WHY GARDENS GO WRONG 



Starvation. — ^More plants suffer from this than is supposed, 

 for to many people soil is an unknown and unknowable ele- 

 ment — the thing that one covers roots with, and anything wiU 

 answer. It is on new places and where grading has been done 

 that starvation for garden or lawn is especially immanent. 

 Contractors have a distressing habit of burying the good top- 

 soil several feet deep, while the hard-pan is put on top; which 

 labor-saving process makes a good lawn or garden impossible 

 for several years. Another situation in which plants are likely 

 to starve is when planted near a pergola or a piazza. Vines 

 here are rarely given enough to eat. If a wistaria, for instance, 

 is to flourish, remember the distance it is to travel and pro- 

 vision its new home accordingly. It should have a hole dug 

 four feet deep, a yard square, and the space filled in with good 

 soil well mixed with manure. 



Too Rich a Diet. — Perhaps the shrubs have had the other 

 extreme; they have had too much manure. When they "run 

 to leaves," as gardeners say, and do not flower, they may 

 have been overeating. Any manure used must be well rotted 

 and not fresh, and well mixed with soil. The roots must not 

 come into direct contact with it or they will suffer. 



Planted Too Late. — If trees or shrubs have been planted 

 when coming into leaf, they have a hard time of it; they are 

 like people who begin to work directly after an operation, 

 omitting the period of rest and recovery. 



Shrubs planted when leafing out should be cut "hard back" 

 to enforce rest after the shock of transplanting, so that the 

 roots will have less to feed while making their connections 

 with supplies. If this was not done, and the newly planted 

 shrub left with all its leaf-biids to care for, the poor thing 

 was subjected to a severe strain, and may well have shown 

 the effects of it. 



77 



