GARDEN MEMORANDA FOR JULY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 204, 2 July 1878, Page 3

GARDEN MEMORANDA FOR JULY.

WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR THE AKAROA MAIL*

General Eemaeks,

The Instructions of last month may still be acted upon, only it must be borne in mind that all the strictly winter work ehould be at once completed, and preparations made for next season's crops. A plan should be arranged so that the ground may be sown or planted with quite a different crop to that which grew upon it the last season, except in the case of onions, which need not have a change of ground. Providing a good dressing of manure be given annually, the same position may be allotted to this crop. In making arrangements foi rotation of crops or the order in which crops should follow each other, the following rules should be attended to :—l. Each crop should be as dissimilar as possible from its predecessor. 2. The exuvise of the preceding crop should not be offensive to its successor. 3. A spindle-rooted crop should succeed a fibrous-rooted crop, or vice versa. Take advantage of the hard ground after frost for wheeling on manure to those portions of the garden that are to be dressed. The beds that were prepared for asparagus in May or June should have the plants put in them about the end of the month, and about the same time put in a few early potatoes, and a small sowing of lettuce, radish, onion, mustard, and cress, and a good sowing of peas, using two varieties, one early and another second early sort; although sown on the same day, they will succeed each other in coming in for use. Sow also beans of the broad or long pod varieties. Cover seakale for blanching, and plant Jerusalem artichokes, the rows two feet apart, and about fifteen inches in the rows. Fruit Garden. The directions given last month will, in a great measure, apply to this. Planting, pruning, and training should all be finished without delay ; especially does this apply to vines, which, if left late before being pruned, suffer from what is called bleeding, or a flowing of the rising sap, than which nothing is more injurious. Where fruit trees are infested with scale or blight, a good dressing with a solution of fresh slaked lime, soot, and soft soap brushed on, about the consistency of paint, will be found very beneficial in checking the spread of these pests. Flower Garden. An 3' alterations in this department should be completed without delay; this will include the planting of roses, shrubs, formation of new beds, planting edgings, &c. The end of the month will be a good time to prune roses, and also to sow a few hardy annuals, such as saponariacalabrica, the various neinophilas and lupins, sweet peas, and many other of the hardiest kinds. Cuttings of roses, Jemon-scented verbena, and most of tlie deciduous shrubs will still succeed if planted at once. Any of the herbaceous plants which it may be desirable to increase, or the clumps of which are grown too large, may now be taken up and divided ; the same may also be said of many kinds of lilies. Look well to tho bulbs that are just coming i through the ground, and keep them free from weeds, and give the soil a slight stirring round them.