THE GARDEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22824, 7 March 1936, Page 24

THE GARDEN

FOR THE WEEK^m

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS "C.'M;;" Invercargill.—You should spray your prunus and pear trees for leech with arsenate or lead. Use IJlb of paste (if you use it in that form) and fib, if obtained in the powder .form,, to 50 gallons of water. You should inquire at the local seedsmen and nurserymen for the Prunus pendiila. If not obtainable there, you should try R'. Nairn and Sons, Christchurch. "Amateur," Dunedin.—You. should shift your apple trees to better and heavier ground. A good barrowload of clay placed <in the bottom! of each hole would help to retain moisture. For vegetable crops you should apply ; blood'and bone manure when preparing tho ground for planting or sowing. Lime can also do applied then, .and if you have been using large quantities of cow or fowl manure hine: would be necessary. Whenever you have any vacant ground plant blue'-lupins or sow mustard and dig them in. Your ground should not require much superphosphate and it should be applied when preparing for cropping in the spring or summer. at. the rate of 2oz to the square yard.

THE VEGETABLE AND FRUIT

THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY Continue to pot or box up spring flowering bulbs for forcing. Prick out seedlings of primulas of various kinds, and calceolarias..

The: first batch of cinerarias should be ready to pot,on to their flowering pots, which will be six or, seven inch size for the: large flowered kinds and eight inch for the'tall s'tellatas. After potting, keep in the'greenhouse, for a few-days, but as soon as they'recover from the shift, they should be put out in a cold frame. Shade during bright sunshine, but leave the sashes off altogether on warm, still nights. Continue to feed the tuberous begonias and chrysanthemums and to take the buds of the large-flowered chrysanthemums. ' Put in cuttings of geraniums and pelargoniums, either in pots or boxes, , Foliage plants such as palms,' ferns, dracaenas and aspidistras should receive attention. Examine the drainage and give a top-dressing of good soil, to which a little Iva plant food or Humber fish manure has been added. Give .plenty of ventilation on all possible occasions to harden up the growth before winter. As soon as the grapes are cut the ventilators can be opened right up to encourage ripening of the wood. Continue to feed tomatoes, or give a top-dressing of good soil. THE FLOWER GARDEN Since the rains weeds of all kinds have sprung up, and the scuffle hoe should be kept busy on all warm, sunny days. Seedlings are easily killed when young. Keep the dahlias securely tied up, pick off all old flowers and thin out the growths on the large flowered varieties. Cut out: all old stems of ramblers, if there are sufficient young growths to take their place. In any case cut away all the,old flower sprays. Continue to spray,bush rosea for mildew and, though the second crop of flowers has been very scattered, some good flowers are opening now. Remove "all annuals and biennials as soon as they are past their best, and plant up the vacant places in the borders with spring flowering bulbs —Sweet Williams, Canterbury bells and wallflower. Plant narcissi, tulips, hyacinths, anemones, ranunculus and other spring flowering bulbs.

Sow new lawns, allowing from one and a-half to two ounces of mixed grass seed to every square yard. Overhaul the rock garden, removing the less valuable kinds and undesirable duplicates; remove the soil from tho pockets and fill up with a gritty mixture composed of clean loam three parts, leaf mould or peat two parts, shingle and coarse sand and lime rubble mixed one part. Planting can be done now and after weeding and forking up the surface, the pockets of established plants can be top-dressed.

GARDEN Continue to plant cabbage, leeks, broccoli, and savoys, and to sow white or yellow turnips, lettuce, radish, winter spinach and onions. Peas and broad beans can be sown now to stand over the winter, and pod up in spring. Earth up celery and leeks and harvest onions and shallots. Plant strawberries and fork between the rows of the established plants. Dig potatoes as they ripen, saving seed for next year's planting from the best varieties.

Continue to collect apples and pears as they ripen, storing them in a clean, dry, airy shed or room.

