THE GARDEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22398, 20 October 1934, Page 21

THE GARDEN.

ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT "Amateur,” Palmerston. —The name of the' small shrub is Prunus triloba, and the large-leaved specimen Photinia aerrulata. It is usually grafted on to the hawthorn.

THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY The greenhouse should be gay with cinerarias, cyclamen, and primulas, but soon these will have to give way to schizanthus, clarkias, godetias, rhemannias, and calceolarias, with geraniums and pelargoniums, and hydrangeas to follow on. Tuberous begonias for pot culture _ will now be well started and these can either be potted on to five-inch pots or they can be boxed up like the bedding kinds to give them more room. They will be potted up into their flowering pots, which will be six, seven, or eight-inch sizes, according to the strength of the plants, later on. Continue to pot up the rooted chrysanthemum cuttings to three-inch pots, and when these are filled with roots shift on to a five.

With the exception of tuberous and fibrous-rooted begonias, salvias, zinnias, heliotrops, and fuchsias, all bedding plants should now be out in frames to be gradually hardened off. Give more air and less fire heat as the weather becomes warmer, and provide shade for plant houses. Continue to plant out tomatoes in pots, boxes, or borders. Pot on rooted cuttings of dahlias and break up the old tubers. Put in cuttings of hydrangeas and feed the plants which are developing their flowers. Disbud vines and tie down the selected shoots. A sowing of Primula Kewensis, P. obconica, and P. malacoidea can now be made. Put in cuttings of fuchsias. THE FLOWER GARDEN Continue to plant out the hardier of the bedding plants. Plant gladioli and summer flowering chrysanthemums. Plant out violas and pansies among or round- the roses. Cultivate among roses and flowering shrubs. j. Thin out the young growths on roses intended to produce show blooms and prune summer flowering trees and shrubs, Mark anemones and ranunculus for seed saving and pollenate primrose polyanthus. Thin out the young growths on herbaceous perennials and provide stakes where necessary. It’ is better to stake early. The rock garden is gay at present, and attention should be given to weeding and stirring up the surface soil. Sow hardy annuals. Mulch rhododendrons and azaleas with grass and leafmould. Sow down new lawns and manure old ones; Apply sulphate of ammonia to patches of daisies. Hoe and cultivate among herbaceous plants and keep a sharp lookout for slugs. THE FRUIT AND VEGETABLE GARDEN Continue to plant potatoes and to make sowings of broad beans and peas to provide a succession. Sow spinach, radish, lettuce, and mustard and cress. Sow maincrop beet, and carrots, golden ball turnips, and parsnips. Plant vegetable marrows, pumpkins, and ridge cucumbers of specially-prepared mounds. Provide some protection from cold winds. Stick peas, thin out seedling crops, and keep the hoe going among all growing crops. Plant cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. Sow small lots of cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and leeks. prepare celery trenches and transplant onions and leeks. Spray apples and pears with arsenate of lead • and lime sulphur when petals have fallen. Sow runner beans. French and buttter beans. RUNNER BEANS Runner beans are a most useful and productive vegetable, which are available over a long season, and are appreciated by most people. They like a good, rich, deeply-cultivated soil, and where_ the celery was grown last season will be very suitable. The ground should be forked over and liberally limed, then made fine and level with the rake. With a spade or drawhoe take out a drill about three inches deep and nine_ inches wide, and dibble in the seeck in two rows at ‘six inches apart. They can also be planted in two narrow drills nine inches apart, at six inches apart in the rows. Give a dusting of superphosphate, cover with fine soil, and firm. To get good crops on both sides of the row they should be sown at intervals through the dwarf crops, thus providing them with some shade and shelter from cold winds. They can also be grown against a fence or wall and trained up strings. Varieties to sow are Prize-winner and Best of All. LILY OF THE VALLEY Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalus) is a native of England, where it grows in this woods. It has long been appreciated for its beautiful bell-like flowers, the purity of its white flowers and its perfume. It is a very rampant, perfectly hardy plant which will grow in almost any kind of soil and any position, but prefers a moist soil and a position where it may be shaded a little during the summer. It is very successful under an open deciduous shrub or under fruit trees in the orchard. It seems to like a hard soil, and will come up through an asphalt path. Unfortunately, though it will grow in any garden, it often fails to flower satisfactorily, and this is usually due to over crowding and consequently improper ripening of the crowns. One method is to prepare a border by deep digging and liberal manuring with farmyard manure, to lift the old plantain the autumn and separate out the crowns, selecting the stronger and planting these in drills two inches deep drawn with a hoe nine inches apart, allowing six inches between the crowns. Such a bed can remain undisturbed for five years. Another method is to plant clumps about a foot apart and allow them to spread at will. Single crowns are the best, and if the bed 'is mulched with well-rotted manure, leafmould, or spent hops each year good, • strong flower stems are assured. To rejuvenate an old. overcrowded bed strips six inches with about a foot deep can be taken out right through the bed leaving strips of about eight inches undisturbed. These strips are filled in with good loamy soil to which well-rotted manure and leafmould have been added, one barrow load of each to four barrow loads of loam. Roots will quickly spread through the new soil and good crowns will be formed. Two years hence the strips which were left will be treated in a similar way, and soon the whole bed will be young and vigorous, and will continue to flower for several years if nmehed in the .autumn. Fortins_ giant is larger in every way than the ordinary lily of the valley, and there is one with pinkish flower. DECIDUOUS AZALEAS The azaleas are again making a fine display in the garden and as the beds are carpeted with pansies and edged with primrose polyanthus with an over-growth of Japanese maples, magnolias, laburnums and Chilian fire bushes, the whole effect is very satisfactory. The pansies were also Interplanted with Scilla siberica, Chionodoxa lucillae and grape hyacinths, which provided the blue shades in early spring. Provision has also to be made for the late summer by interplcnting with Lilium Regale and Hyacinthua candicans, and the autumn, tints will provide colour later on. Because azaleas will grow close up and, to some extent, under trees, they will tolerate an undergrowth of pansies, polyanthus, and dwarf bulbs, and provide the right conditions . for lilies, they are specially suitable for small town gardens, where every inch hag to provide the maximum amount of colour. They are most effective when massed, either in beds or in groups in the shrubbery,

