THE GARDEN

Southland Times, Issue 19456, 21 January 1925, Page 15

THE GARDEN

NOTES FOR THE AMATEUB

WORK FOR THE WEEK. ■*' 1 (By “Horticola.”) Keep the hoe busy between all growing crops. Weeds or no weeds, the surface soil should be disturbed. Give attention to late vegetables. There are plenty for use just now, but later on there will come a big demand. Have a supply ready to meet it. The trouble in many gardens is with sowing seeds. Too many are put in at one time, and the result is a glut and then a famine. If a greater number of sowings was made, so that a fresh supply was constantly coming in, there would not be such a waste of vegetables. Autumn-sown onions need a little attention to divert the strength into the bulbs. Bend them over by a twist, or take a wooden rake and press them down. When the tops are bent down, the.bulbs will get more of the sap, and will swell faster, and with more light and air circulating over them they will .ripen faster. Spring-sown onions are growing fast and promise a big crop. Keep them free from weeds, and, if possible, loosen the surface soil, but this needs great care. The bulbs are very tender, and if touched with the hoe a scratch will develop into a nasty large wound as the bulb swells. It would be a good precaution to dust the plants with some slacked lime to check mildew, and have some sulphide of potassium handy to spray the bed if mildew begins to develop. Early chrysanthemums need some attention to keep them erect and secure against strong winds. If there are robust plants growing close to them, these should be reduced to give plenty of sunshine and air to the chrysanthemums. Every part should get thoroughly matured, and then there will be a wealth of useful flowers. These come in just when they are required, and are some of the best and most useful for house decorating. They remain fresh for some days, and this is a great saving of time, especially when the garden and everything in it is so damp, and getting about between the plants is unpleasant. Don’t tie the plants up like a sheaf of I corn. Put several stakes to each plant, fasten strong shoots to them, and then cut away all surplus sprouts. Fortunately these plants have kept fairly free from insect pests this season, but green aphis develops at an alarming rate once it gets a start, so keep a sharp look-out for these pests. Should they make an appearance, ' destroy them with a prompt dose of black Leaf 40. Violas that were planted last autumn | have done well during the spring and summer. Any showing signs of distress should be cut down. They will soon send up. a lot of new growths, which can be taken off as cuttings, or the plants can be divided. The latter is less trouble, but the stock is not multiplied as fast. Keep the seed pods picked off sweet peas, violas and pansies, for if allowed to develop seeds they will soon stop flowering. Scuffle hoe all open spaces among the plants, and water if necessary. Give sweet peas Equid manure once a fortnight. THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. A friend of the writer has had great success with the early garden pea called Dr Stuart. From a sixpenny packet of seed, enough plants were obtained to produce a little over fifty pounds of pods. The flavour was unusually fine, so that quality was well combined with quantity. Our readers may compare this result with those which they themselves have obtained from a sixpenny packet of peas. Good ground, frequent stirring of the surface soil, and early staking were three of the factors making for success, a fourth one being the choice of a reliable pea, Dr Stuart-, which is very like Carter’s Daisy. Plant out cabbage, savoys and leeks, sow turnips, carrots, lettuce, silver beet and spinach; keep the soil cultivated among all growing crops, and give water should it be required. When watering it is a mistake to sprinkle or dribble; give a good soaking, and then shut it in by means of surface cultivation. For the next three months hoeing will be a very important operation, for these reasons: First, it kills seedling weeds, thus preventing them from choking the vegetables; secondly, it allows air to make its way among the roots, and lastly, by breaking the capillary tubes through which the water rises to the surface, it checks evaporation. Frequent cultivation between the rows will prove much more beneficial than watering will, especially if small quantities of manure are raked in afterwards. Hoeing is essential in heavy clay soils that crack badly when dry weather follows continued rain, for the moisture is quickly lost, and the soil sets as hard as what it really is —sundried brick. Now that summer is indeed with us, we all feel the need of penty of plenty of salad vegetables, of which lettuce is easily the most important. For the next three months it will pay to sow lettuce where it is to grow, for transplanting in hot weather often causes the plants to “bolt,” or run to seed. The seed should be sown broadcast, but thinly, and care must also be taken later to allow the young plants plenty of room. Almost any variety will do, if the cultivation is good, but the following kinds are particularly reliable: Iceberg, Webb’s Wonderful, Drumhead, All-the-Year-Round, Neapolitan and Cos (of upright growth). The finest of all is probably Webb’s Wonderful, though almost every gardener has his own favourite. At this time of the year, cultivation is more important than varieties, for almost every kind of lettuce will do well in rich, cool soil, and if properly sp’aced; 9in to 12m is not too great a distance if large plants are to be obtained. Unfortunately it seems more and more important each year to use poisonous sprays to kill Various kinds of pests, and naturally the use of such poisons may prove dangerous to human beings, The first, and in* deed almost the only danger, is, that children may have access to the poison, either while it is still a powder or a paste, or while it is mixed in the tin and ready for spraying. Though the necessary precautions are obvious, they are not always observed, as newspaper reports of casualties show us from time to. time. The other form of the danger is that the spray on the fruit or vegetables may prove poisonous. This danger is not nearly so great as it would seem, for practically all the poisonous sprays leave a whitish deposit behind, and we naturally remove this before the fruit or vegetable is used. When one is planning the garden, however, it is advisable to keep foliage vegetables such as lettuce or cabbage away from apple trees, potatoes or tomat-oes; all of which will need to be sprayed with arsenate of lead or Bordeaux.

