GARDENING NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 15 December 1921, Page 43

GARDENING NOTES

(By Me. J. Joyce, Landscape Gardener, Christchurch.)

WORK FOR THE MONTH OF DECEMBER.

The Vegetable Garden. — is a rather trying month for vegetable culture owing to the hot winds which frequently prevail. It is necessary, therefore, to have a ready supply of water to counteract the unusual dryness of the soil thus occasioned. Liquid manure will be found very beneficial to the growing crops of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and all such green vegetables. If available, a mulch of fine rotted manure will prove efficacious, and prevent evaporation of moisture from the soil, while an occasional hoeing will also have a good effect. Keep up a supply of plants by seed-sowing in small quantities. Vegetable marrow, pumpkin, and hardy cucumber seed should be sown without delay in suitable well-manured situations and watered occasionally. Tomatoes may be planted out now without risk. Sow peas and French’ beans to keep up a succession of crops; with regard to peas it is time to repeat the sowing when the previousone is appearing above the surface of the ground. There should be a continued sowing of radish, lettuce, and mustard and cress for salads, also onion seed for pujling when young. The Flower Garden. All bedding-out should be completed by now, and the chief work in the flower garden will be the mowing of lawns and keeping weeds in check by a constant use of the hoe during fine weather. Use weed-killer on the walks: it saves labor and prevents the paths from being broken up. Keep all spent flowers cut away to allow the shoots to make fresh growth and prolong the flowering. Prune back flowering shrubs in like manner, and thus provide for fresh growth for successive blossoming. All shoots springing from the base of roses require to be cut away. All grafted trees should be similarly treated, and those, as well as budded need careful attention to obtain the best results. Water the roses with plenty of liquid manure to secure a good display of hearty blooms. Care should be taken when cutting the blooms. One is often tempted to cut a finely developed bloom growing in the heart of a collection of buds, with the result that the buds have to go along with it, thus losing a number for the sake of one. It is far better to cut an isolated bloom and allow the buds to fully develop and beautify the garden. Do not cut away any of the leaves of bulbs until they turn yellow, allowing them to remain on strengthens the bulb for the following season’s flowering. Although chrysanthemums will grow in any good soil they require attention. They should be trained to a trellis or stakes and supplied with liquid manure occasionally, and have the young shoots cut off from the bottom of the plant. Dahlias require to be tied to stakes and also treated with liquid manure at frequent intervals. A Palmerston North Standard representative has been shown a lock of wool measuring 46in in length, taken from a hermit crossbred sheep on a station at Wanstead, Hawke’s Bay, The wool represents a growth of seven years. The animal lived in a gully, and each year was shorn by a shepherd, who left a patch of wool seven years ago which he did not touch in the successive seasons until recently, when the lock, on being measured, was found to be the length stated.