GARDEN & ORCHARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3511, 28 June 1921, Page 7

GARDEN & ORCHARD.

By

D. Tan nock.

WORK FOR THE WEEK.

THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY. The chrysanthemums will be nearly over new, and as they are cut over the pots can be placed in the frames to encourage short-jointed, healthy shoots for cuttings. Sweet peas can also be sown in pieces of turf instead of pots or boxes, and. except when one seed is sown in each pot, I consider this the most satisfactory method. Continue to sow antirrhinums, penstemons, violas, pansies, and carnations, also such vegetables as leeks, onions, early celery, cabbage, cauliflower, and lettuce to provide plants for early planting. THE FLOWER GARDEN. Pruning of trees and shrubs and the trenching of new beds and borders should receive attention. Chrysanthemums and herbacious plants can be cut over, and all leaves raked up, for not only do they look untidy, but they shelter slugs during the cold frosty weather, and these are ready to emerge from their hiding place and to eat up the voting shoots as soon as growth commences m spring. The rock garden should also receive attention, all leaves and weeds being removed, and if the topdressing was not done at the autumn, which is the best season, it should be done without delay, for growth commences early—in fact, it begins in autumn and continues all winter. As slugs are very destructive a careful watch has to he kept; for slugs are particularly fond of the young growths of gypsophilas and pinks and the flower buds of the mossy phlox. Dust their haunts with fresh slacked lime or soot, or a mixture of both, and when the plants have grown into a dense mass water at intervals with lime water. This is easily made by placing some quicklime about two six-inch potfu's in a kerosene tin of water at night, and pouring off the clear liquid in the morning. As the lime loses its virtue when wet, a fresh dusting has to be given after rain. The effect of the lime on the slugs is that their outer sticky skins are dissolved bv it. When weeding and cleaning up the rock garden the surface soil should be stirred up with a hard fork and all old labels renewed. It is still rather early to form new plantations of ornamental trees or shrubs, but those which are merely being shifted from ono part of the garden to another (an experiment which can be performed without much root disturbance and with large balls of soil attached to the roots) when shrubberies are being arranged can receive attention. This is usually the slack season, and all work which can be carried out satisfactorily should receive attention now in preparation for the rush laier on when growth commences. Continue to prune rambler roses, to erect and repair pergolas and rustic work, and to drain lawns and repair paths. THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. Continue to clear off spent crops and to manure and dig vacant ground, to piune bush fruits and fruit trees and to apply winter sprays, such as the winter formula of Bordeaux or other well-known sprays. Lift root crops such a 3 parsnips and beetroot and store them where they can be easily got at. A sowing can be made of broad beans and early peas on a warm, well-drained border. As the soil is often wet and not suitable for working on at this season it mav be necessary to go to extra trouble to secure a satisfactory seed bed. Assuming that the soil has b< en dug and manured it can be forked over; next take out a trench with the spade about four inches deep and six inches wide, then put in al>out three inches of drv soil, such as old potting soil or other soil of a like nature which has been stored in a sited or under sheets of iron, and make it firm with the head of the rake. Give a dusting of bone meal or basic phosphate, and sow the peas thinly, and as a protection against birds and mice it is advisable to coat them with red lead. Put the seed in a pot or tin, damp them with water, add some dry red lead, and stir round until each seed is coated. After sowing cover with about tm iaoh of the prepared soil, and again firm

