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THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1914 



Brown Rot on Peaches 



Our Early Crawford peaches grew to a good size and 

 were well colored, but many of them cracked open be- 

 fore fully ripe and ants entered the cracks. What 

 remedy is there for this? — J. M. W., New Jersey. 

 — Your peaches are affected with what is known as 

 peach scab. This is a very common disease on many 

 varieties of peaches. The method of treatment is the 

 same as that for brown rot, and should be along two 

 lines. In the first place the mummied fruits should be 

 shaken off the trees and then either gathered up and 

 destroyed or else buried or plowed under. The 

 second line of attack is by thoroughly spraying the trees 

 with lime-sulphur, at the winter strength, applied shortly 

 before the buds swell in the spring. Strong copper 

 sulphate solution is satisfactory, if more convenient, 

 and may be used if there is no San Jos scale in the or- 

 chard. Spray the trees later with self boiled lime- 

 sulphur. When a bad attack is feared, three applica- 

 tions should be made, the first perhaps three or four 

 weeks after the blossoms fall, again two or three weeks 

 later, and a third time two or three weeks after this. 

 Under less serious conditions one spraying may be all 

 that is needed, and this should be probably six weeks 

 to two months after blossoming. In any case do not 

 spray tree fruits, especially peaches, so late that the 

 spray will still be on them at picking time. 



Tree-Shaded Grass 



I have in my lawn a number of English mulberry 

 trees which have grown large and which cast a dense 

 shade In the past two or three years the grass, 

 Bermuda turf, has been growing thin, so that now the 

 soil under the trees is nearly bare. Is there a grass, 

 preferably one that will remain green all the year round, 

 that will grow in this shade? — S. L. G., Mississippi. 

 — The maintenance of grass under the shade of trees 

 is a question of constant feeding and renewal. No grass 

 will grow in heavy shade, and as the trees gain in size 

 the grass will become weaker and weaker until it is 

 ousted altogether. You must realize, too, that all the 

 food you give the grass also feeds the trees and it is a 

 see-saw game until finally the trees win. If you want 

 to cover the ground you might make use of periwinkle 

 or ground myrtle (Vinca minor). 



The African Daisy 



Can you tell me why I fail to make the African daisy 

 (Gerbera) merit its descriptions in catalogues? — E. A. 

 A., Tenn. 



—The African daisy is somewhat difficult to grow. It 

 is best grown on benches in a cool greenhouse. The 

 difficulty in growing this plant lies in the fact that its 

 natural growing season is during our winter season. 

 It has to be rested during our summer season and started 

 into growth during the fall and kept growing all winter. 



The Oak Pruner 



A number of oak trees on my property have, during 

 the past few years, been attacked by an insect. Branches 

 have been nearly cut off at from a foot to three feet 

 from the outer ends, and finally fall to the ground. 

 Each one contains a white worm which bores through 

 the heart of the branch. The worms do not go in 

 toward the tree. I have had all fallen dead branches 

 burned. How can I overcome this trouble? — H. H. R., 

 New York. 



— The insect that is attacking your trees is the oak 

 pruner (Elapkidiou villosum). This rarely becomes 

 serious enough to do any great amount of damage and 

 when necessary can usually be controlled without great 

 trouble or expense. As you have noted, the insects 

 fall to the ground inside of the twigs. Here they remain 

 until the following spring, although occasionally they 



make their way into the ground a few weeks after the 

 twigs have fallen and undergo their changes there. In 

 either case, the only thing to do is to gather up and 

 burn the twigs as fast as they fall. Those twigs that 

 die on the tree can, of course, be pruned off and de- 

 stroyed, although they are usually so few as to make 

 this extra work unnecessary. To the best of our 

 knowledge spraying would have no effect on this insect. 



Hybrid Perpetual Roses Not Blooming 



I have a number of Hybrid Perpetual rose bushes 

 which have become very large and which did not blos- 

 som at all this year. To induce blossoming, should 

 they be trimmed in the autumn or spring and should 

 they be cut almost to the ground? — H. C. C, Nova 

 Scotia. 



— The absence of bloom on your Hybrid Perpetual 

 roses suggests that the suckers from the stock, on 

 which the variety was grafted, have taken the lead, and 

 the desired variety killed by the luxuriant growth of 

 the suckers. The best time to do pruning is in the 

 spring because, if done in the winter, there will be some 

 cutting further back of the wood; and if fall pruning is 

 done, the bushes will have to be gone over again in the 

 spring in order to cut out dead wood. You can hardly 

 prune the bushes too severely if you want the finest 

 blooms. Cut back, leaving only about four to six inches 

 of the old wood. It should be remembered that those 

 roses bloom on the new wood. 



Apples Rotting on the Ground 



If apples are allowed to he on the ground and rot, 

 will it injure the tree in any way or cause the soil to 

 become sour? — A. N. P., Conn. 



