COSY CORNER CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 3613, 12 June 1923, Page 61

COSY CORNER CLUB.

SECOND MEETINC. SUBJECT: “MY GARDEN THIS YEAR. ALTERNATIVE SUBJECT; “AN INDOOR HOBBY Dear Comrades of the Cosy Corner, —I am extremely pleased that the large muster of members at our opening meeting has been the prelude to an excellent attendance at the second meeting likewise, and I hope that the standard set will be maintained. It is with much pleasure that I introduce another recruit to the Club, “Josephine,” who sends an amusing - sketch of her gardening experiences in West Australia. It will be very interesting to hear from one experiencing such different conditions of climate and environment from those of New Zealand. I am sure members will accord Josephine a hearty welcome, and I hope she will be a regular contributor. I think this year must have been generally disappointing to gardeners, at any rate latter summer and the autumn. Yet it is a wonder how flowers bloom in spite of inclement weather. A few members have chosen the alternative topic and give interesting accounts of their hobbies. In arranging the date of the meeting it was not known that it would clash with the Winter Show reports, but that being the case the editor informs me that it is absolutely necessary to divide up the papers sent in so that more space for other matter may be made available. I regret this, but hope that readers may find that the division is, after all, beneficial.—ESTHEß. VENTURES IN GROWING FLOWERS FROM SEED. Dear Esther, —You wish to learn of our experiments and successes in the past gardening season. Well, I may be able to tell of one moderately successful experiment. Being attracted when looking over a catalogue by the name “alpine pinks,” I invested a niggardly "tuppence” in a packet of seed, sowed it in a glass-covered box about thirteen months ago, and have been rewarded with an interesting group of plants of three different types, which began to bloom about the end of summer. One kind may be called a carpet bedder, so far as foliage' goes, but the flower stems measure a foot and bear neat little dark pink blooms three-quarters of an inch in diameter, some a /plain solt colour; some with a darker ring near the centre of the flower; and others with a group of white dots near the base of eacli petal. The next type is about 2ift high, with pale lavender flowers very deeply fringed. The third class is only a single specimen, nowlong past flowering, but the most striking of the lot; about the same height as the preceding, flower the least bit smaller in diameter, but compact, and in colour a rich deep pink. On the whole, a very satisfactory experiment.

My next is i.iore in the nature of a warning. There .fas a little hardy perennial listed an Erysimum pulchellum, and, being unknown to i je, I decided to risk another “tuppence.” Being the proud possessor of a Latin dictionary, I was aware that pulchellum wJs a /bntin adjective (neuter gender) meaning rattier pretty. That seemed a certificate oi merit, but never were hopes more misplaced; it covered the soil with a mat of growth about two inches deep, and sent up a few raggud stems bearing a few straggling pale yellow flowers. It was the generic name which gave the key to the plant, for on looking it up later 1 found that Erysimum appears to be derived from Erysimon—hedge mustard. Hedge mustard it may be, but pulchellum is far from appropriate, and down below the giound, twelve inches deep, goes every miserable plant of it this winter. Another species of the same genus—E. i.'erofskianum—is far hotter worth growing. It is of a bright orange-yellow, of the same shade as Cheiranthus allionii, and using it for the centre of a bed of annuals with a double row of dwarf crimson silene as a border the effect was fairly good. Its fault was that, towards the end of the season it grew too tall, and exposed too great a length of pod-covered stems with only a small tuft of yellow flowers at the top. The catalogued limit, 18in, would have been quite sufficient, but it achieved another unnecessary foot. Another experiment was Anthemis kelwavi, a perennial with an advertised height of 2ft, but attaining at least 12in more. A showy yellow- and useful as a blight patch of colour • a different shade from the preceding, ana, unlike the other, it does not deepen when the sun gets low. It is a composite, and the ray florets at night instead of closing up close down, turning flat back against the stem. Another tried for the first- time found worthy of moderate approval is a dwarf Exigeion (h.p.) 18in high, with mauve rays and greenish-yellow disc. This was advertised as a mixture of three colours, but only the one appeared. Some of the above-mentioned plants may be old acquaintances of many gardeners, but to me they were experiments, in the sense that they were previously quite unknown. Even if they were not all conspicuous successes, there was a certain amount of pleasure in the anticipation of success, ana only one cut of the five was an absolute failure. For the benefit of any who may feel inclined to try them for themselves, the names can all be found in Ryder’s catalogue. In conclusion, I will mention two plants that I would like to get-, but- don’t know where to find them. One is a double pink, strongly scented, resembling the type that I think is called Mrs Sinkins, but instead of being all white it lias a very dark centre

