THE GARDEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24415, 28 September 1940, Page 8

THE GARDEN

s-—-■ Contributed by D. Tannock. A H.R.H.S,

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS “Amateur,” Palmerston. Seakale should be covered now to blanch the young growths. It is often forced by packing strawy manure and leaves round the covering pots on boxes. Apples can be grafted oh to pear or plum trees with success. :• It .would be better for you' to scrap your old trees and plant young ones. Grafting can be done up to the middle of October. “ Clay Bank,” Toiro. Cotoneaster horizontalis is an excellent shrub for covering a clay bank. The creeping escallonia would also be suitable. “Aspidistra,” Lawrence.—Your aspidistra should be taken out of the pot, all soil washed off the roots, and , repotted in as small a pot as possible. Foliage plants are better kept in as small pots as possible and shifted on as they develop. The top of an escallonia hedge should not be cut until it reaches its maximum height. The sides can be trimmed every year, and any shoots pushing ahead of others tipped. “Pot Plants,” Dunedin.—When preparing pots, first place a large piece crock in the bottom and some fine pieces over it. Next put in some rough material, such as leaves, sphagnum moss, or turf, over them. Soil should consist of two parts loam, one leafmould or peat, half a part of sand, and a dusting of bone dust. Pot firmly. Put the plants in the greenhouse after potting, water carefully, and spray overhead twice a day, damping among the pots occasionally. If you have no greenhouse, place in . a shady window. You should sponge the leaves of your palm with warm, soapy water, removing the scale insects which are causing the spots. GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY Pot off the rooted cuttings of chrysanthemums, and those which were struck early to provide specimen plants should be pinched to cause branching. They should be kept in the open whenever the weather is fine, but the sashes should be. .handy to put on should cold, rough weather and hail showers prevail. Pot up tuberous .begonias and gloxinias into five-inch pots, and continue to sow seeds of the more tender annuals, also vegetable marrows, pumpkins, melons, ridge cucumbers, leeks, cabbage, lettuce and brussels sprouts. Give calceolarias which are coming into flower a little liquid manure once a week, and fumigate regularly for green fly. Now that the sun is getting stronger it will be necessary to shade the glass a little, and this can be done with thin white paint, stippled with a worn brush or a piece of scrim. Harden on annuals, disbud vines, and plant out tomatoes under glass.