— So far as the tree is concerned, it is beneficial to let 

 the apples decay on the ground beneath them as in this 

 way a small amount of plant food and humus is added 

 to the soil. However, the practice is not advisable 

 because of its possible effects upon next year's crop of 

 fruit. A good many of the apples that fall do so be- 

 cause they are infested with insects or disease. By 

 leaving them on the ground you give the enemy of 

 whichever kind an excellent opportunity to develop, 

 mature and effect an increased infestation the following 

 season. It would, therefore, pay you to gather up the 

 windfalls frequently or give hogs access to them. How- 

 ever, we do not think any average quantity of apples 

 could possibly cause the soil to become sour. 



Suggestions for Planning Grounds 



I am building a home and am enclosing a sketch of 

 the property. Will you give me' some suggestion for 

 planting shrubbery, decorative, and fruit trees, locat- 

 ing walks, laundry yard and children's playhouse? 

 The ground is level, soil rich, house is in pure Colonial 

 style; no garage, stable, or chicken house will be re- 

 quired at present, nor will there be a driveway into 

 the property. The neighbor's barn at the rear has a 

 wall about twenty feet high, and should be shielded 

 from view. — H. B., New Jersey. 

 — With a frankly Colonial house the front approach 

 may be strictly formal, leading directly to the front 

 door with a walk surrounding the entire house. From 

 the plan submitted, we see that there are apple trees 

 in the back, so we take it that the rear of the property 

 is to be devoted to fruit trees and bush fruits. A few 

 Lombardy poplars would help to screen the barn on 

 the adjacent property. Fruit trees at the rear will 

 actually lend distance to the property and look very 

 pretty in flower, and the background of green later on 

 in the season will be serviceable as a frame to any 

 garden picture you may develop. The indications are 

 that in front of that place is the vegetable garden, 

 which is separated from the lawn by a low hedge of 

 Japan barberry. A walk is continued from the rear of 

 the house directly into the orchard, and might be em- 



bellished with arches of clinging vines; and at the end 

 of the walk, if you care to do so, you might provide 

 a fountain, pool, or sundial. The playhouse is pro- 

 vided near the vegetable garden and is partly secluded 

 by surrounding clumps of shrubbery, so that if neces- 

 sary an outlet can be had into the vegetable garden 

 for a child's garden. We suggest planting somewhat 

 tall trees or shrubs each side of the house in order to 

 break direct views into the adjacent properties. Flower- 

 ing plants, especially spring bulbs, might be planted 

 in one border so as to be easily seen from the dining 

 room windows, and an herbaceous border, in the rear 

 of the property bordering the walk, could be extended 

 through the kitchen garden as far as the orchard, 

 where we should recommend the use of dwarf fruit 

 trees. The laundry yard should be enclosed with 

 lattice work over which honeysuckle or climbing roses 

 might be trained to grow. Beyond these few sugges- 

 tions we are unable to give you any definite plan for 

 laying out your grounds; that is out of our province. 

 But should you care for the services of a landscape 

 architect, we are ready to furnish you with names 

 and addresses. 



Scraping Apple Trees 



What time of the year should apple trees be scraped? 

 Also, should this treatment ever be given to pear 

 trees?— C. F. D., Mass. 



— Fruit trees can be scraped at almost any time 

 through the year, but the most desirable period is just 

 before the growth begins in the spring, that is, when 

 late winter pruning is usually done. In general, how- 

 ever, this practice is recommended only when trees 

 are very old and neglected, and the bark extremely old 

 and loose, so that it provides a hiding place for insects. 



Asters Blighting 



I enclose a specimen of what should have been an 

 aster blossom of the Giant Branching kind. Why did 

 they blight? We raised very good asters in this same 

 plot three years ago, and since then it has been planted 

 to vegetables. A few "astermums," for which the 

 seed was secured from an eastern seedsman, blossomed 

 well for a very short season. These plants were 

 among those that blighted. — R. W., 111. 

 — For several months we have been receiving letters 

 from our readers stating that they have had the same 

 trouble with their asters that you have had. The exact 

 cause of this trouble is unknown; but by keeping the 

 plants constantly growing and spraying them from 

 time to time with arsenate of lead, you will probably 

 be able to keep the disease in check another year at 

 least, that is how we were told the asters seen at Burpee's 

 trial grounds this year were successfully grown. 



Green and White Flies 



I have trouble with green fly on my Jerusalem cherry. 

 I have syringed with soap suds and last year tried 

 kerosene emulsion, which almost killed the plant. 

 What quantity can be safely used? Also, is there 

 anything that can be done to kill white fly? — C. J. T., 

 Mass. 



— For the green fly on Jerusalem cherry, use the 

 standard kerosene emulsion, half strength. Ordinary 

 soap solution ought to be quite sufficient to get rid of 

 these pests. Wherever the white fly has been brought 

 under control it has been done by treating it as a scale, 

 and by spraying with either kerosene emulsion or 

 strong soapy water. Whale oil soap or any other 

 caustic solution may be used, but the odor and the 

 danger to the plants are objections so long as the milder 

 measures suffice. As the pests are on the under sides 

 of the leaves the spraying must be from beneath. 

 And as the film of the soapy solution is likely to close 

 the leaf pores, a spraying with clear water should follow 

 in a day or two. 



