MIGNONETTE

Evening Star, Issue 22817, 27 November 1937, Page 24

MIGNONETTE

One of the most popular of all our flowering jilants is mignonette, and is, in some cases, also one of the most capricious. There are certain soils in which it absolutely refuses to thrive—germination may be good, early growth may be quite satisfactory, and plenty of bloom may show, but when the plant reaches a certain stage it appears to turn sick (writes “ Lorn a,’' in the ‘ Manawatu Daily Times ’). The foliage assumes a dingy red shade, and the bowel's are unsatisfactory. In such cases some good may result from dressing the soil with lime before using it for mignonette again, but, as has been said, there are some districts in which it is unsafe to rely upon mignonette. Many complaints are heard that the seed fails to germinate, but in most instances it will be found that the newly-sown seeds have been eaten by birds. Sparrows, chaffinches, and other seed eaters have sharp eyes, and they can soon pick up a sowing of mignonette to the last seed. The remedy is to “red lead” the seeds before sowing. In other cases inspection reveals that germination has’ been good, but that slugs have cleaned off the cotyledons as they peered through the ground. The cure, when slugs are seen, is to dust the sites on which mignonette seed is sown with fresh soot at frequent intervals until the seedlings become sufficiently strong to resist the attacks of their enemies. A third cause of failure is sometimes traced to the fact that the seeds have been sown in loose or newly-dug soil. Mignonette delights in a firm run for its roots, and those who have soil of ■a light description, or must sow seeds in freshly-dug soil, ought to beat it with the back of the spade or tread it firmly before sowing. After the seeds are sown rake the bed lightly and again tread or beat the bed. Such treatment will very often turn failure into success. In bygone days the fragrance of mignonette was to be found in almost all gardens and no garden seemed to be complete without it.