THE FLOWER GARDEN The flower garden should be very bright at present, the daffodils, which are still the most popular spring flowers, being at their best. Those who wish to raise seedlings should attend to pollenating the most desirable varieties, which are known to be seed producers. Primroses and polyanthus primroses are also very good, and they, too, should be pollenated with a view to seed-saving. Continue to plant out the hardier of the bedding annuals such as nemesia, antirrhinums, calendulas and larkspurs, also carnations, violas and pansies. Keep the hoe going among shrubs and herbaceous perennials. FRUIT AND VEGETABLES Plant main-crop potatoes, and cultivate and slightly earth up the early ones; plant cabbage, cauliflower and brussels sprouts, and prepare and manure celery trenches. Transplant onions and lettuce, and sow peas, broad beans, golden ball turnips, beet, spinach. carrots, radish, and mustard and cress. Clear out spent crops, manure and dig all vacant ground, and make up mounds with manure and compost heap for vegetable marrows and ridge cucumbers. Sow such uncommon crops as celeriac, kohlrabi, salsify and scorzonera. . , , . Hoe among strawberries and mulch with strawy manure; hoe among fruit trees and bushes, and if necessary give a top-dressing of chemical manure. Graft fruit trees, and thin out the young shoots on gooseberries and currants, removing most of those in the middle of the bushes. DAHLIAS Dahlias are now among the most useful of our late summer and autumn flowering plants, and there are so many kinds that there are some suitable for all purposes and all gardens. Those who like something big and bold have the large paeony and decorative kinds, for bedding purposes there are the Coltness and other dwarf types, and there are other kinds such as the pompoms suitable for cutting for florai work and house decoration. Dahlias are somewhat frost tender, but the tubers stand the winter in the open, and it is quite safe to plant them out by the end of October or the beginning of November. They . can be grown from seed quite easily when treated like half-hardy annuals, and many good kinds can be obtained m this way. They are also grown from cuttings, taken from tubers started in gentle heat and rooted in gentle bottom heat, and they are also increased by division of the tubers. For those who have not the facilities for rooting cuttings, the latter method is the most suitable. The tubers can be packed in boxes or placed on me bench of the greenhouse or m a frame and partly covered with rough leaves or soil. When the shoots show round the base of the old flower stem they can be broken up, taking care to have at least one shoot to every part of tuber. I should have said cut up. for they have to be divided with a stout knife, part of the tuber being removed to enable the plant to be potted up into a four or five-inch pot. Use a lignt free soil, and stand the pots in the greenhouse or frame for a fortnight or so to encourage the development of ■young roots. They are afterwards placed in a cold frame or a sheltered spot outside and gradually hardened off. Old tubers left in the ground will send up young shoots, and if these are thinned out a bit and the plants topdressed with well-rotted manure, or failing it, blood and bone manure, they will flower quite well during the season. VEGETABLE GARDEN The main work in the vegetable garden at the present time; is sowing, planting, thinning, and hoeing. Growth is coming on steadily, and I have no doubt it will respond as soon as we get regular warm weather. Thinning seedling crops is a most important operation, for if the plants are left to become crowded there is a struggle for light and air above, and for water and plant food below the ground, and the seedlings become drawn and spindly, and never produce a satisfactory crop. The operation should be carried out at two stages, first as soon as'the seedlings are large enough to handle, and later on in about three weeks, when it is possible to pick out the healthiest and best placed plants. In the case of white turnips, the first thinning is to two inches, and the second to from four to six- As the roots can be used as soon as they are two inches across, further thinning can be done as they are required for the kitchen, and the whole lot will have to be used before they become stringy. Golden ball turnips are thinned to six inches at the second thinning, and swedes to nine inches. Early carrots are thinned to two inches at first, and afterwards as the roots are required for use, but the maincrop kinds are thinned to six inches at the second operation. Early beet are thinned first to two inches and then to four, but the maincrop varieties are left at from six to nine inches to mature. Parsnips are thinned to nine to twelve inches, parsley to two inches, and spinach to six inches, as soon as the first leaves are fit for use. The aim in the vegetable garden should not be to grow large specimens of any kind, except onions, but to grow those of medium size and to use them when voung and tender. Even when grown , for exhibition size is not so important | as quality. Beetroot is really the only root crop which can be transplanted, and it is better when allowed to grow where sown, the only reason for transplanting being to fill up blanks. Lettuce are thinned out to two inches, and afterwar thinned out to two inches, and afterwards as the seedlings develop one or two rows can be transplanted, which will leave the crop at six inches apart. The transplanted ones will receive a check, and consequently will be available after those left where sown are used. In every case cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli. Brussels sprouts, savoys and kale are transplanted, the seedlings being grown in a well-cul'ivated plot, but if they are sown too thickly, and they germinate well, the seedlings should be thinned out to at least an inch apart to allow for the development of the leaves and fibrous roots, which are so important when transplanting. Scuffle hoeing is a most important operation, and if a weeder is used, which cuts both ways, and it is kept dean and sharp, the work is not heavy, and it is much easier to stand erect and hoe than stoop or kneel and weedBy running through among growing crops as soon as the soil dries after every heavy shower, the surface soil is kept open, air is admitted, and germinating weeds cut off in their infancy. By using the hoe carefully it is possible to work in among the plants in the rows as well as between rows, and all footprints are removed after thinning. Scuffle hoeing is better done on a sunny morning, so that weeds may be shrivelled up at once. Hoeing up, or earthing up. is also a very important. operation, in the cultivation of potatoes, and it should be done at two periods, taking great care to pull the soil up under the leaves and not over them. Peas and beans are also earthed up a bit before staking, cabbage and other brassicas have the soil drawn up round them to steady them, and leeks are earthed up to blanch them. Staking.—Stakes should be provided for peas as soon as they are two or three inches tall, and these should provide for growth of at least a foot more than is stated on the packet when they are liberally manured and carefully cultivated. Twiggy branches of either spruce or manuka are very satisfactory, and failing either of these broom will do, if the thin, twiggy ends are cut off. Sheep netting, when supEorted by stout stakes, can be used, ut it is difficult to get through ordinary rabbit netting to pick the pods. The stakes should be sharpened so that they may be pushed in firmly, and should be put in at an angle, one side sloping oile way and the other in the opposite direction. Stakes, for runner beans should be at least eight

feet tall, free of scrubby branches, for the beans climb by twining round their support, and they should be put. in in a double row, crossing one another near the top, where they can be fastened to a wire or a stick to keep them in position. Birds are very hard on seedlings of lettuce, peas, turnips and beet, but fortunately they can be frightened away with strands of black cotton stretched along each side of the rows, and about two inches above the soil surface. Wire guards are also useful for protecting peas during autumn and winter, for when fresh greens are scarce birds will dare the dangers of black cotton to get at them. When slugs are troublesome, which Is usually during wet weather, freshly slaked lime can be dusted along the sides of the rows of the plants they are fond of, this being renewed from time to time, for it loses its effectiveness when it gets wet. I have already suggested stimulating the growth of seedlings with applications of weak liquid manure made by dissolving a dessertspoonful of sulphate of ammonia in a gallon of water.