GARDENING NOTES

Northern Advocate, 13 October 1928, Page 7

GARDENING NOTES

[BY “TAINUI.”]

EM ONES AND RANUNCULI

litt/o nitrate of soda will act as stimulant.

FROM SEED

These beautiful spring flowers arc going over now, and seed should be saved. Save the seed from self colours and good blooms. Anemones.-and ranunculi need much the same treatment. Ranunculi are deeper rooting than anemones; therefore they need a deeper soil, with plenty of manure put under t|ie ground to encourag the deeprooting habit. Ranunculi take longer to come .into bloom, and so they must be planted earlier in the autumn if they arc to bloom in early spring. Anemones and ranunculi are seldom a success from old bulbs; they do best grown from''small young bulbs or seedlings. On the heavier soils young bulbs seem to be preferred, and on the lighter volcanic soils seedlings are the most satisfactory. For the young bulbs, the seed is sown in autumn in boxes, or in lines in the garden. These floiyer very little if at all in the spring. In the summer they die down and are then lifted, soil and all, and the whole sieved in order to separate the small bulbs, which in anemones are about the size of a pea. In the autumn the small bulbs are planted in beds of good rich soil. For seedlings, the seed is sown in October or November in boxes or in the open ground. The seed of anemones is woolly and difficult to separate. A little fine dry PjOil and sand rubbed well with the seed will help them to separate, and will also make the sowing much more evert. Make the seed bed quite firm before sowing the seed, and just cover with soil. The seed often takes six weeks to germinate. Cover the seed bed with scrum, tca-trec or fern, and keep well watered. The seedlings will need the fern covering right through the summer; also plenty of water will be necessary, as the young plants must be kept green and growing during the hot summer months.

The end of February or in March, the seedlings should be transplanted into their flowering quarters. No manure should be on the surface of the ground, but just underneath there should be a good supply of old manure| or bonedust. The ground should be made quite firm before planting. Fern or tea-tree .will be necessary in order to shade the seedlings until they arc established, and if the weather is dry, they will need watering every day. The seedlings are best planted in rows from nine to twelve inches apart, and four or five inches apart in the rows. If well treated, anemone seedlings will commence blooming in May. GENERAL NOTES. Always anticipate a hot dry spell from now ori, Lightly stir the soil q/ter every wet spell. Also shade the seed bod, whore practicable, with f.ern or tea-tree, if*a sowing is made during drv weather.

Don’t forget to gather.up and burn all useless garden rubbish—harbour for insect pests and spores of fungoid disease. The resulting ashes and charcoal dug into the ground will be appreciated by all vegetables, and particularly by peas and beans.

GiVo growing onion plants all the light and sun possible. Keep clown weeds, for onions dislike the association of any other plants. If the plants are Dot making satisfactory growth, a

OPERATIONS FOR OCTOBER. | 11 THE VEGETABLE GARDEN, I : : ___________ : j I Make sowings of all vegetables. | 11 Late maturing cauliflowers may still be sown; but they will I 11 want a lot of attention during the hot months when the j 1 | Diamond Back Moth is so bad. Better to put out plants | j | now or next month so as to get them well forward before I | f midsummer. I I j Plant out tomatoes and lettuce, I j | Plant potatoes. I I I Plant out pumpkins, marrows, etc., that were raised under | j | glass. These plants will want a little shading and plenty I 11 of watering until well established. | 11 -Plant chokos. I | j Sow peas and runner beans for succession. A deep rich soil I j I with lime, potash sulphate and super worked in will suit | j I them. I j | See that pumpkins, marrows and squashes get any amount of \ I I water, so as to get them well advanced before the drier | j | weather sets in. They have a long growing season, and I j i everything is in a good free start. I i | | j| THE FLOWER GARDEN. | il . I II Continue to plant tender shrubs, climbing and rockery plants. | j| . They will need to be staked, and kept watered. I 1| Continue to plant gladioli. I: j | Sow asters, zinnia, sunflower, French and- African marigold, 11 11 salvia, petunia, kochia, balsam, and other summer flower- 11 j f ing plants. \\ \ | Sow for spring bloom: Aquilegia, anemone, ranunculus, poly- (i || anthus, Canterbury Bells, Oriental poppy, Sweet William, li 11 thalictrum, gerbera, cyclamen, hollyhock. 1 j {| Sow seed of mina lobata in the positions where the plants are \ j j j to flower; I i | j Put out the following plants: Scabiosa, schizanthus, coreopsis, 11 | verbena, clarkia, salvia, gaillardia, lobelia, phlox, petunia. 1 j When planting out asters, a little sand put about the collar I j I will often prevent rot. 11 j Many asters are planted too deep, leaving too much stalk f I buried, making the risk of collar-rot greater. j j i Asters should never be watered at night, as their keeping cold | j and damp all night is bad; the leaves of the plant keep the I j stem near the ground tooywet. h If asters are mulched, the mulch should not be put near the 11 stems. 11 For good big aster plants with good bloom, good rich soil is \\ necessary; also watering in dry weather in the morning, or I j about five o’clock in the afternoon. 11 The best way to kill slaters is to put -boards down. In about a j 1 | week’s time, lift the boards :and drop quickly into boiling 11 | water. , 11 | Chrysanthemums may be planted in their flowering positions. 1 1 | A little old manure or bone-dust forked in a few inches | i | under the ground will be beneficial. Make the ground |j | firm before and after planting. 11 i If seedlings are kept in their boxes too long, giving a check to 1 1 I their growth, they often fail to recover sufficiently to 11 I - make good plants. \ I

Don’t put the pea or bean rows too close together. A rough guide is to place the rows as far apart as the plants are going to' be high—or a little less, the difference increasing with the height of the plants. In labelling sown seeds, it is a good plan to put the label in a flat glass medicine bottle and invert the bottle so that the label will remain dry and legible. Another good plan is to dip the label in melted paraffin, thus making it waterproof without destroying the legibility. Don’t forget to use lime in its proper place and at the proper time. Never lime a loan and hungry soil; it would only get w r orse. Heavy clay soils can stand a lot of lime; it improves their mechanical condition, making them loss heavy to wmrk. Ground too into which a heavy soiling crop has been dug, benefits by the application of lime, w r hich hastens the decay of the vegetation. Some plants, such as heaths, azaleas, kalmias, and rhododendrons twill not tolerate lime. Sodium nitrate should never be used except in very small doses at a time. It is one of the most freely soluble of all fertilisers, and reaches the drainage water rather readily. This is not altogether a had thing, as the salt tends to the deeper rooting of the plants, which is of advantage in time of drought . On clay soils, use sulphate of ammonia in preference to nitrate of soda, for the latter has the opposite effect to lime on the soil, which is made more sticky by the application of nitrate of soda.

A late idea about weeds is that they poison the soil, giving out from the roots solutions poisonous to other plants. Whether or not this is a fact, it is hard to say, but we do know that weeds take from the soil moisture and food intended for other more useful plants, that they keep the light and sun warmth away, and that where they are growing in profusion they even pollute the atmosphere of other living plants. Little can be said in their favour.

Always keep up the fertility of your soil. It is a mistake to think that you can take crop after crop from the soil without impoverishing it. The soil is not quite like the Widow’s Creuse —at least, under intensive cultivaiou.

Soluble fertilisers such as sulphate of potash, superphosphate and nitrate of soda arc no substitute for organic matter in the soil. Without the rejuvenating elect of the decay of organic matter. Nature could never have developed her wonderful cloak of natural vegetation. But don’t dig diseased rubbish into the soil. Better burn it, and use the ashes as a soil dressing.