THE GARDEN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 50, 29 January 1932, Page 4

THE GARDEN.

Note* ere published under this head: tee invited to send in questions relating tdvioe; answers will be published with

THE FLOWER GARDEN. i It is rather surprising to those*who Jiave used “the hoe to find liow well their plants, are doing in the dry weather. One gardener remarked the other day that he found .that his plants were'doing better this season than they had ever done before, and he had only used water when planting out. The truth, of the matter is that if the soil and sub-soil is , properly 'prepared before any plants are put In it acts as a storehouse for water, end when the. soil has been kept well Cultivated on the 71 surface the only loss Is through the leaves of the plants themselves. Bleep all tall flowering plants in the garden carefully staked.. A little extra time given to. this work is well repaid when a storm comes along with rain and .wind. Unless they have been carefully, tied up.-they jnav be broken down at any time. v When sowing seeds under the cover of glass at this time of the year. the glass should be heavily shaded, either with some shading material or other Stuff tacked up to the rafters. The direct rays of the sun are too hot and strong for the’ tiny seedling plants and unless'ithby are well shaded they, are liable to be burnt up. Even seeds sown.in,the open ground want

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a little shade before they are strong enough to stand direct sunshine, and this can be provided with macrocarpa branches or bracken fern.

All climbing plants are making good growth now and these growths should be tied into place as they grow, rather than be left for a later period. Climbing roses of the Wichuriana class can be pruned now by having all the old wood cut right ! away at the base of the plants and the new shoots of this season tied in to take tlieir place. The old worn-out shoots are too liable to become' badly, mildewed if left in, but the young shoots will grow away strongly. Keep dahlias well tied up and disbild the shoots as required. When the plants are growing well it is a good plan to keep the number of shoots that are to flower down to reasonable numbers. A good healthy specimen can carry anything from six to a dozen blooms at one time, while a weaker plant would find it difficult to carry six. This is a good time to make up a pansy bed for planting in March or April. These plants will bloom well for a long time and therefore it stands to reason that they will take a lot of goodness out of the soil. To make up a bed cboose a sunny but

sheltered position and dig it to a depth of at least two spits, working in some cow manure with the lower spits and mixing it up well with the soil. Then give the surface a good lining and leave the bed to settle for a month or six weeks before planting.

" CARNATIONS. ; Carnations are plants that are to be found in almost every garden, and where they do well there are few flowers that can compare with them for lasting quality when cut. This is one of the-points that makes them such general favourites; another is the bluish grey foliage which harmonises with other plants in the border. These plants are esentially lovers of lime and without plenty of lime in some form or another they will not do well. • The best way to give them lime is by scraping the mortar from old bricks, especially those with a certain amount of soot on them, from old chimneys. Break this up finely and work it through a small sieve, the finer the better; then work a good double handful into the soil round the plants. If there is not enough soot in it, add a few pounds to a bucketful of sifted mortar and mix it together. The life of a plant can be considerably lengthened by layering some of the side grass, as the shoots from the main stem are called, and leaving them to grow with the old plant. If new oeds are wanted the layered plants can be severed from the parent plant and planted up as soon as they have formed a nice bunch of roots, at the part where the cut was made. When making up a new bed never use fresh manure in any shape or form. Fresh turf put in the ground and chopped is the best, but, failing this, some old well-rotted manure from an old frame or hotbed will do. RANUNCULUS. Another flower that is becoming more popular is the ranunculus, and the reason is, not far to seek. They can be got in almost any colour or combination of colours, and they are splendid ns cut flowers, lasting l ' fully a week when picked at the right stage. They are plants that will well repay the cultivator to go to some trouble over to get the best results. In the first place, a suitable bed should be made for them. Select a sunny position in the garden, and if the soil is very heavy it is better to remove i about a foot of it in depth and replace j with a mixture of two parts loam, one : part good, well-rotted manure or leaf mould, and one part of good, sharp, | clean sand such as one sifts from gravel. Even then, take care that the bed is raade ave or six inches above the surrounding soil level and allow it to settle down before planting. Light soils would be benefited if a good dtal of well-rotted manure was dug into them. Humus is what they want to help to hold moisture. The tubers can be set opt from March onwards, but if the bed is not ready when you want to plant start the plants in a box of good soil, giving them enough room to be able to lift them with a good ball of earth when they have grown above the ground. The claw-like tubers should always be planted with the tubers pointing downwards using a little sand round the base. Plant about two inches deep and about six inches apart. LAWNS. A common complaint is “Our lawn is very weedy and coarse grasses are taking possession. Can we do anything snort of digging up and replacing the grass?” To this we can say “yes.” It is not necessary to tlir'up a lawn to get a good sole of £rass, on it. To go about bringing a lawn back to health and vigour begin by cutting the grass as short as possible and then spread lime over it at the rate of .one sack to a full-sized tennis lawn. Brush the lime into the grass and either give it a good watering or wait until it rains heavily.. The main thing is to get the lime washed into the soil. j After a’ rain or watering cut and roll j the grass and weeds down as flat. as '

