GARDEN & ORCHARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3398, 30 April 1919, Page 7

GARDEN & ORCHARD.

By D. Tamnock. WORK FOR THE WEEK. THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY. Continue to clean and prune the greenhouse climbers and to house the chrysanJhemuma as the buds show colour. As frost is liable to set in at any time it is not to leave them out any longer, and those not fit to go into the greenhouse should be placed under some sort of shelter at nights. Continue to put in cuttings of pansies and yiolas, also pentstemons and antirrhinums, and prepare trees and shrubs for planting out later on. •

THE FLOWER GARDEN. The cold and rough weather has almost finished off the summer bedding plants, and Breparations8 reparations should be made for removing iem and planting out the spring flowering kinds. -'•■■'., . Though it is best to raise the geraniums required for bedding out from cuttings every year, where there are not proper facilities for wintering them the old plants can be lifted and saved for planting out next season. It is not necessary to be at all careful when lifting them; pull off all the old leaves, but don't cut them back' at all, place them fairly close together in boxes, and stand in a frame or on the bench in the greenhouse. They can also be wintered in a dry position behind a hedge, either planted in boxes or heeled in closely together. • The tuberous begonias when lifted can be out back a bit, about half the foliage being removed; place then thinly in boxes and put them in a frame or dry airy shed until the remainder of the foliage drops off, when they can be cleaned and stored away in shallow boxes of dry soil. It is hardly worth while trying to save standard geraniums and heliotropes, but the standard fuchsias can be wintered quite easily. Lift them carefully, but don't try to get a ball of soil, then line them in behind a hedge or fence, where they will be quite safe until growth commences again in the spring, when they can be potted up and placed in the greenhouse to encourage growth. A few of the fibrous begonias can bo saved to provide cuttings next spring; the dahlias can be cut over, the labels tied to the tubers, and after drying them they can be stored away in a dry frost-proof shed or cellar. All other bedding plants can be thrown out, and as they exhaust the soil, unless the beds and borders were well manured in the spring they should receive a good dressing of stable manure, which will be dug in. Level and rake the beds in preparation for planting out, and as the soil is very wet boards should bo provided for standing on when planting. It is not too late yet to plant out narcissi bulbs, and beds filled with them are very effective in spring. They can be planted by themselves with an edging of polyanthus, double daisies, or forget-me-nots, or they can bo mixed with dark flowering wallflowers.

If they are to be planted along with wallflowers they should bo put out first, allowing a distance of 18in between the plants and the same distance between the rows. 'After levelling the soil roughly between the wallflowers the bulbs can be set out 6in apart in rowa between the rows of wallflowers and planted about 6in deep. Daffodils, such aa Emperor, Empress, Sir Watkin, ••'"-I'ik Miles, are suitable for mixing with such wallflowers a 3 Vulcan, Blood Red, and Harbinger. Wallflowers are abo suitable for filling large beds and borders for groups in the mixed border and for lines in the ribbon border. Thero should be no trouble in lifting them with balls of soilthis season, provided the roots were cut at the right time. 'A little of the loose soil can be shaken off, but they must be handled carefully. Plant them firmly, at a distance of from 16in to 18in apart, water to settle the soil among 'the fibrous roots, then level and rake the ■oil. It is most important that the plants

be well grown; the shifting stops all growth, and they have only got time to develop their buds and flowers in- the spring. To plant out long drawn spindly plants is a waste of time; they can't possible develop side shoots now, and all the flowers they can produce will be a few on the top of the stem.

Primrose polyanthus are probably more useful than daffodils for spring bedding; they are easily raised from seed, and if the old plants are lifted after the flowering season is over and lined in in a cool part of the nursery, they will be ready to shift back to the flower garden again. They lift very easily, and suffer very little even when handled rather roughly. They are suitable for planting as edgings for wallflowers and daffodils and for filling beds and borders by themselves. Double daisies make good edgings for beds and borders, and if they were raised from seed ,as advised, and afterwards pricked out into boxes, they will be ready to put out. They come true from seed, and there is no need to retain the old plants at the end of the season.

