THE GARDEN

Southland Times, Issue 19102, 21 November 1923, Page 11

THE GARDEN

(By

“Horticola.”)

Weeds have grown at a very rapid rate lately and the hoe will need to be constantly at work to keep them down and prevent them impeding the growth of the young crops of vegetables. Hoeing will also be desirable to maintain a loose surface between more advanced crops. When sowing peas from now on it is well to sow in deep drills or trenches well manured, as in poor soil drought is fatal later on.

In well-cultivated gardens, a celery trench need be no more than 12 inches wide and from 6 to 10 inches deep; double rows of celery may be planted in trenches 12 inches wide, and in all cases it will be found advisable to give width rather than depth. Before planting the trenches should always be watered if necessary, and in spite of the extra labour entailed, this will be found to pay handsomely in the end. Similarly, the manure should be in a moist condition, and this and the conservation of the soil moisture, will help to prevent the drying up of the ground which is so fatal to celery plants.

Sowings of dwarf and runner beans made now will be valuable for successions! crops. The runners should be topped at six feet; they are more prolific grown thin, and those short of stakes may with advantage follow the market garden plan, not staking, but stopping at two feet, and grown thus less ground is occupier!. Hasten the planting up of all flower beds as much as possible. Watering the newly planted out subjects of a tender nature in the evening, with tepid water, is time well spent; in fact it is only by attention of this kind that plants will quickly take hold of the soil during the present spell of extremely hot and dry weather. One of the best means of conserving the moisture in the soil after well soaking the soil the night previous, is to stir the soil next day either with the Dutch hoe or, where space does not permit of this means, a pointed stick should be used. If allowed to become baked on the surface, the soil cracks quickly and the moisture is quickly extracted. Timely attention to staking such plants as need support is a point to be observed with advantage to their future welfare. Beds of pansies will require assistance if a full crop of bloom is to be preserved for any length of time, and

copious supplies of liquid manure in the I evening should be followed by a mulching I of leaf-mould the next day. If not already done, good clean straw i should be immediately placed over the strawberry beds, to ensure clean fruit at ripening time. The beds must be examined for all weeds removed before putting down the straw, as it will be a considerable time before weeding can be done again. It is a good plan to give the whole bed a good dusting of soot, as this will not only benefit .the plants themselves, but ward off attacks of slugs, which are very often most troublesome when the fruits are ripening. Should the soil be light, and a heavy crop of fruits has. set, a thorough soaking with diluted liquid manure will be most helpful. Many flowers soon fade if picked and placed directly in cold water. Amongst such are the poppies. If they are picked early, and the stems placed in warm water and left till cold in a cool, airy place it will be found that they will remain fresh for a long time. The blooms should be cut early in the morning. The fuchsia was first introduced to cultivation at the end of the eighteenth century, and is supposed to have been brought home to England by a sailor who grew it in his window. There it was discovered by a Mr Lee, a nurseryman of Hammersmith, who purchased and propagated it. Tlic fuchsias of gardens are a very mixed race; in the first place seedlings were obtained from the long-flowered species and these were crossed, re-crossed, and selected according to the particular end in view of the florist who made them a speciality. A member of a Society in England is responsible for an excellent paper on “The Fungus Lore of the Greoks and Romans,” in which he mentions remedies adopted by these people in early times for the effects produced by eating poisonous fungi. That the ancient physicians, like those of the present day, were occasionally called in to attend patients suffering from the effects of eating unwholesome fungi, is evident from the words of Galen, who, in dealing with a special instance of poisoning, says: “I myself know the case of a man who ate a quantity of these insufficiently-cooked boleti, supposed to be wholesome, and was afterwards troubled with severe pains in the stomach, with difficulty in breathing, faintness, and cold sweats, and was with difficulty saved by taking such remedies as are able to dissipate inspissated juices, such as vinegar and honey, either alone or boiled for a time with hyssop and majoram; the man partook of this remedy sprinkled with soda, and vomited up the fungi which he had eaten.” ROSES IN ITALY. Italy is not generally conceded as the land of the rose, but the fact is the yellow roses of Rome, Frascati, and Tivoli are famous. Capri’s climbers and the trailers of Sorrento are not less to be remarked, once

you think of it; roses are even seen in profusion— at least, they may be seen—in the walled gardens overhanging Venetian canals; while the rose gardens of Florence pale even the crimson lily of its armorial bearings. We find the yellow Italian rose at its best in that open-air hothouse that lies between the French frontier and Porto Maurizion, on the Riviera Ponente. In Bordighera, Ospedaletti, and San Remo, and all that lies between, they garland themselves into a medley of chromatic profusion on all hands, but the yellow tea rose variety predominates. The business of rose gardening and marketing along the Italian coast of blue is a very serious business, though not at all a conventionally conducted occupation. All connected with it goes, or is carried on, with an allegra quite as characteristic of the Italian spirit of things as Italian music, which is to say that sentiment plays a considerable part as well as a warm pace. A long, winding mountain road, just across the Pont Saint Louis, at the great white triangle which marks the boundary between France and Italy, arrives abruptly at the Riviera di Ponente, at Ventimiglia, its western terminus. The bordering fields are by no means ordinarily and banally bucolic, but fields of carnations, violets, hyacinths, and roses surrounding picturesquely blue, white, or rose-tinted stone farmhouses, and groups of waving shaggy palms. Bordighera is the first town of magnitude on this magic coast where the culture of the rose rises to the height and dignity of a business of magnitude. The town is a restful little place for rose lovers and garden worshippers. HERBACEOUS SPIRAEAS. Spiraeas are splendid plants for growing in a shady place, and when they are given the conditions they like they produce during early summer great branches of foamylooking cream or pink flowers that are beautiful in the garden and splendid for the house (states the Dominion’s gardening contributor). By a shady place I do not mean under trees, for spiraeas hate being where water drips on them during winter; but the shady side of a house or the shade cast by tall-growing shrubs is what they like. The plants are surf ace-rooting, forming a mass of crowns right on the surface soil. They are moisture-loving, yet dislike growing in badly-drained ground. What difficult plants to grow! some will say. But they are not. Choose for them a shady place, and dig the soil very deeply to ensure it being well drained. An ideal place for them is on the shady side of a creek, not too near the water. In spring a mulch of half-rotted manure should be spread round the plants, and they should be given an occasional good watering. This mulch feeds the plants, and also protects the roots during summer. If manure cannot be had, a mulch of almost anything must be given if the plants are to be a succcbb ; for remember that they are moisture-loving and

yet have their roots right on the surface, where they quickly feel the effects of drought. During dry, hot weather the plants love to have their leaves sprinkled with water during the evening, and if this is done and mulching attended to they need be given a thorough watering only about once a fortnight. Some of the pink varieties are very beautiful, and should be more generally grown. As a rule one sees only the old-fashioned white spiraea—astilbe janonica. Among coloured varieies the following are good:—s Spiraea peach blossom (pink), S. Queen Alexandra, improved (pink) 8. America (lilac rose), 8. Philadelphia (lavender pink), astilbe kriembilda (salmon pink), astilbe lashskonigin (salmon), astilbe rose perie (soft rose).