GARDEN NOTES.

Shannon News, 6 May 1927, Page 4

GARDEN NOTES.

In our favoured climate there is always something to brighten the garden,, all the year round, if we study the habits of various flowers and utilize all the ' warm sunny corners for those things which give: a little bloom during the dullest months of the year. Against a wall, even: if under the overhanging eaves of a! bungalow, the useful antirihiniums will flower very early as they do not object to a dry spot. Sunny nooks filled with Iceland poppies or the sweet litttle annual linarias will • make a good early show, also the calendula marigolds, and most of the violas. Wallflowers whjen grown in warm places, are early bloomers with mignonette arid, for-get-me-nots, while, if shurbs are chosen for these nooks they should be comprised of those varieties which bloom when flowers are scarce.

The present is the best of all times to 1 ' plan and make a new garden. However small your ; plot may be where a vacant space exists a flower should be grown. - A beautiful garden is the result of hard work, and. unless constant efforts are used in attending to the growth of plants it is useless to attempt to make an effective garden. But at the same tirqe it is wonderful what a few minutes each day will (To in providing a few small borders with the flowers we love best.

Muscles which are seldom, if ever, used by many, are brought into play with the exercise of gardening. This leads many ■ people to! the erroneous idea that the work is! too-strenuous, failing to realise that this is something that entirely disappears with practice, by keeping at it, a little at a time.

Routine Work in the Garden.

To enumerate all that could be done in the garden would entail too much space. Hedges may be planted, all evergreen shrubs, cuttings struck of many shrubs, hardy annuals to sow, perennial subjects to plant and divide where needful, lawns tp topdress, drainage schemes to put

into operation, garden plots to manure, hedges to prune, new borders to make, or! alterations to existing ones, and a general tidying up of the garden at this time of the, year lessens the spring work considerably. ;

Much the same thing-will apply to the vegetable garden. After sowings have been made of onion, carrot, winter spinach, beetroot, and silver beet, the balance of the: ground should be manured or sown with a green crop for future digging, under. Plant strawberries, and any other plants available such as cabbage, cauliflower, leek, celery, and lettuce. Aluminium Sulphate as a Spray For Slugs..

Slugs, as all gardeners agree, are among the - ' worst enemies we have, to contend with, and it will he of interest to hear of one gardener’s experience from the use 5 of the, above remedy. The gardener in question used one pound of aluminium sulphate (pure) not alum dissolved in a gallon of hot water. This mixture was sprayed on a bed of choice delphini-, urns which the slugs are very fond of. This was sprayed over the beds > for three evenings in succession during the autumn. No slugs were seen from that time onwards. In the spring when slugs appeared in appailing numbers raid chewed off' almost everything in the garden, this particular plot escaped and the delphiniums made wonderful progress during the wet spring. This remedy would be well worth a trial, and if found aif effectual in our own gardens, would save many-a nightly visit with the lantern in order to try and protect some of our most cherished plants from the ravages of the slug.

Farmyard Manure.

Many owners of small garden plots state their inability to obtain farmyard manure for the garden, and a | common query is, what to use in I place of this. To answer questions ■ of this type is not easy, as the sub- ; ject of manuring is a somewhat complicated one. The chemical elements we have to replace iare nitrogen, phospohric acid, and potassium. Tf the supply of these three elements was the only benefit to be gained from the application of farmyard manure it would appear that we could easily obtain some other material which contained the necessary elements for us e as a substitute for it. A mixture could be made up of sulphate of ammonia, superphosphate of lime, and sulphate of potash in suitable proportions. This mixture would certainly produce good crops under certain conditions, ' but there are other benefits to be gained .Xrom the' use of farmyard manure. . The action of farmyard «ianure is twofold. First it has a chemical action in replacing certain .amounts of the three above mentioned chemi-

cals. Secondly it has a physical action on the soil. This physical action is of importance because it is not so clearly understood as the chemical action. We know from experience that good crops* can. be git»wn almost indefinitely if I we use liberal supplies of farmyard manure, but we find that by using artificial manures alone the crop remains good only as long as the organic (humus) content of the soil does not drop below a certain point, Therefore substitutes for farmyard manure must contain supplies of nitrogen, phosphate, potash, and also organic matter. The fertilising of a soil depends to a large extent upon the amount of humus it contains. Poor land contains two per cent, to five per cent, of humus, fair land, five; to nine per cent, good soil nine to eighteen per cent. When the humus content rises above twenty-five per cent., the soil is generally acid and only suitable for suitable crops. Under normal soil conditions humus gradually decays, and in course of time disappears altogether. ,

h’armyard manure in the soil becomes in time, humus, and yearly additions tend to keep the humus content of a soil constant. To understand the importance of humus upon the physical condition of the soil, In the first place it binds a soil together, giving cohesion, which is important in light soils; on heavy soils it prevents the clay particles Vrom becoming too closely packed together. Secondly on light soils it retains moist* ure and holds up the water in the soil, instead of the water escaping out of the soil by drainage it is held in a position where it can be used by plant roots; the presence of humus in heavy soils allows 1 water to enter and move about freely. Thirdly, the presence of humus aerates a soil, keeps it sweet, and tends to promote a good tilth. A good example of this third set of properties is well illustrated in the preference shown by gardeners for a good-rotted turf for potting soil. Good potting soil IS permeated with the dead roots of grasses, the soil is kept open by the presence of the decaying roots, and air can get in and out easily.