Growing Good Plants By Soup
With summer in the West, your garden will soon show how well you’ve taken care of your soil. If you have plenty of humus in it, there will be plenty of moisture to keep everything growing fine without constant watering in spite of the heat.
That brings us to the subject of “gardener’s gold” compost flower stalks, lawn clippings, leaves, trash, etc. Just as the wealth of the small French farmer is said to be determined by the size of his manure pile, so may a gardener’s status and success be measured by his use of compost, nature’s most potent life elixir.
Select Japanese Iris now, while they’re in bloom, for fall planting. Their culture becomes more standardized each year and the selection of colors more varied. Cultural rules are simple: sun, rich soil, perfect drainage and constant soaking while the plants are growing but little water while the foliage is dying back. Plants grown in containers completely submerged in large fish pools do marvelously well. This is the way they were grown years ago in Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Garden. Plants purchased now in bud will flower if carefully handled or the container itself is “planted.”
Combining Plants with Roses Some authorities maintain that roses should be planted in a bed by themselves, while others are just as insistent that they do equally well and are more attractive combined with low-growing edgings and groundcovers that do not interfere with the regular cultivation. Groundcovers keep the soil cool and cut the water bill.
Annuals for edging are lobelia, alyssum and the torenia mentioned below. The white alyssum is preferable to the lavender, because in most locations it has a longer blooming season. Sweet alyssum makes a good groundeover while the lobelia, in Blue, is delightful alone or in combination with alyssum. Alyssum comes quickly from seed but because lobelia requires a longer growing season, buy plants.
Dwarf nasturtiums make good groundcovers if attention is paid to combining the right colors with the roses. Screaming yellows with red roses are “bad,” whereas red nasturtiums with white or ivory roses are gay and perky. Watch the annual groundcovers closely for aphids which might build up there and then head for the roses. No serious problem is involved, however, as 15 minutes a week spent spraying or dusting with lindane will rout not only aphids but a long list of other bugs including thrips, leafhoppers and many others.
Pinch Chrysanthemums when the wood is still soft and continue until the plant is well branched and the buds begin to form. Small-flowered types grown outdoors for cut flowers may be pinched every two weeks. Early-flowering varieties may be pinched up to mid-July; medium-season ones up to the first week in August; late ones, late August.
Potted plants may be left longer than outdoor ones because they need stocky growth. The best rule is to pinch back until you see the buds pushing out faster than you can pinch.
The Torneia or wishbone flower is a little blue annual seldom seen in gardens or landscaping with annuals. It does not fit as an annual for landscaping but it fits in nicely with other low-growing annuals and is attractive planted alone. It likes partially shaded spots. If unavailable as plants at your local nursery, grow torenias from seed.
It Takes “Soup” to grow good plants. Here’s why: Food materials are carried up through the roots and stems in liquid form. Thus, without sufficient water in the ground food elements cannot be formed or transported
3 Simple Steps In Planting Glads
Tips for Planting Glads
Dig planting hole in your annual border for a group of gladiolus corms… make hole 4 inches deep in heavy, clay soils. and 6 inches deep in light, sandy soils.
Place gladiolus corms in hole after first making a “cushion” of granulated soil at the bottom. Space the corms from 4 to 6 inches apart.
Fill in soil over corms. If soil is hard to work, treat it first with a conditioner. For longer blooming, make plantings every two weeks until midsummer.
Building Mum Stock
Chrysanthemums are now pushing up quickly, offering good opportunity for increasing your stock. Cuttings rooted this month and early June will grow into sturdy low plants that require no support whatever. These plants are excellent for bedding, for window boxes and for any other purpose where a low, bushy plant is needed. Chrysanthemums are very easy to transplant; they become established very soon after the shift.
Taking cuttings is a simple process. With a very sharp knife, cut off the top 3 or 4 inches of the plant. Place the cutting in a pail of water or cover it with moist newspaper.
Fill a 3-inch deep flat with pure sand, firm the sand and then soak the flat in a deep pan of water. The sand, when thoroughly wet, should be level with the edges of the flat. Remove the lower two or three leaves of the chrysanthemum cuttings and insert them in rows across the flat, spacing them 2 inches apart. When inserting the cuttings, use a dibber (pointed piece of wood the thickness of a pencil) to make the hole, insert the cutting and firm the sand gently around it. If more than one variety is being rooted, be sure to start at the left side of the flat, inserting a label at the end of a row of one variety and continuing the row with another variety. When the flat is filled, soak it to settle the sand more compactly around the cuttings.
The flat can be set in any convenient spot where it gets sun, but for the first few days when the cuttings are likely to wilt shade them. Like what i am doing, i choose where to cut an orchid especially when i cut orchid stem. An easy method is to rest the newspapers or plastic on a framework made by pushing in six 5-inch stakes around the sides of the flat.
Rooting will take place in three to four weeks. The cuttings can then be removed from the flat and planted directly in a bed in the garden. Space the plants 12 inches apart. When 6 inches tall, snip off the tips to induce bushy, lush growth.
Frequently Aks Questions For The May Landscape
May is when the grass starts growing and so do their buddies the weeds. Spraying of broad-leaved lawn weeds such as dandelion and plantain with a herbicide can begin as soon as the air temperature can be depended upon to stay 70 for several hours.
Creeping Charley (Nepeta hederacea) is called by so many names (such as gill-over-the-ground and ground ivy) that a description might be in order. This weed creeps along the ground, its thin wiry stems rooting as they lengthen. Its leaves are scalloped and round; its flowers are tiny spikes of typical catnip form. Creeping Charley thrives in shade. It can be killed with sprays containing material developed for it’s control. This material, marketed under several trade names, is widely available. Begin an insect-control program for your rose bushes as soon as the leaves on the canes are full-size. Remember that black spot, the most serious rose disease in the Middle West, can never be cured; it can only be prevented. Keep the leaves covered at all times with a combination dust. My pet combination is malathion and captan. This “combo” has worked well for me over the years.
Questions for The May Landscape
Question: I don’t seem to be able to grow pansies successfully. They are fine in spring but by late June they stop flowering.
Answer: Pansies are cool-weather bedding plants; they grow satisfactorily in the Midwest only in the spring, Instead of trying to grow pansies, plant some of the magnificent super, large-flowered Scotch violas. They will continue to bloom during hot days. Also they are fairly reliable perennials, living over winter with only light protection.
Question: Every year our lawn burns out badly about July 10. We fertilize regularly with a proprietary brand of sewage sludge and reseed bare spots each spring. What might be wrong?
Answer:Just like caring for lady palms. I would suspect, since the lawn burns in early July, that it is being injured by an overdose of nitrogen. Sewage sludge does not begin to decompose until mid-June and then it releases nitrogen so rapidly that the grass cannot use it fast enough. If you continue to use sewage sludge, cut the application in half and supplement with a good mixed fertilizer applied before growth begins in spring. Just what i am doing with my lady palm. This will force heavier, earlier growth, enabling the plants to utilize the nitrogen from the sludge later when it does become available. Too, it balances the plant food elements supplied by the two materials.
Question: We want to plant our property with shrubs but don’t know which varieties to buy. How can we final out what is best?
Answer: First, visit your local park or a good nursery. If it is possible to make a trip to the Chicago area, by all means visit the Morton Arboretum at Lisle. Their collection of hedge materials (there are examples of formal and informal hedge plantings) alone is worth the trip. At the Arboretum you will find all the plants labeled. After seeing a variety of shrubs and trees, you will have a much better idea of the materials you want to include in your planting. Your nurseryman will be glad to tell you if the shrubs you have selected will thrive in your locality.
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