282 SATURDAY IN MY GARDEN 



(6) Avoid tying bushy subjects like phloxes and Michaelmas 



daisies so that after the bast has been drawn towards 

 the stake and secured the head of the plant looks like 

 a sweep's broom. Allow the plant to grow freely and 

 naturally, and if necessary use more than one stick. 

 This applies particularly to delphiniums, whose sappy 

 and brittle stems need thorough protection from the wind. 



(7) Do not be content with one round of staking and tying, 



but examine the plants at frequent intervals, and as 

 they reach upwards supply the necessary support. 



If these rules be observed sudden storms of wind may be 

 defied, and the appearance of artificiality which one finds in not 

 a few gardens will be happily lacking hi your own. 



All this will help to provide an air of tidiness in the garden as 

 the season develops. But there are other essential duties to be 

 attended to if it is to be maintained. One of these is the constant 

 removal of spent flowers. Every gardener knows, of course, 

 how necessary this is in the case of sweet peas, violas and pansies ; 

 but how frequently does one find the same duty neglected in the 

 cases of geraniums, fuchsias and petunias, and annuals such as 

 Shirley poppies, godetias and cornflowers. If any of these plants 

 be allowed to run to seed, their flowering period must inevitably 

 be considerably shortened, and in the case especially of the 

 annuals they speedily turn yellow and fade away. Nothing then 

 remains but to pull them up and throw them on the rubbish heap. 



The watering of plants in the open, while of course necessary 

 in periods of prolonged drought and heat, is a matter that requires 

 careful discrimination on the part of the amateur gardener. The 

 country gardener is fortunate above his town-dwelling fellow in 

 that he is in nine cases out of ten the happy possessor of a great 

 ram- water butt, the contents of which, warmed by the sun, may be 

 used fearlessly without involving danger to the health and well- 

 being of his plants. The town dweller is not so happily circum- 

 stanced. He has to depend mainly upon the household supply 

 for his needs, and he is never better pleased than when in the 

 dusk of a hot summer's evening he says the task of directing 



