THE HOME GARDEN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3756, 15 May 1936, Page 10

THE HOME GARDEN

WORK FOR THE WEEK. THE FLOWER GARDEN. May is the first month of the busiest planting season of the year. AU herbaceous perennials can now be littea, divided and replanted. Flowering shrubs and trees can also be planted out now. Lift, dry and store gladioli. Lilies and pansies are best planted in June. Riant out rose bushes in rich, well worked soil. Seedlings of hardy annuals and perennials can now be planted out. Take cuttings of hydrangeas. Cut from sturdy stems which did not flpwer this year. Anemones can still be planted. THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. Plant out gooseberries, black currants and raspberries. Enrich rhubarb beds with old cow manure. Cut down the foliage on asparagus plants, taking care to prevent the berries settling on the bed. Plant out winter lettuce. Make another sowing of onions for vse as greens in spring. Sow winter spinach if you have not already done so. Plant out early cabbage and silver t)eet. Earth up leeks and celery as required. Prepare for the planting of tjll fruit trees. Lime soils from which crops have been lifted. . LONICERA NITIDA. WHEN TO PRUNE. The -evergreen honeysuckle, lonicera nitida, has grown with remarkable freedom this autumn. But don’t clip the hedge now. Although no finer hedging plant has been introduced in recent years, the most enthusiastic advocates of it recognise that the growth is susceptible to frost injury. Clipping now would almost certainly result in drastic die back, and sections of the hedge would go. Wait until early October and then, just when the season’s growth is starting, give the hedge a clipping. STAKING PLANTS. POINTS TO REMEMBER. When you tie a tree, standard shrub or rose, it is a mistake to tie too tightly. This makes stem expansion impossible. Always leave a loop large enough to allow two years’ stem swelling, which is the normal life of a tie. Don’t wrap the tie round the bare stem, or the bark will chafe away, exposing the specimen to the risk of disease. The chafing may be so serious as to kill, for vital sap passages lie just beneath the bark. Wrap round the stem a strip of sacking or old cloth to keep the bark intact. Don’t tie immediately underneath the head of branches, but about 6>n. below. When ties go right up to the head the latter is often snapped off in high wind. Use good strong tarred twine, strong string or insulated cable, which you can buy very cheaply. Wrap the material once round the main stem, then across the loose ends three times between the stem and the stake and tie firmly round the latter. In all cases use substantial stakes, varying in thickness according to the exposure of the position and the age and type of the Specimen. Drive in every stake at least one foot, so that it can withstand high winds. FRUITING CURRANTS. TAKE CUTTINGS NOW. It is a simple matter to increase a stock of currant bushes by striking cuttings now. Young shoots cut from the bushes now (the best of the prunings can be used) and planted in an out-of-the-way comer in the garden wilt root readily and by this time next year will have grown into fine little bushes for transplanting. Where many amateurs make a mistake, however, is in the use of unsuitable growths for cuttings. In every case the growth to be used for cuttings must be healthy young shoots of the past sunu .er s growth. Older wood is unsuitable. TLe young 'hoots, also, must be cut from healthy, good-bear-ing bushes. It is no use taking shoots from diseased bushes or from those of an inferior, poor cropping , variety. Bushes grown from such material would perpetuate all the faults of the old ones, probably in more serious form. The shoots of red and white currants should be 10 or 12 inches long; the black currants need 7 or 8 inches.; Some people prefer to pull off the I ehoots with a “heel” or slip or old wood attached to the base, but that is unnecessary and, in fact, it is best for the bush if the shoots are cut off cleanly with the knife or secateurs. Having clipped the shoot from the bush, snip off the top inch or two of soft, unriper.ed tip, and in the case cf red and white currants, rub off with the fingers all but the topmost

f our or five buds. With black currant cuttings, do not run off any buds at all.

The cuttings are then ready for planting. They can be inserted in tiny good garden soil, but will root most readily in light, sandy soil. A sunny open spot is much more suitable than a shady corner for the bed of cuttings, but providing the soil is not heavy clay or badly waterlogged, they will root almost anywhere. The cuttings can be dibbled in about 21 inches apart, but a better plan is to make a narrow trench with the spade, just pushing it in and pulling it out again, and insert the cuttings in this. PANSIES FOR EXHIBITION. Size is not the first important point in a show pansy. From two or three inches in diameter is large enough for the true type of flower, and the outline must be perfectly circular. The petals must be of good substance, and of a velvety sheen, bright in colour, and with uniform blotches, the markings being the same on the two upbest way to show pansies to advanper and three lower petals. The tage is on a circular disc of white cardboard about three inches in diameter, with the stalk through a hole in the centre of the disc. LEVELLING LAWNS. DO IT NOW. A lawn is to a large extent judged by the evenness of its surface. If there are pot-holes and lumps it never looks nice, and you cannot mow properly. Now is the time to adjust irregularities. Lift the turf carefully from the humps, 2in. thick, and remove sufficient of the underlying soil to give you a correct level. Remove the turf also in the pot-holes, and add sufficient soil to give the correct level here, too. In both cases stir the underly soil Cin deep and work in a dash of bonedust. After re-lgying the turf, fill in the cracks with good riddled garden soil or old potting soil to provide a bridge across which the two sets of roots can travel. ONIONS. PREPARE SOIL NOW. Prepare a piece of ground now for the reception of onion seedlings in October and you will .have extra-fine quality bulbs next year. The best onions grow only in deep soil. Dig to a depth of three spade blades; and keep the layers separate when digging the trenches. Thoroughly mix into each square yard of the second and third spits of soil three-quarters of a pailful of equal parts littery stable manure and leaf-mould, a quarter of a pailful of broken lime rubble, and 2oz of bonemeal. In the case of the top spit, mix with each square yard threequarters of of a pailful of fairly well-rotted cow or stable manure, a quarter of a pailful of lime rubble and 2oz of bonedust. At monthly intervals, spread weathered soot over the soil—a dressing which is very beneficial for onions.