GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22546, 13 April 1935, Page 22

GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS

During the next two months many beginners will be planning and carrying out alterations to their gardens. Public parks give a fine display, though on too large a scale to be really useful as a guide. But novices may well take note of the plants which bloom late, after the blaze of glory in January. A better idea of the planning necessary will be obtained from an inspection of other small gardens in passing. Unfortunately many cannot be seen properly because of the universal craze, all over England, for privet. Multitudes of gardens, which some years ago gave a wonderful display, are now shut in by overgrown privet hedges. An Englishhouse is his castle, but really he need not surround his front garden with a battleineuted wall, denying to the children, and even much taller people, a view of his beds and borders. Privet is as mUch a nuisance as .the Australian lantana, which, introduced into Ceylon and Southern India as a hedge round coffee estates, has spread like wildfire in the warm, wet climate. Sometimes both of two neighbours plant a privet hedge on each side of a dividing rail, and the double hedge becomes four feet thick. It requires constant clipping, and many hours have to be devoted to this sort of housemaid's work, hours which might be pleasantly spent in real gardening. The shrubs reduce the borders to a few inches in width, while the roots prevent other plants from growing properly, by taking the virtue and moisture out of the soil.

People pretend to like the green or golden privet walls, most probably because they have cost money, and to write off the cost is distasteful. It would be a good thing if a campaign were started to buy up and destroy them, like the surplus coffee in Brazil. Another mistake is to try and keep up a lawn, an extremely difficult matter, involving more work in mowing at the expense of gardening Weeds drift in. The lawn soon becomes a clover patch, sprinkled with daisies, buttercups, and dandelions. It took the writer four years to

eradicate some 4000 of these which were bought with the house. When the lawn was surfaced with mould, many other kinds of weeds came with it. A certain amount of grass shows up the beds nicely, but in a dry season like this be- ! comes terribly patchy and looks as if it ! would never recover; only it is difficult to ; kill grass. .' Some people save this trouble by crazy paving and rockwork. This is expensive, and it is not gardening to carry the. builder's work up to the front fence, or, ■as some do, through the back g&rdeiJ. It must be recognised that a well-filled ■ garden is very exacting, and that many people can spare very little time. They can always have a selection of flowering shrubs. Even a dozen, each one flowering in a different month, would cive pleasure as a sort of gardening clock. Perennials can fill the intervals, and do not need continual attention. Half an hour a week with a hoe does wonders. Except in this terrible drought, the writer has abandoned the hose for the hoe. Roses are a great pleasure, and want attention only at certain defined periods, if a continuous and intelligent pruning JS carried out when cutting the blooms. Standard roses, however, at least in the, London area, appear to suffer severely, a common experience being to lose two every year. They flower too high in Ino air, and should be surrounded by rather tall plants. Too often we see standard roses" and bedding plants in a row, like policemen and soldiers guarding a procession route. The best effect is obtained by grouping, with due regard to succession in the blooming periods. In a good picture, the eve should be caught by something prominent, not necessarily in the plumb centre, afterwards wandering over the rest of the canvas. The same principle should guide the garden plan. The pageant should continue for nine months in the year instead of having long intervals during which we tell our friends that they are a fortnight early, or three weeks too late, for the show. In any garden a great deal of refuse accumulates, unless the rates are to be increased by dumping it all in the dustbin. This is foolish, because by means of a well-advertised powder it can be turned into excellent manure, free of straw and weeds. We can sink a large box into the ground to hold lawn mowings, and make a long pit to hold other vegetation. A shed is a necessity for tools, for a stock of chemicals, and for special seeds collected. A seed bed and a small frame also take up room, with more space for ripening off bulbs and gladioli. An incinerator is a necessity because some of the refuse is better burnt at once and the ash stored to fertilise the roses. To screen all these things, and also the garden roller, a shrubbery can be planted across a corner. The winter screen should be as effective as the summer foliage. The problem of the board fence is not an easy one to solve. This last winter the rambling roses did not lose their leaf entirely, but it would be better to break up the long fence by bright autumn and winter-flowering shrubs. The intermediate bays will soon become filled by division of the front garden plants. A sunny and a shady rock garden can be arranged, even for a south aspect, but this may want watering in the summer while the sun rides high.—Sir Gordon Hcarn, in Amateur Gardening.