THE GARDEN

Southland Times, Issue 20081, 19 January 1927, Page 10

THE GARDEN

VEGETABLES

(By

“Horticola.”)

Work in the garden has been delayed considerably of late owing to the variable weather conditions. Most crops, however, are coming ahead rapidly, thanks to the moist, warji conditions, and gardeners are kept busy gathering and replacing crops, digging vacant ground and removing weeds.

Winter greens may still be planted out, preferably between the rows of potatoes or on vacant ground. No manure need be planted with this crop provided the ground was manured in the winter.

Small sowings of onions may still be made for salad purposes. The final crop of peas and beans should be planted immediately, otherwise*the season will be found to be too far gone. Usually we have tolerably fine weather in the autumn in Southland and the sowings should prove satisfactory if made shortly. It is possible that sowings of beans now will turn out better than the early crops checked by bad spring-time conditions. In a year like the present, when we are getting so much moisture and so little sun heat, both beans and peas have a tendency to grow unusually tall. It is usual to pinch out the tops of the broad beans when they have formed sufficient flowers to produce a reasonable crop. This will confine the energy of the plants to a limited number of pods which will mature better, and at the same time remove the black fly wffiich usually attacks the young growing points. Should the peas exceed the height of their stakes, they, too, can be pinched when they have formed a reasonable number of blossoms. This will reduce the number of pods, but those which are left will fill quicker. Runner beans can also be pinchert when they commence to flower, and to keep them within bounds they will have to be tipped once or twice a week during the period of maximum growth. Gardeners who desire to keep seeds oi good varieties of peas or beans should pluck the pods as soon as they are ripe and put them in a suitable receptacle to ripen completely.

GROWING PERIOD OF CROPS

For the purpose of systematising the cultivation of vegetables the grower needs to have a general idea of the time the crops take to reach the useful stage. Some of them require a long growing period, and others will become profitable in less than half the term. Cress and mustard are the quickest maturing vegetables in cultivation, and in rich, light loamy soil cuttings should be available in five or six weeks after the seeds are sown. From the time the seeds of radishes are sown, until the roots are fit for use, between six and eight weeks should be allowed. Turnips will occupy the plots for eight or ten weeks, and the seedlings of lettuce ought to be at the profitable stage in ten weeks. For the growth of other kinds of hardy vegetables the approximate periods may be reckoned as five months for Brussels sprouts, leeks and parsnips. These vegetables are the slowest maturing sorts. Carrots take nearly four months to produce edible roots, and it will be a little longer before peas and beans furnish pods. Apart from cress, lettuce, turnips and radish a growing term of from fourteen to sixteen weeks should be allowed.

FLOWERS

Keep all plants free of dead flowers, seed pods, and dead leaves. Such plants as carnations, scabious, daisies, geraniums, violas, etc., are anything but beautiful when they are covered with dead flowers, and the plants rapidly deteriorate while they are in such a condition. Attend to the staking and tying up of plants as they grow. The majority of plants look much better when in flower if they are in an upright position than if they are lying, broken by a mischievous wind, on the ground.

Sow, as soon as they are ripe, seeds of delphinium, sweet william, Oriental poppy,

stocks, wallflowers, and antirrhinums. The seedlings should be ready for planting out in the autumn.

Verbena plants that have been flowering all the spring and early summer have practically flowered themselves to death, and must be cut hard back. If the soil about them is well stirred, and a little superphosphate is worked in about each plant, strong new growth is soon produced, and the plants will in a very few weeks be again a mass of beautiful fragrant bloom. Where mildew has been troublesome, the plants should be washed with lime sulphur, or well sprinkled with flowers of sulphur while they are wet with dew.

Annuals that flowered early are already ripening their seed, and many have seed ready for gathering. If several plants of each kind are pulled up and well shaken over a prepared seed patch, there will be in the autumn a host of sturdy seedlings ready to go into the borders. Some seed should be put away in labelled boxes ready for sowing towards the end of the winter.

