THE GARDEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21627, 23 April 1932, Page 17

THE GARDEN.

notes by 1 "^sm r D. TANNOCK, 4.H.R.H.5.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS M. P., Oamaru.—l would rccomniend you to give your walnut tree a good dressing of lime and a little later a dressing of superphosphate. To cause walnuts to bear ?they are (thrashed and hacked about, but your tree appears to peed feeding, “ Subscriber,’? Balclutha.—You r should

|WO RK FOR THE WEEK

dress your lawn with sulphate of ammonia ancj sand, 51b of each mixed. In spring .give <a dressing of sulphate of ammonia (51b),(sand (51b), and sulphate of iron (11b) once a fortnight. W. S. H., Waimate.—Soil for seed sowing would consist of loam two parts, leafmould one part, sand half part; for. prick; opt, loam two parts, leafmoujd half part, welhrotted manure half part, sand half part, and a Gin jiotful of bone meal to every barrow load of the mixture. “■ Weed-ender,” Brighton.—You could not do better than plant the white escallonia as a hedge on the sheltered side of your section and macrocarpa on the exposed side. Plant at from 18 to 22 inches apart and shorten back long growths, but do not cut right down. You had better get? lined but plants. Liming the soil would be an advantage, but is not necessary for escalldhias. Six apples to plant would be Cox’s Orange Pippin, Jonathan, Stunner, Peasgood’s Nonsuch, Ballarat Seedling, and Alfriston.

THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY Chrysanthemums which are showing colour shofild be under cover by now, but the later ones can still stand outside until frost is definitely here, when they, too, will have to be gotr under cover of some kind. Those, growing in a‘ frame house, which are / to -be covered with calico, should be all right for some time ■yet ( but it is advisable to have the calico or other covering ready to put on at short notice. Continue to put in cuttings of bedding geraniums and lift and pot up all tender plants which were placed outside during the summer. Now that the days are shorter and the sun’s rays not so strong, some of the shading should be removed from the glass to allow more light in to the plants, and thereby prevent them from becoming drawn, soft, and spindly. A great many of our hardy ornamental trees and shrubs can be grown frojn cuttings, and a start can' now be ma(lo to put these in. The wood selected should be nice, strong, young, well-ripened shoots, neither too thick and pithy or too thiu and spindly, for’each piece of stem has to contain sufficient food materials to heal up the cut end with a layer of callus, form young roots, and develop the leaf buds in the spring. This can only be found, in well-ripened shoots. These are prepared us described for gooseberries, and . put into the ground at once, either in, their permanent place or buried until it ie ready. A nice open place shonld be .pel acted for the cutting bed, consisting of light sandy soil if possible. It should certainly be well drained. Take out a trench six to nine inches deep, put a layer of sand in the bottom, and rest the cut ends of the shoots on it. Next fill in tlie soil, burying, tile cuttings at least throe parts of their length, and tramp to make it firm. By buiying the cuttings deeply- and firmly we prevent loss of moisture until rooting lias taken place.. Native * veronicas. scnccios. cicadas, and many other of the woody native plants root easily, and such hedge plants as privet, Lonirera nitidn and escallonia are readily propagated in this way. THE FLOWER GARDEN There is still a lot of colour in Ihc flower garden. Dahlias arc as bright as ever upd tuberous begonias do not mind cither rain or heavy dew. Clear oil' anything which is past its best, and plant out spring flowering plants, such as wallflowers. primrose polyanthus, forget-me-nots. etc., and lift and dry off gladioli. Most of the leaves can he cut off. and the conns spread out in boxes in a frame or some other dry place to ripen olf. when tlic remainder of ‘ the stem will

separate easily. After cleaning off all old roots, they can be stored away in a dry, airy shed for the winter. They do not need to be packed in sand or dry soil like dahlias and .begonias. Push on with the trenching of new beds and borders and lift, divide, and transplant bearded iris and montbretias. THE FRUIT AND' VEGETABLE GARDEN Continue-, to prepare ground for planting fruit trees and bushes, continue root pruning, and a start can be made with the pruning of gooseberry and currant bushes. Lift rhubarb roots which are intended for forcing, and expose them to the weather for a few weeks. Trench or dig all vacant land, burying in manure or compost heap where it is available. AUTUMN FOLIAGE TREES Last week I mentioned a number of bushes with autumn-tinted foliage which I considered suitable for the small garden where trees would be impossible. This week I intend to describe a few of the smaller autumn-tinted trees, which would be suitable for a medium-sized town garden.

