The Week in the Garden

Southland Times, Issue 22913, 11 June 1936, Page 13

The Week in the Garden

(By

J. A. McPherson.)

Cuttings of geraniums and other soft-wooded plants must be gone over and all dead foliage removed. Decaying foliage acts as a harbour for mildew and other diseases. Pot up calceolarias and schizanthus into five inch pots. The latter should have their tips pinched out and be given the maximum amount of light. Seeds of chabaud carnations, if sown now, will provide an early summer batch of bloom. If sown in spring the plants are in full bloom when frosts occur and many buds cannot develop. The general planting of trees, shrubs, roses, hedge, and shelter trees can commence; do not plant when the soil is sticky. Do not plant a five-shilling tree in a sixpenny hole. It pays to give every consideration to the thorough preparation of the ground before permanent trees and shrubs are planted. Major alterations to the garden should be pushed forward with all speed in order that soils may sweeten up before planting in the spring. Repair garden seats, pergolas, and other woodwork about the garden. This work can be profitably undertaken when weather conditions are fine overhead but the ground too moist for digging. Worn out be.ds should receive attention by a thorough double digging and if possible the addition of sweet maiden soil. If lawn growth is getting too long, choose a dry day for cutting and keep the mower set fairly high. Do not neglect to cultivate between growing crops when the weather permits. Hoeing at this period of the year not only keeps down weeds but warms the soil by permitting the sun’s rays to penetrate deeper down. It also keeps fungoid and insect pests from resting and hibernating near the growing plants. Cover rhubarb and seakale for outside forcing and bring roots under glass for inside forcing. Forced roots are of no use for next season and should be discarded when fully cropped. Tomato seeds must be sown to provide plants for the first crop in heated houses. Examine stored onions and remove any soft bulbs. Beans and dwarf peas may be sown on sheltered areas. THE FLOWER GARDEN PREPARING GROUND FOR ROSES. Early preparation of the soil for the planting out of roses is most essential. The plants do not take kindly to a sour inert soil, so time must be allowed for the thorough sweetening of beds and borders before any actual planting takes place. Deep working of the soil is most necessary whether it be heavy or light land. In the deep working of heavy land, the drainage is improved by lowering the natural water table, and furthermore, air is permitted to enter; this combined with the action of sunshine, frosts, and rains tends to rapidly sweeten the most inert of soils. Heavy soils should always have plenty of strawy manure worked into the second spit, for besides its manurial value it has a more important value mechanically, in that it opens up. the soil and permits the entrance of air. Light soils, too, should be deeply worked for though drainage may be good, still the lower spit of soil is in most cases very inert. Heavy dressings of short manures (cow, fowl, and sheep) worked into the bottom spit will give it not only a definite value from a plant-food point of view but mechanically. Such short manures hold the moisture evenly throughout and thus provide coolness at the roots of plants. Light sandy soils will also benefit if clay is worked through both top and bottom spits. Wood ashes may be added to the lower spit of both soils, but avoid placing them through the top spit, for though roses must have potash they do not take kindly to the other properties in the wood ashes. Clean charcoal can be used to advantage on both light and heavy soils, and a dressing of lime given to the top spit of both types of soil a few weeks prior to planting is most necessary. On heavy lands provided it is well limed, there is not the same necessity for working in rotted and short manures to the top spit. In such cases a dressing of superphosphate, two ounces to the square yard, can be forked thoroughly through the top spit a few days prior to planting. With sandy soils, well rotted short manures forked through the top spit will prove of great advantage for most sandy soils are fairly hungry and surface nourishment is quickly washed out of them. Planting Roses. Should your roses arrive on a wet day when the ground is cold and sticky, the correct procedure is to open the bundle and place the plants fairly close together in a temporary trench and cover the roots well with soil. It is a mistake and detrimental to the plants to leave them for any length of time in the packing material, and never should the bundle be stood in a tub of water “till the weather takes up.” Ground conditions may not be suitable for a number of days and all the time the roots of the roses are suffering through being immersed in the water. If your roses arrive when planting conditions are good, remember one important point—that drying winds quickly injure the roots of any plant, so keep the roots covered up till the actual time of planting. If the roots open, up from the bundle in a dry condition, dip the plants in water for a minute just prior to the actual planting. The distance to space the bushes depends to a great extent on the vigour of the individual varieties, but generally speaking, for suburban gardens, never less than two feet. Open out the holes, each a foot to eighteen inches square, and deep enough for the point of junction of the stock and the scion to be covered when planted to a depth of between one and two inches. The burial of this junction is most important for from round the upper part of the junction will spring strong shoots to form next season’s bush. If this junction is left above ground, there is a tendency for sun-scorch to play havoc with the union and growth is kept practically at a standstill, there being no fresh wood from the base being developed to take the place of the worn out branches at pruning time. Set the roots out evenly, never sitting them on top of a layer of manure. Avoid planting them in a narrow hole with the roots pointing downwards. After Care. With the rose bushes now firmly in the soil the question arises, shall I prune? Pruning should not be undertaken till the spring and then do not be afraid to prune hard back to within a few eyes from the ground level. The plump dormant eyes at the base of the stems are of far more value than the

