YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 60, 16 August 1940, Page 55

YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

By

Ann Earncliff

Brown

(No. 41)

Roses Ahead OST of you will have had your rose gardens nicely tidied up during the autumn, but in the colder districts wise gardeners will have left the pruning till August. Good secateurs, a small saw to use in removing old strong woody stems, a sharp knife to trim cut edges if necessary, plus a pair of really strong leather gloves, are the tools needed; but it is equally necessary to have your mind made up about the aim of your particular pruning. If you prefer only a limited number of special blooms you will prune fairly hard; if however you desire @ garden profusion with less regard to the individual perfection of form, you may use the shears less vigorously. All dead or diseased wood should be cut out and all weak spindly growths and those that tend to grow in to centre of the bush are better removed. In general the aim should be to keep the bush shapely, but some roses have vigorous and some slow growth, and as long as there is room for the flowers to develop, and for the bushes to present an

uncrowded orderly display, no very hard and fast rules need be laid down. The very attractive dwarf polyanthus roses can be thinned out so that they do not become tangled and untidy. The stems that remain for the flowering season should be cut back a little. Wood ashes sprinkled over the beds-say the ash from dried prunings and woody garden refuse gathered through the winter and now dry enough to burn well -should be stirred carefully into the soil, but do not dig deeply near the roots of rose bushes. A lime sulphur spray, full winter strength, can be used on roses while in the dormant stage and will help to check mildew and black spot. While it is usual to grow violas of various shades in the rose beds, as a carpeting plant, there are other bedding plants that also look well. The true pansy and some of the dwarf antirrhinums, particularly the pale chalk pink frilly ones, make excellent bedmates for the rose, while seed of linaria scattered now will repay with long months of colour, : Naturally for the very rigid grower who desires show blooms this carpeting is not considered a wise policy, but most of us look for a gay garden display, and get surprisingly good results, too.

Should you have had no chance to plant your roses in the autumn you need not despair of having roses this year. Without doubt autumn planting is to be preferred, but if you will take very great care in the preparation of your spring bed, you can, even in late August or September, make a very successful planting. Deep trenching, with no hard pan of soil left to obstruct the roots of the roses is absolutely necessary. Shallow soil may give a fair show for a while but the roses soon fail miserably. In light soils cow manure is the best of all manures for roses and should be well incorporated in the soil of a new bed. Even if you are desperately eager to get your roses planted, do not attempt to set out your bushes for a week or ten days after you have trenched and dug it. Spring soil is apt to be on the wet side, and also in August, fairly cold. The benefit of the extra settling down, and drying, will be far greater than that derived from the few extra days in a too-loose and possibly too cold soil. A little bone dust covered by an inch or more of leafy mould is much appreciated in the spring rose garden, and later frequent applications of liquid manure always watered in, or applied to raindamp soil, will ensure blooms of a particularly fine depth of colour, Perhaps you leave such tasks as rose planting to the menfolk. If so, you can get ahead with spring cleaning while the August roses are being set-to bloom in happier times when spring cleaning is forgotten.