The golden ash, which is a variety of the common ash, seldom grows to a great size, and can easily be kept within reasonable bounds without undue cutting. The young shoots, which are golden yellow, provide colour during the winter, and the leaves also turn golden yellow in the autumn. The various members of the Pyrus family, the chief of which are Pyrus aueuparia (the mountain ash) and P. Aria (the whitebeam tree), are remarkable for their autumn tints as well as for their flowers and fruit. Being trees of a reasonable size, they are very suitable for town gardens. The prunes family is also beautiful in the autumn, the common gean and the various varieties of Japanese cherries turning red. Prunes pissardi and the other coloured varieties of the cherry plum, though more or less red all the season, turn a more intense colour in the autumn, and are useful for cutting for house decoration. Ginkgo biloba (the maidenhair tree), though a large tree in time, is a very slow grower, and is quite suitable for a small garden. The leaves turn yellow. Taxodiiim distiebiinn (the swamp or dccidpons cypress) also takes a long time to grow into a large tree, and is very suitable for planting in a damp place where few other trees would thrive. The feathery foliage, which dies off a rich brown in autumn, lias nothing similar to it in the whole range of hardy trees. BUSH FRUITS The currants, though not so valuable as the gooseberry, are very useful bush fruits, and should be included in any garden ot reasonable size. Their fruit has to be ripe before it is of any value, whereas the gooseberry can be used as soon as the berries are Urge enough to pick, and it has quite as long a season when ripe. Currants are, however, very valuable for making jams and jellies, tarts and pics, and also, when plentiful, for making wine. Hikes rubnmi is the red currant, of which the white is just a colour variety, and Hikes nigrum is the black. They are natives of Europe, including the British Isles, and also of other temperate regions, including North America. Thev are. as garden fruits, of comparatively modern development, probably since the sixteenth century, and they differ Ivs - tii.au the gooseberry from the original wild types. They are. however. very hardy and. given reasonable condition-;, a ■ not subject to any very serious disease.

They need a spot! loamy, moist soil and an open, sunny position to obtain tlm best flavour, but they will thrive and fruit in partly shady positions where they get very little sunshine, and arc consequently often planted in places which are not very suitable for any other kind of fruit. By planting portion of the plants do partly shaded positions, the fruits arc made to ripen slower, and hang on the bushes longer, consequently extending their season of usefulness. Soil should be prepared for planting as recommended for the gooseberry, either by trenching for the previous crop, or early enough in autumn to allow the soil to settle down a bit.

When grown as bushes, they are planted at from live to six'fcet apart in the rows, with the same distance between the rows. As they bear when quite young, they can be inter-planted at first, and every second bush can be removed, when permanent ones require all the room. They can bo grown from seeds, suckers, or cuttings, but, as they root quite easily, the latter method is the one usually adopted. Nice, well-developed, ripened, young shoots arc selected to form cuttings. These, which are from nine to 12 inches in length,' are cut across immediately below a joint, and the unripened tip is cut off. Bed and white currants, like the'gooseberries, .should have a clean stem of five or six-inches. Consequently before the stems are put in all the buds are removed, except the three or four top ones. Black currants, which fruit on the young wood, and, consequently, have to be constantly renewed by branches taken up from the base, do not require any clean stem, and all the buds arc left to grow. Suckers are an advantage in black currants. They are prepared and put in as described for gooseberries in the autumn, and by the following autumn they are nicely rooted little bushes, with three or more branches. When planted, the three shoots are shortened back to four inches, and in the following spring two shoots will bo encouraged to develop from each, so that by the autumn each bush will have six shoots. These are again shortened back to about'' six to nine inches, care being taken always to cut to a bud pointing away from the centre of the bush. Red and white currants bear their fruit on little spurs produced on the old wood, and from six to nine inches of new wood is added each year until the bushes attain their maximum height, which will be 3ft in poorer soils and sft in the richer and more sheltered positions. When the bushes have attained their maximum height the terminals are shortened back to two or three inches, and the laterals to within two buds of the stem. Red and white currants succeed very well when trained as cordons, either on the one, two, or four-branch system, and in this way are very suitable for covering and rendering useful a shady wall or fence, or for covering a rusticfence or trellis. When grown in this way the three-branched young plant is planted in autumn, the centre or strong shoot is cut out, and the two of about oven strength trained horizontally, one to the right and the other to the left, and shortened back to four or five inches. From these horizontal shoots two or four shoots, at a distance of about nine inches, arc trained in a perpendicular manner. These perpendicular shoots are allowed to grow to their full length during the summer, and are shortened back to about nine inches each qntninn, all lateral growths being cut back to'about half an inch. A leader from each is trained up each season, and shortened back to nine indies until the stem reaches the top ot its support. Black currants, which bear their fruit on the young wood, are allowed more latitude, the young growths being left almost their full .length each autumn, and when they reach their maximum height a whole brand) is cut away ami replaced by one taken up from near the base. Pruning resolves itself into thinning out the older branches and tipping back the young wood. Black currants are not so suitable for growing on walls or fences as the red and white, but they can be trained, fan-shaped, on a low fence or other support. Varieties to plant arc: Red Dutch and Bed Champagne. White Dutch and White Crape, and for the black varieties Carter's Champion, liooskop Giant, and Black Xaples.