YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 74, 22 November 1940, Page 49

YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

By

Ann Earncliff

Brown

(No. 51)

Making Friends with the Wind N one of our very first garden chats I said that "Good gardeners make friends with the wind." It is certainly easier to thake friends with gentle zephyrs than to remain friends with the destructive gales that have vexed éur Canterbury gardeners this year. In this garden, as a rule, the northwest wind loses much of its force as it beats against the willows that fringe both banks of our river-boundary. Hower an "old man" nor’wester takes no tice of such things, and instead of a otection, those too-brittle branches be- @ a menace, and certainly a source much annoyance to a gardener who just gather riven limbs and piles of eafy twigs from lawn, flower borders d vegetable patch. As I stoop, I am hoping the exercise will have a beneficial effect on the age{ng figure, but how fervently I admire the poplars which so wisely bent before the fury of the storm and stand unScathed. But they are still young and slim and bending is no bother to them. As I straighten my back I decide that it is difficult to feel friendly with a wind that lays flat your onion tops and batters tender tomato vines.

In the flower garden lupins, bearded iris, delphiniums, and columbines have had to stand up to severe stresses, too. Wind damage can be mitigated if all tall growers in vegetable and flower garden are very firmly staked. Sweet peas (I do hope you are keeping these free of seed pods) and clematis, given adequate supports, secure themselves most efficiently, but stiff flower spikes in your borders should be well braced against firm stakes. Gladioli and the longer stemmed bearded iris should be given a stake to each spike. Clumps of perennial phlox, lupins, delphiniums, and michaelmas daisies are usually upheld by three or four strong but inconspicuous stakes round the clump, with a stout string or wire bound round these supports, so as to hold the plant mass together. Growers of exhibition blooms of delphinium stake the flower spikes individually, and for all who desire good blooms, it is advisable to limit the number of spikes according to the size of the clump and the strength of the stem. For small clumps three spikes and up to eight for large ones is a fair average. As the blooms come inta bud, soak the ground well, then make a trench round the clump and fill with liquid manure, Do not let manure touch the plant. Cut blooms on a long slant in the soft stem, as the woody stem does not allow the flower spike to absorb sufficient water,