weak ones near the top; in fact the weak eyes near the top will never form good wood and if not cut off a whole season is wasted. If roses are not being planted till the spring, then it will be necessary to prune just before the plants are placed in their beds. Do not fuss about the untidy state of the surface soil until the roses start to break away, then the beds can be gone over and lightly pointed with a garden fork. It has been recently proved that roses are more resistant to the attacks of mildew when supplied with potash, and for this purpose an ounce of sulphate of potash to the square yard can be worked into the surface while pointing over the beds. A recent survey of the roses growing throughout New Zealand has proved that many varieties which do exceptionally well in one district are practically failures in another district. Rose varieties appear to have their likes and dislikes as is the case with many other plants. FEEDING THE FLOWER GARDEN ELEMENTS OF A PLANT. A plant is built up, for the greater part, of some 10 to 14 elements (if you’ve forgotten what they are ask your son who is doing chemistry). These it has to obtain from four different sources—the soil, the air, the water, or the gardener. Luckily for you—and the plants—the last named is, at the very outside, responsible for only three or four. These are, continuing to use the popular, and not the scientific, names, nitrogen, phosphates, potash, and, as the possible fourth, lime. With these exceptions, Nature provides everything necessary for a plant to live its normal life, even in such artificial conditions as exist in the flower garden. Let us take a brief look at those which are left to us and consider their especial functions. Nitrogen is concerned, mostly with the growth processes. It proves its presence by the development of luxuriant leaf and stem development. From this it will be clear that if a stunted appearance, with poor leaves of a sickly green, is noticed, a shortage of nitrogen is indicated. An excess of nitrogen must be avoided, as it produces a soft, sappy growth, subject to wind or rain damage and liable to attack by disease or pest. Nitrogen is supplied to gardens in the form of nitrate of soda, the most readily available and, in consequence, the most easily lost by excessive watering, sulphate of ammonia, perhaps the most popular form, not immediately available to plants, but rapidly becoming available under the influence of microbial action, and, lastly, blood, the least readily available and, for that reason, especially useful for slowgrowing shrubs. There is a place for all three in the perfectly managed garden, for, when a plant needs a final “push” —as, for example, a week or two before the show blooms have to be cut, there is nothing like a spot of nitrate to put on that last extra polish. Ammonia must be regarded as the general stand by. It is used almost exclusively in the manufacture of “complete mixtures” and, in that form, it is safely useable at all times on all crops. The value of blood was indicated above. Broadly, it may be said that blood is useful during the dormant period of plants when only a small supply, becoming slowly available all the time, is required to keep things moving. From the gardening point of view, the important effects of phosphates are on the germination and early development of seeds and seedlings, and on the development of strong root-systems. It tends, in contrast to nitrogen, to mature plants early. It is supplied to gardens, generally, in one of two forms, bonedust or superphosphate. The former corresponds in action and utility with blood (the two are usually supplied together as blood and bone), coming slowly into available form and thus supplying a small and steady amount of plant food over a long period. Its use may thus be taken as identical with that of blood. Super is a water soluble and immediately available form of phosphate, and, like ammonia, is used, almost always, as the basis of complete mixtures. There is little to be feared under normal conditions from an excess of phosphate. The functions of potash are many and varied. It exerts a very beneficial effect upon the development of young shoots and stems, preventing them from becoming too sappy, on the one hand, or too brittle on trie other. In the leaves it is essential to the manufacturer of those substances which control the development of the flowering and fruiting parts of the plant. It exerts a decidedly beneficial effect upon the colour of flowers. It is especially valuable to roses, and also to bulbs, for which plants its colour effect is most marked. Finally, by improving the. general constitution of plants, it enables them to withstand more effectively the attacks of fungus disease. Its most interesting feature is its relationship to nitrogen. It may be said broadly that whenever there is any danger of some ill-effect from excess nitrogen, it can be averted by the use of an equivalent amount of potash. The importance of this will be clear. You must use a lot of nitrogen, in order to get vigorous growth; this gives some cause for fear of overgrown, sappy individuals, so you must use a lot of potash with the nitrogen to stiffen up the growth that is produced. It is something like the Scottish recipe for whisky-and-soda. “Fifty-fifty . . . and plenty of soda.” Potash is available either as muriate or sulphate of potash. Whilst the latter is, perhaps, rather better known amongst gardeners, there is little ta choose between them for most purposes, and muriate, being rather cheaper, is nowadays more frequently used in mixtures. Both are completely water soluble and so readily available, but they do not wash out of the soil, being held in a state in which they are “ready when called for.” As with phosphate, there is no need to fear any harm from a possible excess of potash. —The Australian Garden Lover. VEGETABLE GARDEN TREATMENT OF VACANT LAND. Unless large areas have been specially set aside for the growing of winter green crops, there is usually a fair amount of vacant land in the vegetable garden at this period of the year. Whether it be heavy or light land it will benefit by being worked and thrown up in a rough state till the spring. By so doing the soil becomes mellow and breaks down into what the old gardeners rightly call a fine tilth It responds to treatment, and in responding the results show in the splendid crops obtained. It becomes teeming with bacterial activity and never assumes a sour appearance, and furthermore, if fed with artificial manures to assist any particular crop it does its share in seeing that the feeding reaches the plants in the shortest possible time. Even if you do not add any manures this autumn, take the opportunity and deeply work all vacant land. Land

