GARDEN NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, 11 August 1932, Page 13

GARDEN NOTES

WORK FOR THE WEEK. THE ELOWER GARDEN. Pruning roses should be got tinder way m soon as possible. Replace any old worn-out varieties by some new sorts. After pruning, the plants should be sprayed and the beds dug over. Conifer hedges, such as Macrocarpa and Lawsoniana, can be trimmed. Hand weed between anemones and ranunculi. Stir or lightly fork. over the soil between the plants. Proceed with the digging and replanting of the herbaceous borders. THE GREENHOUSE.' Give ample ventilation so as not to excite growth too quickly. Look over begonia and gloxinia bulbs. Shake them out of the soil and clean off all rubbish. If there are signs of insects or decay dust with a mixture of flowers of sulphur ten parts, arsenate of lead powder one part.. Prepare soil for cuttings and seedlings. This should be ready beforehand;, it means better work than when left to the last minute. See that seed boxes and labels are ready. Sowings of begonia and gloxinia ■ can be made. Cover the seed pot with glass and shade from the sun. Do not water overhead. THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. Prepare ground for spring crops. * An extra forking over will be an advantage. Newly sown peas should have a little soil drawn up to them as soon as they are a couple of inches high. Ute sticks to the dwarfest peas; they will keep the plants off the soil and keep down mildew. Give the rhubarb bed a,good dressing of manure. It will stand almost anything within reason. Plantings of cabbage and cauliflowers can be made. Earth up potatoes as they come through the soil. Make further plantings. Sow seed of parsnips and brussel sprouts. Early sowing is essential for these two subjects. Sowings of lettuce, radish, beetroot can be made. Onion planting can be done now. A firm but rich soil is required. Do not plant deep. Only the roots should be covered. THE FRUIT GARDEN. Continue, to get forward with the pruning. Spraying with caustic soda wash and strong winter sprays should be done as soon as possible. Any fruit tree planting should be done now. Prepare the soil well when planting fruit trees. Deep digging so as to break up the subsoil is essential. The planting of bush fruits, such as gooseberries, etc., should be hastened, as these start to grow with the first warm days. PREPARING FOR SEED GROWING. .The conditions under which tender plants are raised from seed in the early season are often the cause of a lot of failures, and often the blame is attached

to the seedsman who supplied the seed. In greenhouses and frames a free circulation of air should be maintained, and although sufficient moisture is necessary an excess must be guarded against. The conditions in a greenhouse or frame which must be maintained to raise seedlings is conducive to the growth of fungi, the spores of which are sure to. be present. To prevent such, as much as possible, only good, clean, fresh soil should be used, and manure, no matter how decayed, should be cut down to the minimum. The sterilising of the soil for sowing seed in is to be recommended. A large quantity will not be required, and it is easily sterilised by putting it on an iron plate or an old frying pan over a fire. The soil should be thoroughly moist, but not wet, and should be stirred well during the time it is over the fire, so that the heat may be equalised throughout the mass. A temperature of 200 deg. Fahr., if continued for 10 to 15 minutes, will be quite sufficient to destroy fungas, spores, weed seeds, insects and their eggs, and the seed will be found to germinate more evenly. As the fertility of the soil is checked for a time after sterilising, increasing to a greater degree later, it is best to sterilise the soil a week or ten days before it is required for use. If the soil is good sweet turf that has been stacked for a time, and kept dry, which in itself has a sterilising effect, it is not so necessary to resort to heating. A very general cause of failure with half-hardy plants that are raised from seed under glass, is sowing too early-,) and too thickly, keeping too long in the seed por before pricking, out, and not giving sufficient room for development. MANURING LIGHT SOILS. The question is often asked what is the best method of manuring an extra light or sandy soil. .The chief want of such soils is a plentiful and continuous supply of humus; this is necessary as a retaining agent for moisture and of any excess of soluble fertilising ingredients. Nothing would equal large quantities of farmyard manure, but in most places such is an impossibility. The next best method is to dig in plenty of green vegetable matter; this can be partly done by collecting any fallen leaves, etc. The sowing of a soiling crop such as mustard, oats, or similar crop, and digging it in when about a foot or so high is the method of increasing the humus in a soil. A very light soil should never be left without a crop. As soon as a crop is taken off, a soiling crop of mustard or oats should be sown and dug in just before the ground is wanted. Light soil left without a crop loses a certain amount of manurial constituents throug being washed out by rain. When the crops are just through the ground give a dressing at the rate of 2oz to the square yard of the following mixture: 1 part sulphate of ammonia, 2J parts superphosphate. Bonemeal may be added to the soil a few days before the crop is sown. Ground manured after this plan would soon improve in moisture; and retentive properties. THE ORCHARD. Continue the planting of deciduous fruit trees. Care should be taken to I have the soil thoroughly sweetened and aerated, the roots should bo well [trimmed, and the young trees firmly planted. During the time that elapses between the removal of the tree from the nursery and planting in the orchard, practically the whole of the fibrous root I system has been destroyed. Thoroughly I trim back the strong roots and some of the thinner ones; this will induce quick I healing, and allow the tree to make a

