BEDDING PLANTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1940, Page 2

BEDDING PLANTS

HARDENING OFF NECESSARY. Now that the weather is good and the soil is in good working order, the planting out of the more hardy of the bedding plants, such as nemesia, antirrhinums, Iceland poppies, calendulas, violas, pansies, carnations and larkspurs, also sweet peas and gladioli can be carried but. Even the plants which are perfectly hardy should be gradually accustomed to open air conditions, in other words they should be hardened off. With the spring-flower-ing plants still in good order, there should not be many beds or borders available, except new ones, but there are always a few patches vacant in a mixed border, and the violas, pansies and carnations can be planted among the roses. Before planting the beds, borders or vacant patches should be forked over and all lumps broken up; if the ’soil is at all inclined to be sour a dusting of lime should be given, and unless manured in the autumn a dressing of bone dust or blood and bone manure should also be given, this being worked into the soil during the forking, levelling, and raking. It is also important that the surface be made fine with the rake, and that all stones and rubbish be raked off.

If the seedlings are growing in boxes these should receive a good watering the night before to help to keep the soil on the fine roots and to give the plants a good drink. If they are obtained from nurserymen or seedsmen they should be kept cool and moist until planted. To give the plants as little check as possible, they should be lifted with as much soil as possible sticking to the roots and with little root disturbance, and placed in a hole made with a trowel sufficiently wide to allow the roots to go in easily, and deep enough to allow them to go down without twisting, to the same depth as they were in the box or bed. Plants without a ball should be buried up to old seed leaves if the soil mark is not evident. It is a mistake to plant too deeply and to push the roots intotoo small a hole, zixcer placing the soil carefully round the roots, it is made firm with the hands, and unless it is raining at the time the plants should be watered in at once, with a can. This washes the soil in amongst the fibrous roots, settles the soil down and creates moist conditions round the plant which prevents wilting until new root hairs are formed and the plants become established. In very dry, hot weather it is an advantage to plant in the evening, and a light spraying overhead is also an advantage. Nemesia is an annual introduced by Messrs Sutton and Sons not so many years ago from South Africa. It is one of the most useful plants for providing an early display in the flower garden, and plants raised from seed sown in July or early August, in heat, and brought on as half-hardy annuals will be in flower in October; in fact, they are often showing flowers when planted out. Consequently they are often planted among Sweet Williams, antirrhinums, and tuberous begonias to provide colour in the early part of the summer. They can also be treated like hardy annuals and sown in the open during the present or next months. The colours vary from white through yellow, orange, pink red, to crimson, and there is also a very good blue which is most effective in the mixture. As a mixture with other plants, nemesia is excellent, for it is not a robber and it has very scant foliage; therefore, does not crowd the plants to follow. Antirrhinums are best bedding plants for providing a long display in either beds or borders. They come into flower fairly early and if the first spike is cut off as the seeds begin to form, other side shoots' are sent up, and these continue to flower until winter. The colours are very variable and very bright; and all come true from reliable seed; in any case, they can be picked out by the colour of the foliage as seedlings. There are several types, but the intermediate kinds are the best for bedding, and the tall for grouping in the herbaceous border or the shrubbery. Larkspurs are favourfites for both bedding and cutting, and though a hardy annual, to get early flowers they can be treated as half-hardy like the nemesia. The stock-flowered section

is the most useful, for they are tall, much branched with double fipwers of many pleasing colours varying from scarlet through salmon pink, pink to mauve and white. Dimorphothecas and Ursinias are both useful for providing an early display. and for mixing with other plants which come on later. They are treated like nemesias to flower early, or sown in the open like hardy annuals. The “Kowhai” is the most desirable of the yellow-flowered spring-flower-ing trees; the various prunus and pyrus being either red, pink, or white. It grows into a small, graceful tree, suitable for the town garden, for it is neither a robber or does it grow too large. In its infant stage it does not appear to make much upward growth at all, and forms a densely entagled wiry bush. However, it soon grows cut of this stage and begins to flower when quite small. Where it has room to develop it maintains a good shape, and its fern-like foliage is very attractive. Its large golden-yellow flowers, which are produced in great abundance on mature trees, are a great attraction to the native honeyloving birds. The kowhai is easily raised from seed if this is collected as soon as it is ripe and sown at once, either in beds, boxes, or small pots. The small seedlings are better potted up, for, though they can be transplanted from open ground when properly prepared, they are more satisfactory when grown in pots. Kowhais thrive in any welldrained, sunny position, but prefer a rocky or stony one where the roots can get fresh air.