WORK FOR THE WE®

notes by ■'sSsf r D. TAN NOCK, A.H.R.H.S.

and not being rapid growers they remain neat and tidy without much pruning for several years. Any soil except a poor sand or shingle can be made suitable for azaleas, and though thejr dislike lime like the rhododendrons they can stand more exposure and more sunshine, and consequently are more suitable for warm, sunny districts. They like organic matter in the soil, moisture during the summer, and a mulch of well-rotted cow manure and leafmould or compost heap occasionally with regular mulchings of lawn mowings or leafmould during the summer. Being closerooted plants, they can be transplanted at any time except when they are making their new growth and forming flowed buds for the next season’s display. They can be propagated by means of layers and seed, the latter being quite an easy and satisfactory matter. The best varieties are marked when in flower, and some months afterwards, when the seed capsules show signs of ripening, they can be collected and put into bags to open. Seed is sown in boxes of peaty or leafmouldy soil and put into a cool, shady place. The seedlings can be pricked off when large enough to handle, and by the second year they are large enough to line out in nursery rows. They will flower in from four to five years, and afterwards will set buds every year. The Ghent azaleas are of hybrid origin and are made up of several North American species crossed with those from South Europe. These have been intercrossed, and now we have every shade from the most fiery scarlets to delicate pinks, whites, and yellows. R. sinensis (Azalea mollis) is a dwarf species from Japan and China with larger flowers than the Ghents, and it has been crossed with the Ghents tq give rise To a -variety of kinds with flowers which are yellow, salmonred, and orange scarlet and many intermediate shades. There is another type called rustica-floro pleno, with smaller double but very fragrant flowers, mosfc of the shades found in the singles being found among them. The Ghent types are also fragrant.” RANUNCULUS LYALLII It would appear that Ranunclus Lyallii. sometimes called the "Mount Cook lily.’ though it is a giant buttercup, is likely to become one of our most dependable spring flowering plants coming in with the more gaudy relations from Persia, etc. It certainly likes a cool moist soil, but otherwise an open sunny position, and, like most plants, is most satisfactory when it is young. Seed sown when ripe last summer is germinating now and soon the seedlings will be ready to put out in their permanent positions. I allow them one year in the seed bed and then transplant them out among the older plants which they will succeed when they begin to go off. Some seedlings will flower the second year, but all will make good flowering plants by the third. They like plenty of. moisture, good drainage, and a soil rich in organic matter. A few plants have been flowering all winter, but now there are quantities of flower stems appearing, and these will continue to shoot up for a considerable time. The many-coloured garden ranunculus is making a fine show'at present, and the best forms and colours should be marked for seed saving. They are quite easy to raise from seed and a number of both ranunculus and anemones raised from seed sown in the beginning of the year are flowering now. They will make nice tubers for planting out in beds and borders in the autumn.