Spray pears with arsenate of lead to destroy the leech. Cut away the old canes of raspberries and loganberries and thin out the young ones just sufficiently to take their place with one to spare in case of accidents. Thin out the young growths on currants and gooseberries to allow the sun to get into the centres of the bushes to ripen the wood and develop fruit buds. Prepare ground for new plantations of bush and tree fruits by either trenching, which is best, bastard trenching, or double digging. If the ground is at all sour, work in a very liberal dressing of lime. PELARGONIUMS The garden pelargoniums are hybrids raised from species of natives of the Cape of Good Hope, and they can be conveniently divided into four groups—(l) The show or fancy pelargoniums; (2) zonal pelargoniums, usually called geraniums; (3) ivy-leaved pelargoniums, which are quite distinct in foliage and growth; end (4) the foliage geraniums, usually called tricolours or tricolours, according to the number of distinct colours in their variegated foliage. The various types of pelargoniums are hardy in dry or well-drained positions near the sea, but they are also very valuable for providing a display in the greenhouse during the warmer and drier months of summer or during the winter. In the open, where frosts are not too severe, they form sub-shrubs, which may be cut back by frosts, but which come away well from the "older wood in the spring and continue to provide a display for years. They are also very effective on sunny rockeries and dry stone walls. They can be trained as low hedges, and they make excellent climbers for covering brick walls or fences, and they will grow up through a macrocarpa hedge. They seem to thrive well with the minimum amount of water and food, but are the better for a dressing of bone meal or blood and bone in the spring after they have been pruned back. For bedding purposes they are excellent. They can be planted out when in flower, and they will continue to iiower right through the summer and autumn and until spoiled by wet or frost. Though the fancy, regal or show pelargoniums can be had in great variety, and all are very beautiful, they do not show the same decided colours as the zonals, and consequent.y are not so suitable for' bedding, hut are very suitable for rock gardens, dry walls, or well-drained sunny borders. The zcmals are the most distinct and most useful for bedding purposes. Their colours are true and intense, though they also show great variations. For bedding purposes they are better planted in beds by themselves, these being edged with a foliage variety and some other suitable edging plant eucli as lobelia, alyssum, or ageratum. Three good bedding varieties are Paul Crampel, Soldiers' Tunic, and Maxim Kavelisky. The mixed varieties are very suitable for rock gardens, sunny borders, or at the foot of walls or fences, where they will flower for months on end. The ivy-leaved kinds are mainly shades of pink, but they, too, are very suitable for beds and borders, where they will spread and provide colour for several months. They will stand more rain than the zonale, and are consequently more suitable for moist districts and wet seasons. When planted,in beds and borders they can be pegged down and encouraged to spread, but they can also be trained up stakes as standards, when they provide a light-and graceful effect when associated with heliotropes or fuchsias. The varieties usually grown are Souv de Charles * Turner, Mme. Crousse, and Salome. •

The variegated kinds are not so popular aa they used to be, but are still worth growing for edging beds and borders and tor groups on a 6unny rock garden. Three varieties grown are Mrs Pollock, Flower of Spring, and Little Trot or Madame Salary. Though pelargoniums can be grown from seed easily, the named varieties have to be increased by means of cuttings, and, though old plants when planted in petmanent positions will flower for years for bedding purposes, they are better grown from cuttings each year. Fortunately these are not difficult to root provided well-ripened young shoots can be obtained, and in a season like the present this '6 not difficult. A start can be made about the middle to the end of February, for as a rule it is not advisable to spoil the beds when in full flower, but a few shoots taken here and there are never missed. These should be from four _to six inches in length, and when preparing them for insertion, they should be cut across immediately below a joint or node. The lower two leaves should be removed, and also the buds and stipules, which are the wing-like growths at the base of the leaves. They should then be left to allow the cut surface to dry for a few hours before being inserted. They can be rooted in pots or boxes, which are filled with a mixture of loam, leafmould, and sand in equal proportions, a layer of clean sand being put on top. Pots are really the best if these are available, a four-inch pot being large enough. With a blunt dibber make a hole about two inches deep, put in the cutting so that its base is resting on the sand in the bottom, and then make the soil as firm as possible. Give one good watering, and stand on the bench of a cool, airy greenhouse or frame. Unlike most cuttings, those of geraniums have to be kept fairly dry to prevent the common trouble of damping, which is very troublesome when the shoots are not well ripened.