SUMMER STIMULANTS

Evening Star, Issue 22805, 13 November 1937, Page 23

SUMMER STIMULANTS

THAT DEVELOP BIGGER BLOOMS Even though your soil is in good hoart, you stand to gain much by iceding now. Manuring at plant time and, in the case of perennial things, autumn mulches of manure, supply the food needs in a general way. But every plant has special food requirements, and it is these that feeding meets (says the ‘ Dominion’s ’ gardening contributor). Ten-week stocks, for instance, are great lovers of the particular form of nitrogen you find in dried blood manure. It acts slowly, covering the leaves with an attractive _ whitish Moom, giving every flower its maximum size, clearest and most beautiful colour, and doubling the life of the display. SPECIAL FOOD FOR STOCKS. This you will prove if, from now until tlie spikes are fully open, you hoe into the beds at weekly intervals a loz per square yard dressing of this valuable, low-priced fertiliser. Should the weather by dry, water immediately after each application, a course you must follow with all the artificials mentioned in this article. Snapdragons, too, are ready for feeding. Some of the modern kinds are amazing in their richness of colouring if you assist by feeding weekly and alternately from now until the spikes are at their best, with quarter-strength liquid manure and half-strength soot water. Apply a gallon of each per square yard. Suspend feeding after the zenith is reached until the first spikes _ fade. Then resume it on the lines indicated until the second lot are fully out. It is to oriental poppies. that we look for a splash of unequalled brilliance. They really ought to make the border glow, and will if you feed them every five days, from now until the huge blooms are fully open, with quarter-strength liquid manure and lime water (2oz of freshty-slaked lime in a gallon of water). (live these stimulants alternately—•six pints of the former and four pints of the latter per dose. Lime water must bo included, to prevent the outer green envelope from dropping prematurely and revealing a languid, shortlived, poorly-coloured bloom. Of recent years the Himalayan poppy, meconopsis baileyi, has found its way into a great many gardens. People hlave fallen in love with its sky-blue blooms studded with golden anthers. The first essential is to mulch round the plants with a 2in layer of granulated peat or riddled leaf mould, leaving a strip of bare soil near the main steps to allow you to feed weekly and alternately with half-strength soot water (four pints per plant per dose) and sulphate of potash solution (loz to the gallon of water, and two pints to the plant per dose), from now until the end of the flowering period, FOR BRILIANT SCARLET SALVIAS. This season hundreds of gardeners are hoping to put up their best-over display of that very effective bedding plant, the vivid scarlet salvia harbinger. This plant does not. under average conditions, form sufficient roots to ensure retention of the pip at the

end of the bloom. When that falls you have the scarlet cup at the bottom, it is true, but the slxow Jacks the sparkle that should be associated with salvia. \ You can overcome this difficulty by hoeing in at fortnightly intervals, from now until the end of the season, a loz per square yard dose of superphosphate of lime. Pip drop is unknown when this treatment is faithfully carried out. Between each two applications feed fortnightly with half-strength soot water at one gallon per square yard, and the scarlet will lose all hint of dull magenta, and shine as though it had l been burnished.