YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 50, 7 June 1940, Page 41

YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

By

Ann Earncliff

Brown

(No. 33)

When Winter Comes: K « if the sun shines from a cloudless sky, don’t be tempted on to your too-wet garden, Having sunk over my shoetops in forking up a parsnip, I know that appearances are deceptive, that a merely damplooking surface can cover a boggy condition on low lying ground, and that only the sandy raised garden is a safe pottering ground for a person with a pocketful of anemones to plant. Anemones are gross feeders and like a soil that has plenty of humus in it. This raised garden is not an ideal place for them, but by carrying leaf mould from the wild wood garden I make a few early anemones and some ranunculi provide a splash of vivid colour in spring. Later plantings in heavier ground keep up the succession. I have gathered almost the last of my chrysanthemums nowa brief rather disappointing season. The early frosts and recent heavy rains played havoc with even the hardy Korean hybrids. Fortunately other gardens have fared better, so that I can peep over fences on infrequent trips to the city: and enjoy the blaze of chrysanthemums sheltered by suburban garden walls. In spite of the weather the yellow flowered jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is shining in the early morning sun at

my east-end window. It grows along a wall close to the flagged path, with only a very harrow border of soil between the wall and flags. I wish it were wider, for I have gathered to-day a bunch of pale mauve winter iris, and as I brought them indoors past the starry flowered jasmine, I discovered how lovely they were together. Try for yourselves this stylosis and jasmine partnership. Winter jasmine flowers profusely on chalky land and is a strong grower. It requires stern pruning. As soon as the flowers are over, prune back every shoot that has borne blossoms, almost to the main stems. Train fresh long shoots into position along your wall. This cutting back makes for better flowering each winter. Since New "Zealand enjoys such a variety of climates, spring flowers from the winterless north are on show in shop windows even though we South Islanders are in the icy grip of winter. If, however, you prefer to have a little private spring on your window sill you can, at very little cost and with only a little care. Procure fibre compost, in which to grow indoors flowing bowls of hyacinths, daffodils and tulips. Many of you will have your bulbs already set in this fibre, but there is still time to try a bowl of bulbs.