possible; then the proper treatment for the destruction of weeds and coarse grasses may be begun. Get some sand, which must be kept dry and have no small stones in it, and to every seven pounds' by weight add one pound of sulphate of ammonia, mixing the two thoroughly. Mark off the lawn . in strips three feet wide and thirty yards long. The dressing of sulphate of ammonia and sand should then be spread evenly over this amount of surface and well brushed in with a coarse broom. The next strip can be treated in the same way until the whole of the lawn has been covered. It will take about fourteen pounds of the sulphate to cover a full sized lawn for. one dressing. After thb first application has been put on it should be watered within the next forty-eight hours if it does not rain. Then the lawn can be cut and rolled again and it will attain a very burnt appearance; however, this will only last for a week or two when the grass will begin to grow again. In three weeks’ time give it another dressing of sulphate and sand in the same mixture as recommended before. This time it will not look so much burnt and after brushing must be kept cut as closely as possible. A third or even a fourth application may be necessary, but by this time you will find that the weeds are disappearing and that you have got a nice green sward. There may oe a few “old man” weeds that will not disappear and these must he treated to. a special dose of pure sulphate of ammonia. To give this, first bruise the centre of the plant’ with the heel and drop a pinch on top of it, or a drop of benzine put on from an oil can will do the trick. It must be remembered that it is necessary to have lime in the soil before the treatment recommended above can be expected to succeed. The above treatment will quickly improve the surface and will encourage the finer grasses to take charge. In the spring a dressing of blood and bone will help the grass along if given at the rate of two ounces to the square yard. A QUESTION.

“C.S.” says: “We have a border of our which is only in the making, and wish to plant with shrubs in tlie near future. We want something to fill it in the meantime and would like plants that would come to bloom very quickly. Would you advise planting roses amongst the shrubs and allowing them to grow into bus'hes i"ou could make a bordor quickly by filling the space with antirrihinums, choosing the taller growing varieties for the background and following these with the intermediate section and putting dwarf ones in front. The front of the border could bo planted with calendulas, which are very popular at the present time, and which come into bloom very quickly. The colours, being yellow to orange, could bo made to tone with the antirrihinums. As an alternative you could have antirrihinums at the back, Iceland poppies in the middle and violas in tne foreground. None of these ideas would prevent you marking out the ground and planting your shrubs amongst the border plants. A few might have to be . taken .up, but we do not think it would spoil any of the general effect and, what is more, you would have a gay border in the spring while the shrubs were about to crow. If the border is ready now get the plants in ns soon as possible. Planting up will help to mellow the ground and make it right for the shrubs. THE VEGTABLES.

Keep all growing vegetables well hoed and free from weeds, and if this is done there will not bo any need to use water except on lettuces, and, perhaps, celery. Celery can bo forced if wanted early, but in the majority of cases it is better to leave it to grow as naturally as possible until the weather gets cooler and moister. If 1 there are any signs of fly spray the | plants at once with “Blackleaf 40.” 'For rust, the plants can be sprayed I with Bordeaux at about halt the strength of the usual summer formula. They will have to bo sprayed two or three times at intervals of ten days or so. At this time of tho year it is very important that all such plants as peas, beans, marrows and cucumbers should be kept well picked so that they will carry on bearing for a long time to come; Marrow seed is so cheap that unless you have a. special variety you wish to save it is not worth whilo allowing any to ripen for seed purposes. In some gardens birds have been taking a very heavy toll of tomatoes and will attack them as soon as tho fruits begin to show colour. A few pans of fresh water placed about amongst the plants will save some of the fruit, but where they are very bad tho only way to check them is to poison some of the fruit that has been attacked.