THE GARDEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25303, 13 August 1943, Page 7

THE GARDEN

Contributed by D. TANNOCK, A.H.R.H.B.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS "T. L.,” Dunedin,—The name of the plant Is Petasites frograns (winter heliotrope horehound). It grows In places in Dunedin, and is common on waste ground. A suitable evergreen tree is Hoheria populnea. Mack,” South Dunedin.—You should shorten back the shoots of your daphne if it is sprawling too much, and by placing some stones under the growths the wood will be ripened better, and more flowers will be produced. “ Lawn,” Opoho.—The grass grubs which are attacking your lawn are the larvae stage of the brown beetle. This beetle flies about on warm evenings in November and December. The eggs are laid at, the roots of grass, the longest and roughest being selected. When the grubs hatch out they burrow into the earth and start eating the roots of the grass plants. They continue to eat until the first week in October, when the majority pupate and emerge as beetles in early November. You should rake off the loose grass, prick up the soil where it is eaten bare and skim off the daisies. Give a dressing of burnt, crushed, or newly slaked shell lime, sow fresh seed, and topdress with fine soil to which fowl or sheep manure or blood and bone manure have been added. By the time the grass seed germinates the grubs will have gone into the pupa stage. By keeping the lawn closely mown, and watering it with colloidal arsenate of lead in the autumn, the grubs will be poisoned'. Lawn sand made by mixing 41b of beach sand with lib of sulphate of ammonia and 4oz of sulphate of iron, and applied at the rate of 6oz to the square yard, will kill the daisies. Apply during dry weather. , , . "A. B. C..” Roxburgh.—The plant is a species of clematis. Cut it right down and. if you cannot dig' out the root, put boning water or weed killer on it. Onion seed can be sown by the end of the month, if the soil is in good order. PROPAGATING CHRYSANTHEMUMS There are several types of , chrysanthemums the ■''summer or earlyflowering varieties suitable for bedding, the decorative or market varieties for providing cut flowers for house decoration, the singles, also for cutting and for exhibition, and the large-flowered varieties for the decoration of halls and churches and specially suitable for exhibition. For the ordinary garden the decorative and single varieties are the most useful, but the large-flowered kinds can also be grown in the open, provided they can be covered to protect the flowers from wet and frost as soon as they begin to show colour. All chrysanthemums are grown in the open and are only taken into the greenhouse to develop buds. _ , , ~ Cuttings of the large-flowered varieties are usually taken as they become available! and they are rooted in the greenhouse with gentle heat, but the decoratives and singles which have now thrown up a number of young growths round the base of the old flower stems can be rooted quite well without heat in a greenhouse, in a cold frame, or even in the open in a well-drained and sheltered border made up specially with light sandy soil. Some leave their chrysanthemums und sturbed for years, and this results in a thicket of stems and flowers of indifferent quality. Others lift the plants in the spring, dig over and manure the ground, and plant back pieces of the old plants. This is not a bad method if the young shoots are thinned out a bit,' but it is still conductive to overcrowding and the production of small flowers. The best method is to strike cuttings either in pots or boxes which can be placed in the greenhouse or frame or in a specially prepared bed, where they can be covered with a sheet of glass on top of a box. The soil mixture for rooting cuttings should consist of one part each of loam and leaf mould or peat, and half a part of clean sand, a layes of sand being placed on top of the boxes, pots and special bed. The cuttings, which should be from two and a-half to three inches long, are pulled from round the base of the old flower stem and cut across immediately below a node or joint. A few of the bottom leaves are removed and the cuttings dibbled in an inch apart with a propagating stick and made firm. They ire then watered and until rooted are shaded from strong sunshine and sprinkled occasionally should they appear to be wilting. Suckers with a few roots can be obtained, but, though these make plants, they are not so good as those rooted from cuttings, and cuttings root readily just now. After rooting voung plants can be potted into threeinch 6 pots, or they can be boxed at three inches apart, and ha yf taken to the new soil they can be gradually hardened off. Some plants do not throw up many young shoots fiom the base, but form them up the old flower stem. Though these stem cuttings are not as good as the basal ones, they can be used. , _ Geraniums growing at the base cf a wall are very satisfactory during the summer and autumn, and now that the worst frosts should be over they can be cut down to about six inches from the ground and a dressing of bone dust can be pricked into the soil round them. Carnations should be planted out now among the roses or in groups in the mixed border, or, better still, in narrow borders by themselves, where they can be got at easily for layering in the autumn. Birds often atta c k J;be young leaves, but they can be frightened off both carnations and polyanthus with strands of black cotton. Pansies and violas can be planted as edgings for the rose beds and borders, or as carpeting round standards and ramblers trained on poles. Continue to prune roses and bydranges and to plant out and divide up perennials.