Forget-me-nots, both Myosotis dissitiflora and M. alpestris (Suttons Royal Blue), are excellent for edging wallflower and daffodil beds, for filling small beds, and for carpeting beds of tulips and daffodils. They should have been raised from seed at thp. same time as the daisies, and they will be ready to plant out now. Violas are excellent spring bedding plants, and are not nearly so much used as they ought to be. By putting in cuttings late in the spring and growing on the plants in the nursery, picking off all buds to prevent them from flowering, good plants will be available for planting out now. They can be used for filling small beds, for ribbon borders, edging wallflowers, and carpeting tulips. Old plants which have been flowering during the summer can be used by simply cutting off all the flowering shoots and transplanting them to their flowering positions without breaking them up very much. Bullion is a very reliable yellow variety, and there are a dark blue and a lavender ,both of which flower early. Viola gracilis is a dainty plant either for carpeting or for edging. Old plants broken up some time ago will now be well established, and can be transplanted to the flower garden or they can be left to flower in the nursery. They are like large dark violets, the blooms being carried up on stiff stalks well above the foliage, and all they lack is perfume. Leaves will be falling off the deciduous trees, and as these are so valuable for providing leafmould, a most important constituent of all potting soils, they should be collected from time to time and placed in a heap in an out-of-the-way part of the garden. The heap collected last year can be turned over, or. better still, the mould can be stored in a shed or other dry place where it can be got at easily. THE "VEGETABLE GARDEN. Continue to clear off spent crops and to collect seeds of peas and other vegetables which have been left to ripen; place them in bags, and hang up in a dry shed. As there is very little planting or maintenance work to be done at this season, a start should be made to trench the vacantportions. By dividing the vegetable garden into four portions, and following a system of rotation of crops, one section will be occupied by the root and pod crops, two with cabbage, cauliflower, and other green crops, and one with potatoes. The portion which was occupied by the summer green crops will be empty now, and it should bo trenched for next season's potato orop. Deep cultivation is essential for satisfactory vegetable cultivation; it increases the rooting medium, thereby enabling the plants to withstand periods of drought, and as it greatly increases the drainage they don't suffer during very wet weather. By deepening the cultivated portion we increase the area from which the plants can collect their food, and thereby save heavy manuring Trenched soils admit fresh air, which, besides being essential for the healthy growth of the roots, also acts on the insoluble plant food in the soil, rendering it soluble and available. Trenching also makes subsequent cultivation of the soil

much easier and lighter, and makes gardening less laborious. For ordinary purposes it is not necessary to trench more than from two to three feet deep, and a little of the subsoil can be brought to the surface, where it will be acted upon by frost and other disintegrating agencies during the winter, and by spring it will be nice and friable. If the subsoil is clay, it can be turned over and left in the bottom of the trench, and all the weeds, garden refuse, and leaves not required for the leaf-mould heap, in fact everything which will rot, can be buried in the bottom of the trench, and if stable manure is available < it can be placed on the top spit after it has been thrown into the trench, and not more than a foot to 18 inches below the surface. The surface should be left as rough as possible, and if lime is to be applied this can be scattered on the surface and worked in when preparing the soil for the crops in the spring. A start can be made with the pruning of the bush fruits as soon as the leaves ripen; there is no need to wait until they fall off. The old fruiting canes of the raspberries should have be<m cut over when the last of the fruit was picked; the young ( ones can now bo thinned out to five or six on each stool, and the thin, unripened tips cut off unless the borer is troublesome. If the borer is bad it is better to leave the thinning and cutting back_ over until growth commences. Raspberries can be trained in three ways. First, they can be tied together near the tips and supported by a stake if necessary; or three _ canes from eafih stool can be bent over until they meet, when they can be tied together, forming a hoop, or they can be trained on a wire fence, in a fan shape. Black currants bear their fruit on the young wood, hence our aim when pruning should be to leave as many young branches as possible, while at the same time they are far enough apart to allow the foliage to develop properly and to allow fresh air and sun to get into the centre of the bush. First remove all dead and decaying wood, then all branches which cross one another (those growing inwards being cut aWay), When the bushes are old it will be necessary to remove some of the old branches altogether, replacing them with young ones which arise near the base of the plant, and when they are young the shoots can be thinned out to six to nine inches apart and the unripened tips cut off.

• ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. Maraetia.—l submitted the peach which -you forwarded to the Government fruit expert, and lie was very much interested in it. ' At first he thought it was an apricot, and certainly it has an apricot flavour, and he thinks it may be a oross between an apricot and a peach. It certainly is a very distinct variety, and if it is hardy and a free fruiter it will be valuable. " Waianawa."—The apple is a poor Cox's Orange Pippin. When well grown it keeps for a considerable time.

" A. H.—The pear sent is Williams Bon Chretien.