PLANTING OUT SEEDLINGS

Many of the autumn annuals may still be planted out wherever there is room. Among these are asters, French and African marigolds, sunflowers, salvia, calfiopsis, nemesia. Very often, and especially during dry, hot weather, one sees a little hard patch round each newly-planted seedling. This is because many gardeners prefer to plant their seedlings first, and then to give them a good watering afterwards. This is quite all right provided they loosen the surface soil as soon as it is dry again. But in many gardens one sees the little hard patch round each seedling for many days after the planting, and that little hard patch deprives the seedling of what is essential to its root action—moisture and sun-warmed air. As soon as soil becomes caked evaporation takes place, so that the water that was supplied overnight is soon evaporated next morning. This may be prevented if the soil is loosened, as soon as it is dry enough, with a pointed stick. The most satisfactory way of planting out seedlings is to “puddle” them in. This means that the seedling is placed in position, and water is then poured into the hole. The roots become embedded in soft mud, and as soon as surplus water has drained away some dw surface soil may be drawn about the stem. This process gives the plants what they need—moisture at the roots, and a dry, loose surface soil that will prevent evaporation. If cow manure and soil are mixed with water till a thick porridge-like consistency is reached, and the roots of the seedlings are dipped into this before being planted, it is wonderful what a good start they get. “Puddling in” may seem slow, but it saves time in the end, and is very sure. There is one other thing that is important when planting out seedlings, and that is shading. Leaves transpire a good quantity of water when the sun is shining, and the water that they transpire is drawn from their roots. But as seedlings are not able to obtain moisture from the eoil till they make new roots, they transpire what is already in the stems and leaves, and as soon as the supply is used up the plants wilt. If they are shaded from the sun for a day or two transpiration is checked, and they are able to retain and use their moisture till the roots are again in working condition.

Always give seedling plants a thorough ■watering an hour or so before moving them from the seed tins or seed patch.

MARGUERITE CARNATIONS

Among summer flowering seedlings which may be freely planted out for colour effects in the garden the marguerite carnations rank high, says an Australian writer. In the average garden the highly-bred type of double named carnation is a luxury, grown for the supply of a comparatively small number of good specimen cut flowers, but the beautiful old-fashioned pinks of the English cottage garden are coming steadily back into modem gardens.

One of the prettiest patches of colour seen in a Melbourne garden lately was from a clump of Marguerite carnations on a rock wall. The seed was sown during the spring of 1925, and masses of flowers were obtained through last summer. The plants were not disturbed last autumn, and have been steadily flowering through the early summer months of this season, and are still in full bloom.

Theee is scarcely any plant in the garden that requires such simple conditions and care in the growth, or one that hardier, and yields so lavishly its deliciously sweetscented blossoms. As soon as the flowering season is over at the end of summer, cuttings may be broken off and planted near the old plants to increase the stock, or seed may be saved. Cuttings are best taken at a joint where the wood is ripest, pinching off the tips of the leaves, and planting firmly. If used as an edging plant, there is a waywardness about the growth that will help to break the hard lines so frequently and unnecessarily seen in so many gardens. Seedlings arc available from most nurserymen, and may be planted out now.

A NEW ASTER,

A new aster of the Amelins section has been produced by a German grower, Herr L. Lindner, of Eisenach. The variety is named Hermann Lons, says the Gardeners’ Chronicle, and the size of the flowers would appear to constitute a record, as they are said to measure nine centimetres (3Ain) across. The colour is given as a campanula blue, the tone changing to a rich lavender under certain conditions, such as cutting the flowers and placing in water near the light from a window. The variety is particularly floriferous, and so symmetrical in form as almost to resemble a bouquet.

CHARLES DE L’ESCLUSE

On October 19 a wreath of flowers was placed on the tomb of Charles De I’Escluse (or Carolus Clusius) in celebration of the 400th anniversary of his birth, the orison being pronounced by Dr. De Lint. De I’Escluse, to whom is ascribed the production of the first garden tulips, is buried in the Pieterkerk, at Leyden, in Holland; but he was either a Belgian or a Frenchman — it does not seem very certain which—and is said by some authorities to have been born at Arras. The ceremony of laying the wreath on the tomb was followed by a meeting in the great hall of the university at Leyden, at which a lecture on the life of De I’Escluse was delivered by Dr. Hunger, and an exhibition of objects connected with the life and work of De I’Escluse was arranged in the Cloth Hall.

