Gardening Notes.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1813, 29 March 1886, Page 3

Gardening Notes.

A very simple furaigator may be made in this way: —Take a small 4 inch pot, place it mouth down and put into the hole of the bottom a small piece of lighted candle, put over it a 7-inch pot iu such a way that the light will nearly reach the hole in the bottom, place oh that a pot with old tobacco leaves but the mouth up, and if the holes are in a line and the light does not touch the tobacco, but is near enough |to make it burn s’owly, you will have a good fumigator. The graceful, deep, green, dropping grass known as Isolepis gracilis, may be propagated very easily. Take an old plant and divide it into as many small pieces as possible, afterwards potting-off into small pots in cocoa nut fibre refuse and sand. Weakly and weatherbeaten evergreens are improved by pruning at the proper season, but the leader must he cut at the same time. Trees and shrubs planted thickly at first must be carefully thinned out when they begin to crowd each other. Persian insect powder dusted plants will kill the black Aphis on Chrysanthums. For destroying moss or lichen on fruit trees, there is nothing better than lime thinned to the consistency of white-wash and strained through a fine sieve or thin canvas, to exclude all rough sediment. It can then be applied to the trees by means of a syringe. Strawberry growing is carried on very largely in England. Gardening Illustrated says, Mr H. E. Vinson, of Swanley in Kent, had 500 acres last yeiir which yielded about 1000 tons. In the busy season he had over 300 pickers. The worst fruit is made into jam on the spot. If celery is attacked by the fly, sprinkle the leaves with soot, and pick off those most affected and bnrn. Nothing pays better than an annual washing of the stems ol fruit trees. The oldfashioned lime wash with sulphur and some soot or clay to keep down the glare of the lime, is very good. Fringed petunias are coming into popuiatity. The edges of the Corolla are fringed like some pinks, and being double are very pretty.