new root system for itself. In trimming or cutting the roots, all cuts should have a downward face; this will allow of a downward growth or roots from the callus. A cut with an upward surface will tend to produce suckers. HOW TO USE FOWL MANURE. Fowl manure furnishes fertilising elements in concentrated form and should be mixed with less active material to increase bulk. It can be mixed with wood ashes, using one to three parts of manure to one of ashes. It can also be mixed with soil in. the proportion of one of manure to three of. soil, and the compost used as a topdressing to shrubs, vegetables,'roses and other plants. HINT FOR SWEET PEA GROWERS. In the early spring, when slugs arc troublesome, it is often difficult to keep them at bay with soot and lime, as the frequent rains soon wash them away. The best remedy is to catch them, and a simple, cheap and effective slug trap can be made as follows: Scoop out a hole about four inches in diameter and two or three inches deep. Place a little bran in the hole, then cover it with a piece of slate or tile to keep it dry. This attracts the slugs from the sweet peas, and they hide under the tiles or slates where they can be collected each morning and destroyed. The bran should be replaced by fresh from time to time, as when it gets mouldy it ceases to attract them. Set these traps at distances of, say, eight or ten feet along the rows. . HOW TO APPLY BONEMEAL. . The question is often asked, how to apply bonemeal and such manures when planting or sowing plants or seeds? An experiment was tried some time ago as to whether the best results were obtained by scattering the manure broadcast, previous to sowing or planting, or sowings in drills at the time of, I the sowing or planting. The results , were decidedly in favour of the sowing in the drills at the time of planting. This even applied to stable manure when used for growing crops of vegetables and potatoes. The best method is to draw the drills for sowing, and then to scatter a liberal dressing along the bottom, of the drill before putting in the seed. When planting, it is best also to draw a shallow drill, scatter the bonedust, etc., and then plant. By this method the plant or seed gets directly in touch with the manure supplied, and less is used because there is no manure put on the surplus ground between the plants. PILLAR ROSES. There are many ways in which roses can be utilised for the decoration of a garden beyond the ordinary every-day method of planting dwarf roses in beds or borders. To grow some of the more vigorous climbers as pillar roses is a worthy change. All that is required is a good stOut pole, about ten feet above the ground, or if a pyramid is required three poles put in at an angle, so that the tops meet. The plant should be put at the foot and the growths trained up the pole. This is a fine way to grow almost any of the Wichuriana roses, such as Dorothy Perkins-, Lady Gay. etc. A row on each side of a road or path at intervals of about six feet is a picture, especially if the colours are arranged so as to harmonise. In the centre a rose bed or, as specimens on