and level, and. as a further protection, a few pieces of scrub can be placed over the rows. Broad beans can be treated in a similar maimer except that tho seeds are placed in a double row at a distance of six inches apart, and five inches between the rows. If the soil is very wet boards can be put down to walk on. A small sowing of round or summer spinach, white turnips, and short horn carrots can also be made in a warm border. It is really too early to put in small seeds, but there is a chance that they may be a success, and, if not, are easily resown later on. Though it mav be early to plant fruit bushes it is well to get orders away to the nurseryman in time, and I wi'l add short lists of varieties which will be found suitable for Dunedin conditions:— Gooseberries. —Winhom’s Industry, Crown Bob. Mornington. Telegraph, Gunner, Early Sulphur, Whitesmith, and Ironmonger. Red Currants.— Toy’s Prolific, Raby Castle, and Red Dutch. White Currants: White Dutch and Transparent. Black Currants : Carter’s Black Champion, Boskoop Giant, and Black Naples. Raspberries.—Superlative, Northumberland, Fiilbasket. Semper Fidcles, and Yellow Antwerp. THE GARDENS AT BURNS’S MONUMENT. The gardens round the Burns Monument on the " Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doou ” are well planned, well planted, anti well kept, and among the trees and shrubs I noted many New Zealand natives and other rare specimens, all thriving. The beds and borders are filled with wallflowers, forget-me-nots, tulips,, daffodils, primrose polyanthus, with edgings of yellow a lyes uin, periwinkle, end other dwarf plants. They were just coming into flower in April, and later on they will give place to begonias, antirrhinums, asters, etc., which are being grown on in the propagating houses. Rambler, climbing, and dwarf roses are grown, and these are carpeted with violos in the same way as the beds in Dunedin gardens. Among the shrubs I noted Forsythia suspensa. a mass of yellow blossom, flowering currants in several desirable varieties, many of which I hope to bring out with me, Amelonshu 1 Florida m bud. Berberis aquifolium, the whitewashed bramble (Rulius hiflorus), Kerria japoniea, Rhododendron Nobeleamtm, variegated box, variegated holly, and a golden Scotch fir (Finns sylvestris). The New Zealand plants which I found doing well indicated that tijeir possibilities in home gardens were very considerable wherever the thermometer does not register more than 14 degrees of frost. Probably the most interesting io me was Olearia sernidontatn, a plant which is very difficult to grow in Dunedin; in fact I only know of one specimen, and it is not thriving. Here it is thriving on the banks of the Doon, and looks as much at home as in its native land. Olearia ilicifolia (the Otago holly) is doing well, and the same can be said of the broadleaf, Veronica salicifolia. Yeromca Hookeriana, and several garden varieties which are new to me —Cassinia fulvida. Olearia Haasti, Olearia rummularifolia. and Olearia stellulafca. The native New Zealand flax (Fhormium ienax) was represented l>y a large specimen which sent up several flower stalks last year and ripened good seed. The gardener was busy planting out summer chrysanthemums and sweet peas, and everything, both inside and outside the monument, was in splendid order. ANSWERS TO C< >RR FSPONDENTS. I uiigi. 1 he fungus forwarded is frequently met with just now in and about Dunedin. Its name is Ileodictyou eibarium. Bike fungi of the mushroom and toadstool type it is saprophytic—i.e., it lives on decaying animal and vegetable matter. The vegetative, or what might be termed the rooting, portion of such fungi is a white threadlike substance known as the nivccluini or spawn, and is easily found in decaying heaps of manure and vegetable refuse. 'File solid ball-like substance is the fruiting portion of this fungus in the young stage. As it matures it develops into the loose network arrangement which, when ripe, disperses minute spores. Those spores act as seeds in reproducing their kind. The presences of a suitable medium and ideal

climatic conditions are the cause of the appearance of this fungus. The spores of such fungi are more or lees always present in the soil ar.d develop rapidly as soon as the conditions necessary for their growth arrive. ‘‘F.C.” (Allanton). —The milder autumns usually experienced in New Zealand allow its to grow out of doors many late flowering chrysanthemums, which in England are not so successful owing to the heavy fogs experienced there in November. In New Zealand many varieties that are usually flowered under glass have succeeded very w r ell when planted out in tho borders and treated as decorative sorts. The following are ail good varieties for out-door culture: —Early flowering varieties —Goacher’s Crimson, Madam C. do Grange, Harvest Home, and Aphrodite. Decorative varieties—President Nonin, Crimson King, Wrn. Holmes, Jubilee, Rosy Morn. Soliel d'Oetobre, Mrs J. Wright, and Wrn. Turner, which, although ono of the favourites for pot culture, does very well when growp outside in the border. Singles—Shasta, Sylvia Slade, Orion, and Violet Merten. Chrysanthemum catalogues can be obtained from any of the local seedsmen or from Mr E. A. Hamel, Maori Hill.

NEW ZEALAND APPLES

PROSPECTS FOR HOROEATA SHIPMENT. LONDON, May 2. s By the Hororata, nearly, due, there will arrive 13000 cases of New Zealand apples, the first consignment of the season. American apples have now almost ceased to appear on the London, market, but the Australian produce has been in evidence for some weeks. Nevertheless, the dominion fruit is likely to meet with a good reception. Present prices for Australian apples run from 16s to 22s per case of -tOlb, and from Sd to lOd per lb retail; and though there is a falling market it is anticipated that the Hororata shipment will realise well within that range of prices. It is hardly likely that the 35,000 cases due by the Athenic at the end of May will be sold at such a high level, owing to the fact that Australian fruit will be now - plentiful, ar.d the sentiment attaching to the first shipment of the season will have worn off. Mr Cl. Stratford (of the Agricultural Department), who is at present in London looking after the interests of the New .Lealand shippers, has been on a visit to several of the important ports of Great Britain with . a view to ascertaining whether they are suitable centres for the disposal of the fruit from the dominion. He is making out a full report of his investigations, which will be forwarded to the Government. He lias visited Glasgow, Liverpool, Hull, and Southampton, and he hopes to go to Bristol in the course ol a week or two. On the whole he is favourably impressed with the working of the sales in these different centres, and is inclined to think that at certain times better prices would be obtained there than on the London market, besides advertising the fruit of the dominion by placing it in different parts of the country.