CARNATIONS AND PINKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 February 1940, Page 4

CARNATIONS AND PINKS

POPULAR GARDEN PLANTS. After roses, carnations and sweet peas are about equal in popularity as garden plants, and for providing cut flowers during the summer months. There are several types of carnations suitable for growing in the open air, such as border, perpetual border and perpetual or tree. The border carnations ha've only one season of flowering. about the present, time, and all the young growths called grass areas from round the base of the flower stem. In the perpetual border types, which are a hybrid between the ordinary border carnation and the perpetual or tree kinds, the habit is more branching, young growths arise up the stem, and the season of flowering is consequently prolonged. In the tree or perpetual types, the growth is still more upright and branching, and though usually grown in pots or on benches under glass for winter flowering, they are hardy and can be grown outside if sheltered from the cold south-west winds.

Border carnations are again divided into different sections by florists, largely for exhibition purposes. For example, there are selfs, flakes or fancy and picotees. For garden purposes, these distinctions are of no importance, the main feature being large, wellformed non-bursting flowers and a free branching habit. Border carnations can be grown from cuttings, but the most satisfactory method is layering, and as this operation is not at all difficult it should be adopted. When cuttings are separated from the parent plant, even when put into boxes of sandy soil, and kept in a cool, shady place, they take a long time to root, and by the autumn are hardly strong enough to make flowering plants the following season. By layering the shoot is still attached to the parent, from which it can draw its supplies of moisture and mineral matters while it is forming its own roots and by the autumn is a strong plant quite sure to flower the following season.

The tools necessary are a sharp, clean, thin bladed knife, a number of wire pegs, one leg of which can be six inches and the other two, a pad to kneel on, a hand fork and a quantity of soil, composed of one part loam, one part leafmould and one part sharp sand. In this case sea sand will do. With the fork loosen up the soil round the the plant to be layered, and spread a layer of the sandy soil two inches deep onto the loose soil. If the shoots are examined it will be seen that they grow outwards at first and then upwards, forming a bend in the stem. At the bend remove one pair of leaves altogether, exposing the node or joint. Next with the knife commence to cut in half way between the exposed node and the one lower down, and continue inwards until half way through the stem, and upwards until half way to the next joint or node, or if the joints are close together right up to the next one. This will form a tongue about an inch in length, and this is kept away from the stem with the knife, while it is pressed down firmly into the prepared soil and fastened there by means of the peg. The tips of the leaves are next cut off to reduce transpiration and the soil is pressed firmly over the cut node, which should be covered with at least two inches of soil. All the young shoots can be layered if necessary, but as a rule six to nine on each plant is enough. After the layers are all down and the soil firmed all round, the plant can be watered, and during very dry weather a sprinkling overhead in the evening will be an advantage. When ; starting at first, one is liable to cut too deeply into the stem, in which case it will break off when being pegged down, if not deep enough, there is less chance of rooting, and if the tongue is pressed back against the stem, and not away from it, it will heal up and no roots will be formed.

What really happens is that the shoot continues to draw its supplies of water and raw plant food from the roots of the parent; this is elaborated and some is returned to the roots for their development. Half will go back through the stem connection, but the other half will go down the tongue and accumulate at its end. The first will be used to heal over the cut surface, with a layer or tissue, but after it will be used to form roots at the node—near the end of the tongue and

in a few weeks the plant will have well-developed roots of its own, so that when severed from the parent it can be transplanted into its new position with little check to its development. Perpetual border kinds and also perpetual or tree kinds can be layered by bending down the flower stem of the latter, but they are usually grown from cuttings put into sand in spring. The shoots of the various kinds of pinks—the alpine species and their varieties, border pinks, and Allwoodiis —are too thin to layer easily, but fortunately they are fairly easy to grow from cuttings which soon form bushy plants. The present is a good time to take the cuttings; they are fairly well ripened, and rooting conditions are favourable. They are prepared for insertion by cutting them across immediately below a node, making a slight cut up through it for about an eighth of an inch, and then cutting away the tips of the leaves to reduce loss of moisture. The soil for pink cuttings can be two parts loam, one part leafmould, and one part sand, and after this has been made firm in pots or boxes a layei- of clean sand is spread over the surface. The shoots are usually firm enough to enable them to be pushed into the soil, but if not a hole about an inch and a-half deep is made with a blunt peg, the cutting is placed in this, and the soil made firm round about it. They can be put in at about an inch apart, round the inside margin (in pots) and watered well after insertion. The pots or boxes can be placed on a bed of ashes in a frame and shaded from strong sun until roots have been formed, or they can be stood on the shady side of a wall, hedge, or fence. Some people put a little piece of the leaf into the upward cut of the cut- ■ ting to keep the sides apart, believing that in this way rooting will be quicker, and others have been known to place a grain of wheat in the cut, thinking that if the wheat germinates the cutting will root.