trenched three to four years ago will he settling down a little on the hard side in the second spit and it too should be given a re-trenching. This latter work will be far less strenuous than when originally undertaken, for the soil has now more life in it. Drainage is as essential in the vegetable garden as in any other part of the garden and unless the water table in low-lying districts is lowered, soils remain inert in spring time when they should be giving results, and they are also cold till well on into the summer. Furthermore, a water-logged soil quickly suffers from drought conditions during summer for the simple reason that roots will not penetrate into the poison laden lower areas but remain near the surface. If we could all grasp the fact that the soil is a living mass and not a heap of inert material, H would help us to understand more fully the requirements of both soil and crop. A gram of good soil holds countless bacteria of benefit to growing crops in that they break down the materials in the soil and make them available as plant foods. The more we work the soil and the greater surface we can expose to the action of sunshine, air, frosts, etc., the more we are benefiting these beneficial bacteria and the more we are helping ourselves in obtaining maximum crops. Among the vegetables that benefit by being left in the soil are artichokes and parsnips. The former shrivel quickly on heinc? lifted, and only weekly requirements should be dug at any one time. It is well known that parsnips improve in flavour by being left in the "round until required. If the weather becomes severe and frosts penetrate the soil thereby making the digging of the roots difficult, then scatter a litter of straw along the tops of the above vegetables where they grow.