EASILY-MADE PLANT LABELS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19512, 10 June 1933, Page 11

EASILY-MADE PLANT LABELS.

Thin sheets of lead cut into strips 3in by lin make good plant labels. Use three thicknesses of blotting paper for a pad, and write on the label with a soft pencil, pressing sufficiently hard to make an impression. Afterwards pierce a hole in one end. Even when the pencil marks have disappeared the identation will remain. Should the label be needed for further use, place it on a hard surface and rub on the back with a pencil. This will restore the surface for further marking.

Another method is to cut the label with a narrower strip at one end. When attaching the label to the plant pass the strip round the stem and through a slit made in the label. By this means the narrow strip will adjust itself to the increasing diameter of the plant stem. ROSE BEDS. There is a difficulty nowadays for every rose grower to obtain stable manure for use on his rose beds. Certainly there are several locally compounded manures that are excellent, 1 and can be relied upon as quite up to i the standard they should be, and as a j general manure for garden purposes are to recommended (says the Auckland ‘Star’). When, however, one 1 special ses in roses It is an advantage J to have a mixture made up more suit- | able to its particular requirements. Of all mixtures that have stood the test of time and received the approbation of rosarians generally, there is none to equal what is known as Tonks manure. Th s was compounded by Mr. E. Tonks. 8.C.L., and was first published in the ‘Ro-arian Year Book’ for 1889. The mixture was compounded from an analysis of rose ashes: Superphosphate, 12 parts; nitrate of potash, 10 parts; sulphate of magnesia, 2 parts: sulphate of lime, 8 parts. The manure is to be applied in early spring, immediately after pruning. It should be cattered on the ground at the rate of 4oz per square yard, or actually about 4oz to each plant. Large plants can be given an extra 2dz. A further application can be given after the first flowering is over, that is, about m:dsummer. The manure should be used freshly mixed, as if kept it is inclined to cake.