BIGGER AND BETTER BLOOMS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 45, 16 November 1940, Page 16

BIGGER AND BETTER BLOOMS

Summer Stimulants To Use

Even though your soil is in good condition, much can be gained by feeding your plants now for bigger find better blooms. Manuring at planting time and. in the case of perennial things, autumn mulches of manure, supply the food needs in a general way; but every plant ini's special requirements, and it. Is these that feeding meets.

Ten-week stocks, for instance, are great lovers of that particular form of nitrogen you find in dried blood manure. It acts slowly, and as a result the leaves become covered with an attractive whitish bloom, giving every flower its maximum size, clearest colour and doubling the life of the display. From now on till the spikes are fully open, hoe into the beus at weekly intervals a loz. a square yard dressing of this valuable fertilizer. If the weather is dry, water immediately after each application, a course which must be followed with all the artificials mentioned in this article.

.Snapdragons also need feeding now. Some of the modern kinds are amazingly vivid if you assist by feeding weekly and alternately from now till the spikes are at their best, with quar-ter-strength liquid manure and halfstrength soot water. Apply a gallon of each a square yard.

Suspend feeding after the zenith is reached till the first spikes fade. Then resume it on the lines indicated till the second lot are fully out.

Oriental poppies offer unequalled brilliance in the garden if they are fed every five days till the huge blooms are fully out, with quarter-strength liquid manure and lime water (2oz. of freshly-slaked lime in a gallon of water). Give these stimulants alternately six pints of the former and four pints of the latter a dose. Lime water must be included to prevent the outer green envelope from dropping prematurely and revealing a languid, short-lived, poorly-coloured bloom. Of recent years the Himalayan poppy, Mecouopsis baileyi, has found its way into many gardens. Its sky-blue silken blooms studded with golden anthers are a great attraction. The first essential for these is to mulch round the plants with a two-inch layer of granulated peat or fine leaf-mould, leaving a strip of bare soil near the main stems to allow you to feed weekly and alternately with half-strength soot water (four pints a plant a dose) and sulphate of potash solution (loz. to the gallon of water, and two pints a plant a dose), from now till the end of the flowering period. To get the best effect with scarlet salvias, hoe in at fortnightly intervals, from now till the end of the season, loz. a square yard dose of superphosphate of lime. Between each two applications feed fortnightly with halfstrength soot water at one gallon a square yard, and the scarlet will lose all hint of that dull magenta and shine as though it bad been burnished.