The following is an extract from an article by W. H. Taylor, which appeared in New Zealand Journal of Agriculture last year:—“To get good samples of leeks planting should be done at once. Later planting is sometimes useful to supplement main crops, but results are not so good. Deepi, and good soil is necessary, and plenty of manure, as probably no plant takes more out of the soil than do leeks. A fair amount of humus is needed, stable or farmyard being the best form to apply. If artificials are relied on, a mixture of superphosphate, bonedust, and sulphate of potash will answer. These should be mixed in the proportion of two ounces each of super and

bonedust to one ounce of sulphate of potash, and four ounces of the mixture applied per square yard, forking fairly deeply into the soil. When growth has fairly started after planting, a dressing of nitrate of soda should be given. This may be strewn along the drills, at about loz to two yards of drill. An application of nitrate of soda will be a good investment, whatever other manure or fertilisers may have been used. To plant, draw deep drills with a hoe and plant with a dibbler along the bottom of the drill. The plants should be a good size, to allow for deep panting. Thrust the dibbler down its full length, and, with a circular twist, increase the diameter of the hole. Insert the plant to its full length, and then lift it a few inches to straighten the roots. Thrust the dibbler into the soil again a few inches from the hole, but pointing slightly towards it, then by bringing the top of the dibbler towards the hole, press the soil firmly against the full length of the plant. Personally, I prefer not to trim either the roots or the tops, believing growth starts quicker by not doing so.” THE FLOWER GARDEN. The writer has lately seen some suckers which have grown so strongly and uninterruptedly as to dwarf and almost kill the rose proper. W T hile the bushes are in flower it is an easy matter to discover which is the sucker and which the rose, but even when no flowers are present the difference in leaf and wood is generally sufficient to enable us to identify each. The suckers should be cut out as cleanly as possible, though this often necessitates the baring of the underground stem; if this is not done, mere cutting back of the suckers results in more and more growths, weaker perhaps than before, but certainly much more numerous. In very bad cases, it is advisable to lift the whole bush in autumn, and then the cutting away can be done very thoroughly and comfortably. In most cases the bush habit is the ideal one for plants, especially those for bedding purposes. Drawn, spindly plants, on the other hand, generally bear only a few flowers at a time, and only for a short season. French and African marigolds, phlox, zinnia, stock, aster, salvia, nemesia, verbena, schyanthus, antirrhinum, petunia and similar plants should all be bushy, and for this reason should have the tips pinched out a little from time to time. This practice, combined with a little stirring of the soil and the working in of manure, will result in the growth of healthy plants covered with bloom for a long period—the end and aim of most bedding schemes. Roses have done well this season, and the plants are making strong growth, which promises a good display for the autumn. Cut off the old flower heads to prevent the seeds developing. When going over the plants remove any weak, thin, shoots. They will not give flowers, but if left on the plants they take light and air from the more profitable shoots. This is the time to make a selection of varieties for planting next winter. The best way to estimate the value of a rose is to examine it when growing, but too many rely on blooms ; staged at a flower show, or an overrated description printed in a catalogue. Each variety has distinctive attributes, such as healthy foliage, habit, etc., and these can only be estimated at their full value by seeing the plants growing. What a long list one could compile of new varieties that I have been put on the market at a high I price and failed to live up to their reputed value. This should make purchasers careful. in their selection. The flower garden is very interesting at this season, and there is plenty of work to do in it. Dahlias are growing rapidly, and the shoots will require to be looped up from time to time. Michaelmas daisies which received a temporary stake some time ago should now receive their permanent ones. It is better to provide each stem with a stake to itself; the secondary branches have then room to develop, and instead of a few terminal flowers they grow from the base right up. Though the rock garden is past its best, it should not be neglected. Unless it is intended to save seed, the flower stems should be cut away as the flowers wither. Weeding will require attention, and under no circumstances should the plants be allowed to become dry. Standard heliotrope, geraniums and fuchsias will require to be tied up, and all shoots which arise on the stem cut away to allow the begonias or other carpeting plants sufficient light and air. Bulbs for planting in bowls are still expensive, but in many gardens there are any number of daffodils, tulips, crocuses and snowdrops naturalised, and they may be lifted at this season and potted up to be forced in the house for room decoration. The sooner the job is done the better, as roots are fast forming, and the depth they work into the soil the more likely are they to be injured when disturbed. A fork should be used for the job, and be thrust well down where bulbs are known to be, prising up the soil and bulbs together, when the bulbs can be gently pulled from the soil and replanted in ornamental pots or bowls in either soil or fibre. Smail handle-less baskets, painted brown or green, and filled with a mixture of fibre and moss, make charming receptables for such lifted bulbs. Many of the leading florists are using baskets* for all kinds of bulbs for indoor decorations, instead of the harderlooking pottery, and with delightful results. If however, pots or bowls are used without drainage holes, a few pieces of clean broken flower pots or bits of china, or even a few clean pebbles, will serve the purpose for drainage, and the bulbs will make rapid growth under cover and blooms be purer than in their old quarters in the garden, being free from weather soil. Whatever material is used for planting should be kept uniformly moist at all times, without being in the least stickily wet.