THE MOUNTAIN LILI

One of the finest of New Zealand’s native plants is Ranunculus Lyallii, the mountain lily, which is found in vast colonies at a level of 3000 to 4500 feet in various parts

of the South Island. The leaves are massive, broad and partly buried and the flowers are from two to three inches in diameter, white in colour, sometimes semidouble, on stalks two or three feet high. The plants are found in loamy or peaty soil overlying stony ground. To grow the plants in such a climate as Southland’s plenty of moisture, sufficient drainage and an open soil are essential. Propagation can be made by means of dormant rhizomes, small plants or seeds. The following article on the growing of Ranunculus Lyallii in England are by W. H. St. Quintin, Scampston Hall, Maltara, Yorkshire, in the Gardeners’ Chronicle:— In May, 1921, some seeds of Ranunculus

Lyallii reached me fresh from New Zealand and were at once sown in sandy peat, and the pan placed in an unheated house, where I grow Pyrola and other shade-loving plants. About a dozen seedlings, which seemed to make slow progress, were living at the end of 1922. In the following February these were potted in bog earth, Kent loam and granite chippings, and the pots plunged in sand under a north wall. Several of the stronger plants had made stout tap-roots sin long in the seed-pan; others were but weakly rooted. Eight months later, in October, 1923, most of the plants looked well. As I found that several had pushed their roots through the drainage holes, they were shifted into larger pots filled with similar compost. The plants improved, and, in June, 1924, I measured several leaves 6in in diameter.

In February, 1925, eight or nine plants were put out in a bed made against the North wall of a greenhouse, with plenty of rough drainage, but in a compost in which, as before, a stiff loam was included, which I now know to have been a mistake. Last winter was cold and wet, and most of the plants, when examined this spring, showed signs of decay of the roots or collars. Several were dead, others, after drastic use of the knife seem now to .be recovering in pots in a cold frame. One fine plant appeared quite unaffected, and, as its roots were firmly fixed in the drainage it was left undisturbed. With the approach of warmer weather, this plant began to put out healthy leaves on long stalks, and is the plant which, three months later, flowered. On May 17, there were four expanded flowers and three buds. At this time the plant had made an offset, on a rhizome, bearing two leaves. This was followed later in the summer by another offset. As it seemed unwise to rely upon fertilisation by insects, the brpsh was used on three flowers, and about a dozen seeds were ripened, of which a few were sown in August. Except these three no other flowers were pollenated.

The two finest flowers measured two-an d-nine-sixteenths and two-and-ele ven-six-tenths of an inch across, a good deal less than the reported diameters of flowers measured in New Zealand.

One wishes that this fine plant could be reckoned upon as a permanent occupant of our rock gardens, but it seems unlikely that we can ever completely meet its requirements here. Laing and Blackwell, in their Plants of New Zealand, state: “The Ranunculus (R. Lyallii) grows only in the alpine districts of the South Island, and at an altitude of 2000 ft to 4000 ft. It is cultivated with difficulty, as it requires the greatest amount of heat -possible during the summer and the most severe cold in winter.”

“In a letter before me, the late Mr R. Butron, who spent many yeans in New Zealand before he came to five at Longnor Hall, in Shropshire, in writing about these alpine plants considers ‘the difficulty is for us to realise the normal life of these plants, including the Ranunculaceae from high levels—say, six months of snow; and a month before, and one after, the six, in melting and getting buried again; which gives them at best four months above ground, and these are November, December January, February!’”

I am fortunate in possessing a planf, which, so far, has adapted itself to our seasons. Mr Burton, to whose kindness I owe the seeds from which, my plants came.

once had another of the fine Ranunculus family of New Zealand, R. insignia, from the North Island, which one year flowered after which it immediately died! The behaviour of antipodean plants, when cultivated here, is sometimes difficult to understand. Mr Burton grew many of the terrestrial orchids of New Zealand and often gave some to me. Both he and I, during several years, found that the fine Pterostylis australis, when flowering for the first time after being collected, chose a time in June, and another season in November, suited to our seasons—namely, April. But another species, P. trullifolia, went on keeping to its old summer time and flowered in our mid-winter. In December, 1918, Mr Burton told me that he had 30 plants of this species in flower at the same time.