GARDENING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18293, 9 July 1921, Page 3

GARDENING NOTES.

By D. Tannock, WORK FOR THE WEEK. THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY. Continue the potting and boxing of the budding plants, placing those which are ostablisned out into the coolhouso to make room for seed boxes and newly pricked-cmt annuals. Make sowings of lobelia, sweet peas, tomatoes, cauliflower, and cabbage to supply plants for putting out later on. Prune grape vines, peaches, nectarines, and peaches, when these aro grown indoors and any renovations or extensions should bo carried out. The vinery borders should receive attention now before root action commences. As a rulo with a well-kept vine border all that is necessary is to fork off and remove some of tho loose surface sod, taking great care not to damage the roots. Then give a good dressing of approved vino manure and a mulching of wcil-rotted cow or stable manure. Climbers on tho roofs of the greenhouse should bo taken down and cleaned, care being taken to unwind all shoots which have become twisted round their supports. Paint any sterns which aro badly infested with bug with methylated spirits, and tie them up neatly again, spreading them well out <j>ver tho roof. Rhubarb and seaknlo can be forced by placing covers of hot manure over them where they are growing, but to get a few early stalks it is often desirable to lift a few roots and force them in a warm greenhouse or collar. Good, well ripened crowns should be selected, tho thin roots trimmed off. and then packed fairly close together in large pots or boxes; any kind of light soil being suitable. Give one good watering, then invert a pot or box over them and cover 1 with a few old sacks to keep out tho light. Ws the roots are weakened by forcing, they are not worth keeping afterwards, and are usually thrown away. T£IE FLOWER GARDEN. Continue to prune rambler roses, trees, ■ and shrubs, and to push on the digging and forking of all beds and borders. the Vegetable garden and orchard. Continue pruning fruit trees and bushes. Dig and manure all vacant ground. SPRING FLOWERS ON THE CONTINENT. Though the season promised to be early at one time, the weather changed suddenly and frost and snow in the middle of April did very considerable damage to all young growths. In Paris tho oaks and planes were blackened, and so also at Nancy and Brussels, while the deciduous azaleas and rhododendrons were considerably damaged at Kew.

Garden* in Paris still bear traces of the necessary neglect during the war period, but they iiro rapidly boinp got into order, and I am sure that by this summer they will have recovered their pre-war brilliancy. Though there were many empty beds and borders, there were also many spring flowers —violas, pansies, wallflowers, and double daisies being used. There were several beds tilled with Viola Cornuta, tho common purple variety, and they really looked very well and wore flowering freely. Tho yellow viola Bullion was also used extensively, and a little sunk garden was filled with these and double daisies with very satisfactory results. Raised beds were also filled with yellow, blue, and white violas, worked out in a design, and from a distance they wore very effective. Wallflowers were massed in beds, both mixed and in separate colours, but they did not strike mo as being particularly well grown, and consequently they had to be planted very thickly. Tho formal style of gardening which has been followed in France, is that of Le .Notre, which has been carried out on such a grand scale at the Palace of Versailles, whore it is after all nothing more than a suitable setting for the palace. Tho beds on the terraces are all worked out in intricate designs with boxwood edgings and gravel paths; the idea being that they would be seen to advantage from tho palace windows. Tho result may bo all right in the summer when tho beds are filled with geraniums, etc., but they are not attractive in spring, and tho standard lilies which are dotted about do not provide much colour.

Tho Versailles typo or style has dominated all French landscape gardening,—sometimes with satisfactory results, sometimes not. At first one is apt to admire it. but when one meets it at every ■ turn—always the same formal beds filled with the same formal plants—one longs for the free and open English style of landscape gardening, as seen at Kcw, where all sorts of interesting and ornamental trees are used with good effect.

What is most remarkable about. Paris is the trees. They are everywhere in abundance, in narrow- streets and wide streets, sometimes converting some of the smaller gardens into woods with n complete leafy canopy overhead, —very nice on a bright, sunny day, but very dull when it is wet. All sorts of trees seem to thrive, but the horse chestnut is the most satisfactory. It is extensively planted, and when in llower is distinctly beautiful.

