GARDENING NOTES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6144, 3 October 1945, Page 6

GARDENING NOTES

WORK FOR THE WEEK Flower Garden Roses are making good growth on well-pruned plants. Two enemies must be looked for. Mildew show's as a whitish deposit on the young foliage when the hot weather appears. For this spray immediately with colloidal sulphur. The other pest is greenfly, controllabite by nicotine sulphate or other insecticide. Conditions are favourable for planting border flowering plants, both annual and perennial. Concentrate on the hardy ones first, such as lobelia, petunia, antirrhinum, Livingstone daisy, ageratum, Iceland poppy, nemesia and violas. Gladiolus should be planted, also gerberas and phlox. Azalea mollis, camellias, rhododendrons and hydrangeas can still be planted. Sow all kinds of hardy flower seeds. The list 1 is controlled only by choice. Asters, zinnias, marigolds, salvia, nasturtiums, verbena, and portulaca may he mentioned as reminders. Hasten the planting of flowering shrubs and trees. Prepare for planting chrysanthemums and dahlias. Both need good soil and good positions. The Vegetable Garden Seed sowing should be attended to, and when germinated, the rows handweeded. Almost all kinds of vegetable crops can be sown. Manure for these is best laid two or three inches below the seeds. Peas for succession, French beans, runners/ cucumbers, marrows and pumpkins can be sown. Dig compost or cow manure into the site intended for tomato plants. Potatoes showing through should be dusted over with super or blood and bone, and earthed up to protect them from frosts. Dress the asparagus bed with nitrate of soda, two to three ounces to the square yard. The Fruit Garden Apple trees not in flower can be sprayed, using red oil at one in 20, which is one pint to gallons. For walnut disease it is not too late

to spray lime sulphur, three tablespoons to the gallon. Defer stone fruit spraying till after petals fall. Grafting should be completed; make sure of raffia ties and adequate covering to exclude air. Fruit trees newly planted should be pruned and firmed in the soil. In the Greenhouse If vines are grown, and were let down from the roof in early winter, they should now be elevated and secured in position. The rods should be wired at about nine inches from the

roof. This permit's leaves and growths now being unduly pressed against the glass. Fork over the burder, adding blood and bone manure, or compost if available. Failing this, super, four ounces. to each square yard, can be applied. It is hopeless growing tomatoes under the vines; but some will succeed in tubs or tins where the vine foliage is scanty. Maidenhair ferns should be shaken • out and repotted, using a fifty-fifty mixture of compost and loose soil. Geraniums, fuchsias and crassula should be cut back and repotted, and similar attention to palms, aspidistras, and other foliage plants may be advisable. Rhododendrons These adaptable shrubs must be classed among the attractive subjects of the garden. They amply repay some car© in the selection of the position and soil for planting. Being forest plants, they do not relish hot conditions unless given shade or root coolness, for nowhere do they do better than in a shaded gully or within range of moisture. They abhor a clay cold soil, therefore should be given as near to bush soil as possible with no lime. The rhododendrons mostly grown here are what are known as hybrid varieties, being raised from various species, and are popular because of their hardiness and freedom of flowering’. The Himilayan type as represented by Fragrantissima and Countess of Haddington are very beautiful, but should be given better shelter conditions. In recent years there has been great development in Britain and in the Dominion in the raising of new hybrids from seed, but propagation of them is-a slow business,. further retarded by the war. Some day soon it is hoped that that fine hybrid, Pink Perle, will be available. It is a gorgeous rich pink and a good doer. Newer sorts worth having such as Britannia, Ascot Brilliant, Peter Koster, and Marquis 'of Lothian, will supplant the older sorts. Preferred colours are pinks and reds, and by using Arboreum and Aucklandii as parents, notable progress towards size and colouring has been achieved. The Viburnums The lauristinus is still a popular shrub for its decorative value in winter. It belongs to the large family of viburnums, coming largely from China, Korea and Japan. Flowering just now is V. Carlesi, a deciduous species from Korea, and bearing flat trusses of pinky white scented flowers that are very decorative, reminding one of miniature daphne blooms. The English raised Burkwoodi is a hybrid from Carlesi with larger trusses, flowering a month later. The wellknown guelder rose V. Opulus will will soon be making its snowball effect, and it with the Japanese species, plica turn and japonicum, give good autumn leaf effects with plenty of showy berries to enhance the value of the family.