a lawn, a well-grown pillar rose, is a fitting addition. The plants should be summer pruned, and the growth thinned out.- Five or six growths are quite sufficient to allow to each pole. NEWLY PLANTED TREES. It is rarely necessary or advisable to manure fruit trees when newly planted. The lifting and transplanting will have so damaged the roots that when the tree is put into the ground it has no roots capable of utilising or absorbing any plant food, and for a time it really has to live upon sustenance stored in the stem. The first thing a newly-planted tree has to do is to heal the ends of the broken and cut roots, and then produce fresh root hairs. Manure is of no value to it at this time and actually may retard the healing process. Once, however, the wounds have healed and new root hairs are produced the plant can absorb plant food, and it is then that it will benefit from manure. It will be found that if liquid or other manure is supplied about three months after planting the benefits will be seen, but as a rule it is quite safe to assume that it is not till the year after planting that a fruit tree requires manure. GLOXINIAS. Although gloxinias are generally regarded as hothouse plants, they may be successfully grown under - cooler conditions, but they flower later. The old corms need restarting either in July or August. A week or two will not make much difference cither way. At present the old bulbs will be in pots on a shelf or laid on their sides beneath the staging where they were put when the drying off was completed. Some others will be in pans or boxes, which size they have readied as seedlings or as young corms rooted from leaf cuttings. The plan to adopt with gloxinias is to start them in a box of leaf-mould and then pot them up when the top growth is making headway and tne roots have well worked their way into the leafmould. A layer of ordinary leaves is put in the bottom of the box and over this is sifted some decayed leaf-mould through a quarter-inch sieve. The bulbs are planted slightly apart and just deep enough to leave the tops just showing above the leaf mould. The following is a plan which, if adopted, is successful. Sow just a pinch of seed each year and prick out the cuttings three inches apart, leaving them flower in the same box or pan. It will then be seen what kind of flowers they have and whether they will be worth keeping. The best are then marked, and if room is limited only these need be saved. ENGLISH WILD FLOWERS. BEAUTY AND LEGEND. Some of the interesting legendary history associated with British flora was recounted by Mr. M. J. Barnett, superintendent of City parks, gardens, and reserves, in an address given to members of the Canterbury Horticultural Society the other evening. Mr. Barnett was speaking on British wild flowers, and he told his listeners of a herb which the ancients used as a lovepotion, of a flower the first buds of which, legend said, gave the owner immunity from disease and death, of a plant which secreted a deadly fluidaconite —and resembled, with fatal results, the horse-radish, and of the well- ' known King Cup (marsh marigold), which had been recommended to politicians because of a legend associated

with it—that to wear a petal acted as a deterrent to the wearers making unkind remarks about anyone. Many of the flowers in our gardens, and even the carrot and the cabbage in the vegetable garden, were British wild flowers, or their progeny, improved by cultivation and selection, said Mr. Barnett. Silver birch and many of our ornamental trees —the elm and the oak—were natives of Britain, while there were still wild flowers growing in Britain which after cultivation would improve New Zealand gardens. The British flora, in contrast to the little variation in New Zealand flora, gave all sorts of colours. The speaker did not wish to belittle New Zealand flora, but there was something about the British countryside and its wild flowers that appealed very much to the visitor. Anyone brought up in the English countryside, seeing it in all its beauty, could never forget it. ASSOCIATION WITH HISTORY. What also appealed in the British flora was its association with the history and literature of the nation. Mr. Barnett then described the nomenclature and peculiarities of many well-known British wild flowers. The marsh marigold was Shakespeare’s “merrybuds,” he said, and grew in the meadows and along the banks of streams. A useful htig-plant, it was well worth a place in any garden. The marsh marigold had close alliance with the buttercup, but in some countries was known as the “water-blob,” a name given it because of a habit of soaking up so much water. The lesser celandine was also known as the “figwort.” Water crowfoot covered ponds and slow z streams, and was found in some parts of New Zealand. A flower brought to Great Britain by the Romans, the wildwood anemone, bore the legend that those who could pick the first flowers would thereby ward off sickness and death. Known otherwise as the “windflower,” it grew in great drifts underneath the hazels, or in the woodlands in spring. QUAINT NAMES. Monkshood, so called because of the similarity of the shape of the flower to that of the hoods worn by monks, had a sinister reputation. Its roots contained a deadly poison—aconite —and since the plant resembled horse-radish, it was. sometimes mistaken for such, with fatal results. The colour of the flower was a pretty blue. The wild clematis of Britain was not comparable with the New Zealand flower of the same name, Mr. Barnett said. Seen in the roads and lanes in summer in areat profusion, it had become known as' “traveller’s joy.” Its fluffy seed was called “Adam’s Beard,” and, often, “Virgin’s Bower.” Another beautiful English flower, the white waterlily, was known as “Queen of the Still Waters.”

The speaker remembered having seen the red poppy, known in Britain as the corn-poppy, growing in the cornfields on the Sussex wold. Other wellknown British flowers the speaker described were lady’s smock (which grew in great drifts of purplish colour in the spring in open pastures), the common wallflower (supposedly introduced by the Romans), the rock rose (which grew in chalky land), the dog violet, the viola tricolour, or wild pansy (used for a love potion), milk-wort, musk mallow (used medicinally at one time), the dog rose, meadow-sweet, wild strawberry, wild apple, true blackthorn,. St. John’s wort, crane’s bell, and true woodsorrel.