One unfortunate feature of the French trees generally is the way they are muiilatcd. They are ent about in a most fantastic way to form hedges, arches, etc,, and they do not seem to mind it, for they come out into leaf as usual and make considerable annual growth, which is promptly cut back the following season. This method of clipping certainly enables the French to have trees in places where they would ho a nuisance if left to grow freely, and no doubt that it is hotter to have a c'ipped tree than no tree at nil. The clipping of shrubs is also carried to a good length, and it is disappointing to find square after square planted with the same clipped box. yew, privet, elderberry. euonymns, and ncuha. In Nancy the Public Hardens were morn like a forest than a garden :—tall trees with stout stems and a. thin leafy canopy overhead, hut sufficient, to prevent the growth of grass he’ow. Hence the ground was carpeted with dry leaves. It .is quite evident that the forester, and not the landscape gardener, controls the frees and timber production is the aim of nil foresters. A little more of this in England and Scotland, and even in New Zealand, would he an advantage, and parks, instead of providing knotty, twisted, branchy trees—very beautiful, no doubt, but, of little value—could produce the straight-stemmed, thinlimbed trees, characteristic of the woods near Nancy and Unissels, of winch the citizens are justly proud. In tho Hardens at. Nangy there is an Association football ground, and, like most Scotch and toot .incut id public grounds, it is almost devoid of grass--an indication of how freely ir. is used, but the boys manege tc play quite well and do not seem to mind it; being n little hard when they fall. Thm-e is also an open park with flower boils, well filled with mossy phlox, pansies, violas, double daisies, tulips forget-me-nots, and wallflowers. In fact there were no empty bids in the gardens id Nancy, and two noteworthy trees in flower were P\ rus Malms Florihuvda and Magnolia ('onspiona. There is a, small rose garden where ramblers are trained in a fantastic fashion hut it, struck me that, though roses were evidently appreciated and fairly well grown, they were nowhere in cninp’ete possession, and extensive rose gardens, filled with i'll the various types, bushes, standards, climbers, ramblers, etc,, were unknown. f-lorne day fhoy will eb’se-ver (hat the ro<=e is a decorative nlant and that it i= infinitely more useful than tho eternal bedding plants and annuals.

In Bni»«nl» the Iwls in the various squares v -o r o well filled with snnna- flowerimr plants, nnf! tulips -,vore more pxtnnpivp.lv used titan in France, . The Pnrwin type •« the favourite. unci those were moot effective yvficn associated with violas, forget-me-nots, or other dwarf plants.

Horticulture ami agriculture seem to liavc recovered from tlio war more (|uickly in Belgium Hint in France. r l'he lields are all cultivated like allotments and sowing ami planting v.-ere in full ovinr. al iai l< of animals I eing yoked into the ploughs and cultivator,-.

While in Belgium I visited the Ghent district, which is so famous for its mrr.-ei ier. and gardens, when' such quantities of Azaleas are grown. They have now almo-i recovered from the effects of the war. and the glass-houses, which were liadly damaged hy tho bombardments during (he last year of the war l.avo heen repaired. I went right through the nurseries of M. Van Houtt, who is famous as the raiser of many hardy azaleas, and it is indeed a plant factory on a large scale. There are acres of glass-houses, and these are tilled with Indian azaleas, Ghent azaleas, Armenia oxrelsa, palms, aspidistras, araleas, acacias, ami many New Zealand tied Australian hard-wooded plants. Other houses tire tilled with tuberous begonias, which are raised by the thousand —in fact, tens of thousands are raised from seed every year—Hppeost rums and glorinias: and the tropical houses tire tilled with droneiins. cratons. ralnliums, antlmriunis, and ferns. A great block of orchid houses is under construction where the more decorative species will he grown for rut (lowers, which are much in demand in Paris ami Holland.

B-Acn the war the best markets for the Cfhiy plants were the [.'lifted States, dermaland Russia. Now all these markets are closed, but tliev Inna' still Groat Britain and her colonies, Fra nee. ami Holland, and they do not lock at the least ns if they were meaning to go out of business. The Belgian men and women (for they employ Jots of women in the nurseries) work shorter hours and receive higher pay than formerly, hut still the nurseries round La Pinto, near Ghent, go on expanding, and I see no reason why we in New Zealand should not pet from Ghent many of the plants winch at nre«ent. wo get from Japan. The Botanic Garden in Brussels is most interesting, though its beamy is spoiled by grouping all the plants according to the botanical classification. This is certainly advantageous for teaching and for the systematic botanist, but not so suitable for obtaining landscape effect. The trees, shrubs, and other plants are all carefully labelled, and the whole place is well managed and the plants well grown. Uiere are numerous glass-houses, lent these have suffered during the war, and they lost many of their largest specimens of palms and tree-ferns when they could not obtain sufficient fuel to maintain the necessary temperature. One large house is devoted to the growth, of New Zealand and Australian hard-wooded plants, and on a well-built piece of rockwoik they have planted out such things as broadleaf, pitlospnnirn. olearias. veronicas, totara. lancewood. kauri, cabbage tree, etc. In most, gardens I found the people anxious to get more of our New- Zealand plau.G, but they are apt to coddle them ton much and to keep them in greenhouses when thev wnuhl bo happi'w outside. Of course, the long sunless winters are very him! on all except deeidnour plants, and the frosts, when accompanied by fog. mean death to many plants even when it is possible to provide the necessary temperature.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. “West Coast.” —To ensure a. good crop of rhubarb during tho coming season it will be necessary to carry out tlie following recommendations: —At the present time a liberal dressing of well-rotted manure can be forked in amongst the plants. In the spring they can bo mulched with stable manure. During tho growing season, cut out any flower stalks as they appear. Remember, rhubarb is one of the grossest feeders of tho vegetable garden and objects to tho slightest dryness at. tho roots. Therefore, copious supplies of water should bo given during a dry period, and frequent waterings of liquid manure aro beueiicial. “Podocarpus.”—Seedlings of tho black pino (Podocarpus spicatns) aro not uncommon in certain favoured localities m tho vicinity of mature trees, but they are not found in any great quantities in tlio bush round Dunedin.