term, the most'delicious linos of cream and primrose. Do let mo recommend a halfcrown packet of triandrus hybrids. You will bless mo, even as every spring I bless a predecessor of mine'on Jetliner who planted on the top of the island some of these “Angels’ Tears” along a granite wall, where perhaps for thirty years and more they have whitened to the March gales. Kniphofias (ci-devant Tritomas), or red-hot pokers, are splendid fun to sow. Once in Cornwall I sowed K. Tuckii in January (July) in mild heat, transplanted to the open border in March —I worked hard for the whole of a perishing day—and flowered 100 of them that September (Apry), which is red-hot growing oven for a Kniphofia. By sowing mixed seeds from the various garden hybrids you will got every shade of orange and nmher and flame within two years. And while 1 am talking about Kniphofias, do let me recommend K. multiflora, which blooms in October, an ivory poker with bright pale green foliage. There is K. modesta, too, a very small one. and white. Also, if you are interested in these torch lilies, ns some call them, do let me urge the claims of K. Loichlini, a yellow with a bunch of protruding crimson stamens like a comic opera hussar. You may not find all these varieties, hut you will find plenty of others in the seed catalogues; and if you have room for them when they come on apace you will find the red-hot pokers one of the easiest flowers to grow well from seed. WHY NOT TRY IRISES? Three years ago 1 sowed a throepenny packet of Iris tcctoruru, so called because tin© Japanese grow it in the thatch of their roofs, a bright azure in color, with an albino form. To-day I have a patch about six feet square which, at the present rate of charges (Is fid for a small bit of rhizome) would have cost me at least, £6. They flowered well last year. These arc essentially plants to sow, because once you have them in your garden they will seed themselves, and they do not flower well after five years/ so that they ought to he freshly sown from time to time. Give them all the sun they can get, and don’t water your seedlings too much. 1 need hardly add that all irises are exciting to grow from seed, and the adventurous will be well rewarded. .if you have room for shrubs, do not confine your seeds to herbaceous stuff and bulbs. You want patience for the first three years, hut thence onward your hardy seedlings will soon catch up and outgrow the wretched pot-hound nursery plants for which you have paid five shillings apiece. Moreover, it is my belief that, if the owners of less fa, vored gardens would experiment with half-hardy shrubs grown from seed by themselves, they would be astonished to find how much bettor they could compete with the West Country than they supposed. It takes a certain amount, of financial courage to experiment with acacias (J. moan what many people wrongly call mimosa) at half-a-guinea a pot-hound plant. Why not try a sixpenny packet of seed and see how many you can pull through a Buckinghamshire winter? Of course, you will have to keep them under glass for a couple of years; but if you don’t lot them get pot-bound, and harden them off well, you may, against a sheltered south wall, succeed in flowering your own mimosa—which would bo worth while. Even if you don’t succeed in making a tree, you will find it worth while to sow acacias just for the pleasure of seeing the way that the feathery baby leaves of most varieties gradually turn into what are called phyllodes, which look like leaves, hut are really flntteued-out stalks. The familiar mimosa of Covent Garden (Acacia denlhnta) keeps its leaves. Acacia Pycnantha is a good example of the other kind. IF YOU .START IN JANUARY. None of the seeds that I have mentioned require bottom heat to germinate unless you sow in mid-winter; but, of course, if you spw seeds on any scale, you will be wanting to get some things started in January, and in that case you will require bottom heat. There are, however, many seeds of herbaceous perennials which can be sown in a border set apart for them and kept really well weeded. August (February) 'is the month for sowing most of these. Let me make another suggestion. Most of you sow wallflowers, stocks, and asters. Why not buy seedling plants of these—just as many as you want—and sow perennials instead of buying expensive and lonely plants? You would save a great deal of money and have a much more attractive garden. Don’t expect to find interesting seeds in the lists of the great firms who cater exclusively for the vegetable gardener’s garden. Finally, don’t despise penny packets. The best garden I ever

liatl was mado out of penny packets. Alas, and ip our shame, hq it said, tno most enterprising firm of penny-packet seedsmen, a firm that sent out its collectors to the uttermost parts of the earth, were not supported except for penny packets of turnip-tops; so that their wonderful catalogue no longer exists. And one used tp be able to buyi half Eden for a sovereign! HEW WORLD FOR PLANTS AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS How plants respond to strange conditions never found in Nature, such as daylight arbitrarily sot at anything from, zero to twenty-tour hours a day, carbon dioxide ten times as concentrated as it is in normal air, and atmospheric moisture held anywhere that tho manipulators want it, was told in an illustrated discussion before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Kansas City, United States of America, on December 29, by John M. Arthur, of the Boyce Thompson Institute, Yonkers, _ Now York (says “ Science Service,” m tho Sydney ‘ Morning Herald’). _ One lob of plants was given ten times the normal amount of carrion dioxide, and at tlie same time liad its daylight period lengthened six hours with powerful electric lights. ivod clover plants in this lot blossomed and produced a good crop of hay in thirtyeight days, when under ordinary agricultural ' conditions two years would have been required for tho same results. Spring wheat, barley, and oats in the same group produced jailer plants, yielding larger crops of both grain and straw, than control plants under normal conditions. A second series of plants was given light for twenty-four hours a 1 day, but no extra carbon dioxide. These did little better than tho control plants, and on the whole not nearly as well as those that were given tho extra gas. Apparently plants need a rest, for a tomato plant, subjected to continuous light treatment, finally died. A second tomato plant, given nineteen hours of light and five hours’ rest, survived and grew slowly, while a third, with seven hours’ rest each night, bore fruit. With its facilities for complete and accurate control of all conditions affecting plant life, the Boyce Thompson Institute plans a long and extensive campaign of research into the fundamental problems of plant physiology.