.maroon, perhaps), then a clearly defined ring of white, and then a border of the same colour as the centre. I had it a long time ago, but lost it, and, in the hope of regaining it, have been growing seeds of various types, but what is looked for has not appeared. The other is the wood sorrel (Oxalis aeetosella), not the field sorre 1 ; that is arurnex—-a dock. The former has, according to Sir Ray Lankester, a leaf like atrefoil and a white flower like a geranium, and is the true original Irish shamrock. OCTOGENARIAN. Experimenting with new seeds is very interesting. I remember the pleasure I had one year when I sowed several packets of seeds of annuals unknown to me ; most were very pretty. I think 1 have seen the wood sorrel growing in the Botanic Gardens, but it may have been somewhere else. —ESTHER. ***** CABBAGE-GROWING IN WEST AUSTRALIA. Dear Esther, —Knowing I am a keen gardener, my friends invariably say when 1 call on them, “Oh, do come and look at our cabbages!” We thread our way between rusty kerosine tins, piled debris, discarded boots, etc., and finally come to a tiny cleared oasis in the centre of the wilderness, and then the full glory of the cabbages bursts upon us. These gardeners remind one of the Englishman who says, “What a lovely day! Let’s go out and kill something!” “What a lovely day,” they say, “let’s go out and plant something.” So they seize the necessary tools, and, picking their way across the ash heaps, piles ot tins, and scattered bones, proceed until the spirit moves them to slop. "Here’s a good place for cabbages,” they exclaim. Digging proceeds desperately, rubbish flies hither and thither, but a few minutes exhausts their energy. They prod a few holes and stick in the cabbages, and there it ends. Another day they scratch out another patch and prod in a few lettuces. All this lias led me to the conclusion that one of my Norman ancestors must have married a Chinaman, for I must have vegetables in rows —nice neat rows, too. Here in Western Australia the soil is mostly sand, and I have had to board my vegetable bod completely round to prevent the bed irom leaking all over the paths and meandering down to the back door. Not only t-ha., but I have had to work my way round the whole garden fence and make it fowl proof by threading the wire-netting with bamboo rods and prodding them well into the earth. It certainly adds to the Chinese effect. Being a dry climate I plant all the seeds in trenches to simplify watering. One puts the hose in one end and the water works its way along to the other, doing good business a's it goes. Once the rains start here things grow like magic. One says, "Let there be cabbages,” and lo there are cabbages. My summer garden was not a gieatsuccess this year. Five times did I plant cucumbers, melons, etc., and five limes did the fowls break through and steal, but I won the sixift round with my bamboo barricade. I managed to grow- a big row of cotton most successfully, and gloried in its prettv yellow and pink flowers and its bulgy bols, which later burst and showed neat divisions (like the quarters of an orange) of compressed white cotton wool, which fluffed out as they dried and the green husks shrivel’ed. I could write reams of the tragedies of my year’s garden, of the precious plants that the fowls killed and the previous fowls that the pups killed, of the nests of kittens that lie beneath the carrots and the half-hatched chickens that fertilise the cauliflowers, of the extraordinary excrescences that rose in the most sacred places when the pup saved a tender morsel for the morrow, and his awful suspicion that I was unearthing it for myself. I only hope that every member has enjoyed his year’s gardening as much as I have. JOSEPHINE. Your contribution, Josephine, provides a little welcome humour to enliven our meeting. Doubtless climate and soil are much against gardening in West- Australia. But your description of the common condition of unused garden ground is not flattering to the peopIe.—ESTHER. ***** A MARLBOROUGH GARDEN. Dear Esther, ’ve written sc often inbout my garden that it seems almost impossible to add more; however. I’ll try. In the first place the greater part of my garden is now only a memory in common with a great many others. We were in the flood area, and the