FLOWER GARDEN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

FLOWER GARDEN

ROSE CUTTINGS Though autumn is the best time to put in rose cuttings, they are not usually available until pruning time and they can still be put in with success. The strong-growing kinds and climbers can be rooted easily and they make satisfactory plants on their own roots, but the weaker growers are better budded on to a vigorous stock. The wood selected for cuttings should be well ripened, of the previous season’s growth, and of reasonable thickness—something like a lead pencil or a little larger. Thin, twiggy shoots are of little use, and the thick, pithy, unripened ones are little better. The shoots should be cut into pieces from nine Inches to a foot in length, and wherever possible they should be taken with a heel, which is a piece of the older wood. The tissue is denser where it joins the old stem, and decay is not so likely to start, and roots are formed readily. When it is not possible to get a heel, the shoot is cut straight across, immediately below a bud or joint where the tissue is also denser than between the nodes. A well drained piece of ground should be selected for the cutting bed, a trench about six or nine inches deep is taken out with a spade, a layer of sand or lime rubble is put in the bottom and the cuttings set in this, deep enough to have three parts of their length buried when the trench is filled in. The soil is then tramped very firmly. By burying them deeply and tramping the soil firmly the cuttings arc kept from losing moisture until they form roots and can take up their own supplies of water and mineral plant food.

FLOWERING CHERRIES Most of the double flowering cherries come from Japan, where they are most extensively planted, it being stated that in the vicinity of the capital city 50,000 of one kind are planted in avenues and groves. They are mostly varieties of prunus serrulata, there being 130 named kinds, but with the Japanese names, the names given by botanists, and those renamed by European nurserymen the classification and nomenclature is a bit mixed, and it is not unusual to get the same plant with three different names. In addition to the various varieties of the Japanese cherry there is also a double variety of the gean or wild cherry; Prunus avium, which forms an upright quick growing tree with white flowers; Prunus cerasus fl. pl., the double Morello cherry, which has also double white flowers, but it is not such a stately tree as the gean. Prunus subhirtella is an attractive group of diminutive trees of which there are five or more distinct varieties. Of this group the most attractive is P.S. pendula, the weeping rosebud cherry, which forms a most desirable lawn specimen and when in flower is like a pink fountain.

Cherries are perfectly hardy and they like a rich open soil and a sunny position sheltered from the south-west winds, preferring a deep well drained loam overlying a clay subsoil. They like lime, and lime rubble with the soil at planting will be appreciated.

When established, they resent having their roots disturbed or damaged, and it is not desirable to dig anywhere near their roots with a spade though it is advisable to keep the soil clean and the surface cultivated for a distance of three feet from the stem, and a dusting of bone meal and a mulch of farmyard manure or grass mowing is an advantage during dry weather.

They are not rampant growers, and are therefore suitable for planting in small town gardens; they don’t require much pruning to keep them within reasonable bounds, and they form a suitable overgrowth for rhododendrons, heaths, hydrangeas, and other dwarf flowering shrubs. Any cutting back which is necessary can be done while the trees are in flower to provide material for house decoration, and in the winter any dead or decaying branches can be cut out, the wounds being coated with tar at once. Owing to tlie uncertainty of names it is difficult to recommend any particular variety, but J. E. Veitch is a very reliable one. It has drooping corymbs of large rose-pink flowers, often half hidden by the young coppery foliage. This is one of the earliest introductions from Japan, its native name being Fugenso. P. S. var. Hokusi is said to have a better constitution than Fugenso, and is certainly one of the best of the pink-flowered forms. Given a suitable site, Hokusi will make a shapely tree, with a broad, flattened crown, sometimes measuring 35 to 40 feet across. When a white flowering variety is desired P. S. Mount Fuji is a desirable variety. It has almost horizontal growth in the young stage forming a spreading tree. P. S. Sieboldii is very beautiful when in flower, and never makes a large tree. Its pink blossoms are borne in great profusion.