THE GARDEN

Southland Times, Issue 19769, 17 February 1923, Page 11 (Supplement)

THE GARDEN

(By

“Horticola.”)

Vacant ground is now becoming available in the garden as potatoes and peas, etc., are cleared off. Every opportunity should be taken advantage of to fill up this ground with cabbage or lettuce plants, as these necessary vegetables are always in demand during the winter and spring months. All dead leaves, flowers, and decayed stalks should be removed from herbaceous, and other plants. If it has not been attended to stake tall-growing plants such as dahlias, chrysanthemums, and gladiolas, so as to make secure against the wind. Plants that are to be propagated such as pelargoniums, zonal geraniums, ivy geraniums, and others, should be got in as soon as possible, so as fb have them well rooted before the winter. Brussels sprouts, onions, and cauliflowers may be sown now with advantage, to stand in the seed bed until spring, when they may be transplanted. Brompton and East Lothian varieties of stocks, wallflowers, columbines, and other biennials are now growing rapidly and will soon be ready for planting out. Vegetable marrows should be examined once a week, and have all superfluous growths removed to admit air and light, and allow the young foliage to develop. An abundance of water should be applied during hot, dry w’eather, although if it continues as at present there will be no need for watering. An occasional application of liquid manure to ensure quick swelling of the fruits is a great advantage. The buff-coloured tomato weevil is under half an inch in length, thick set in proportion to its length, with the short broadly rounded thorax, and back flattened. The snout is slender, with the usual elbowed antennae, clubbed at the tips, standing out in front of the snout; at the extremity of the snout are situated the sharp jaws, with which it does all the damage. The ground colour, as is the case in many weevils, is dark blackish-brown, but so thickly clothed with fine buff and grey scales, and fine scattered hairs of the same tint, that it has a uniform earth-coloured tint that enables it to elude detection when resting motionless upon the dry soil with its legs tucked under its body, a fine example of protective mimicry. When disturbed, however, it is a very active little creature, and runs off to cover at once. Feeding at night, and hidden away in the cracks in the ground, or just under the surface soil, these beetles may be quite numerous, and yet escape detection, unless looked for at night time when they are feeding. Prepare soils and compost. Plants derive the chief part of their food from the soil, and as the growth of different species of plants is promoted by certain substances taken up in different proportions from it, this requires to be replaced in order to reproduce the same crops. It is obvious, therefore, that this renewing of the soil is a very important part of gardening. Much discrimination and judgment are i therefore required in the preparation of compost and arrangement of the manure heap. Farmyard manure is recognised as the best of all manures, but unfortunately very little of this is procurable. The next best thing to adopt (says the Evening Star' is to prepare something as near as possible to this. It may be done by collecting all the green vegetable matter at intervals, such as grass, turf, clippings, garden refuse, pigeon and fowl manure, and (if possible) stable manure. Place them in layers alternately in a stack in some corner of the garden, and in a few months a stack of manure is ready for digging in equal or superior to most of the manure you can procure. Artificial manures are good, but for some soils green or vegetable manure is essential to create humus, without which no plant can exist. Lime is what may be described as the salt of the earth. It assists all plant food, but it should never be used in direct contact with manures. Dig the manure in deeply, and work in the lime on the surface. Lime acts differently upon different soils. For instance, it opens heavy clay soils, and tends to stiffen sandy soils. TRAINING RED CURRANTS. Generally speaking, no fruit tree is treated so badly as the red currant in the manner of training and general management. As received from the nursery, each tree has a leg, averaging one foot long, as it should have; the trees are carefully planted and pruned at the start, the shoots being cut back to within a few inches of their base to start the framework of the future tree. A couple of years or so later, sucker-like shoots emerge from the base of the plant, and often these are not removed promptly as they should be, but allowed to grow up as part of the plant, and as they show much vigour, they are regarded as evidence of the fine future welfare of the trees, and are carefully pruned. Similar shoots quickly appear and are treated in the same way until the trees become a thicket of growth through which no sunlight can penetrate. The result is overcrowded, immature growth, which cannot produce fruit, and then the owner or the gardener condemns the variety or the nurseryman who supplied the trees. The ideal tree to aim at is one with a clean stem, not less than one foot long, and with from eight to twelve main branches radiating from the centre and extending at least four feet long, and two feet more if wished. Trees trained in this way will produce three times more fruits, and much superior in quality, than those treated badly, and will continue to bear regularly for thirty years or more. The best method of shaping young trees is to select the leading growths that are so placed as to give the desired result, and remove all surplus shoots, cutting them back to within two inches of their base. Do not top the leaders, but let them extend their full length, as they can be shortened back at the winter pruning. As the trees increase in size, so will the number r'f branches multiply until the desired number is obtained to form the main branches. The centre of the tree must always remain open, and not a single sucker allowed to grow from the base, a clear “leg” being maintained always. Summer pruning is important, yet so few persons practice it. I am sure they would if they realised the value of the operation, and there are three reasons, all of importance, why the practice is good. Firstly, the removal of surplus shoots at the end of November or early in December ■ admits sun, air light to the main branI ches on which are formed the spurs or j fruit-bearing portions, and thus the growth i is annually matured, and without maturai tion no first crop of a satisfactory nature •is possible. Secondly, the removal of sum- : mer shoots enables the fruit to be cleansed i from aphis or honey dew attacks, by ex- ! posing it to rains, and it ripens better owing I to exposure to the sun. Thirdly, when the fruit is hanging in exposed branches, it is so easily picked, and thus valuable time is saved. A GOLD MEDAL ROSE. . The following note is taken from a rei cent issue of Amateur Gardening : ' "Florence L. Izzard is the name of the only variety that was given the above named high honour at the last exhibition of the National Rose Society. Not new in the sense that that was the first time the public had a chance of seeing it, because last autumn Mabel Morse and Florence L. Izzard were put up together, the first variety gaining the award, the other failing; and, at the time, not a few thought the latter the better yellow. However, it is recognised now.

“In the quest for the perfect yellow rose, Messrs S. McGredy and Sons, of Portadown, Ireland, have given us first Christine, then Golden Emblem, and latterly the pair named. Whether either will surpass Golden Emblem in general merit remains to be seen. In size and formation of bloom, perhaps, they do, but, as suggested, there may be a steady progress in the sorts all round, which extended cultivation may prove..

“The writer has a coloured representation of a very fine specimen of the old Marechai Niel, which was grown over forty years back. As a flower, nothing new in yellow roses has approached it since, but the above-named and others do in this—they blossom in the open the whole season • they are dwarf growing, and are amenable to ordinary’ culture.”