August 17, 1912. 



THE GARDENERS' MAGAZINE. 



631 



SOME POPULAR ERRORS. 



It is needless to say that we all make 

 mistakes in our gardening practice, for no 

 one knows the .best methods of treatment 

 for every plant in the garden, and if he did 

 there would soon be others introduced, the 

 cultivation of which he would have to learn 

 in part from experience. But there are nu- 

 merous -A^Tong practices which are so com- 

 mon that we might describe them as popu- 

 lar errors. Any intelligent amateur who 

 observes the methods in vogue in the gar- 

 dens he visits will have noticed a good 

 many, and the experience may or may not 

 suggest to him the possibility that visitors 

 may notice not a few mistakes in his own 

 garden also. Let us look at a few samples 

 from bulk. We have often seen a man 



Putting: Out Plants 



when the ground is very dry, and watering 

 each one separately, or pouring on as much 

 water as will soak in, perhaps watering 

 over the whole bed of plants with a rose. 

 In such a case, the water goes little or no 

 distance into the ground. Certainly not 

 enough to moisten the soil round the roots, 

 whereas if the ground had been soaked be- 

 fore being prepared for planting — and that 

 is an easy matter when nothing is growing 

 in it — there would have been moist earth 

 all round the roots, and a little water 

 applied to each plant would have freely run 

 into the loosened moist soil, and settled it 

 among the roots. Nothing looks so deplor- 

 able as plants newly put out apparently 

 dying in the heat of early summer, with 

 little patches of puddled soil round their 

 withering stems. 



The Sowing: of Seeds. 



Similarly, one sees people watering the 

 powdery earth after tlie see<:ls are sown, 

 and the water very soon begins to run off. 

 It has gone in no distance, perhaps not even 

 as far as the seeds in some cases, and after 

 one day's sun the surface is dry and 

 caked together, thus facilitating the rise 

 of moisture from below by capillary attrac- 

 tion, so that the soil rapidly loses any little 

 moisture it contains, and the watering has 

 to be repeated daily while the dry weather 

 lasts, the surface shooting off the water 

 almost like asphalte. If the soil had been 

 soaked -before it was prepared for a seed-bed 

 there would have been no need to water it 

 after the seeds had been sown, and the break- 

 ing up of the moist soil Avonld have cut oft 

 the channels of conduction, and enabled it 

 to retain enough moisture for germinating 

 seeds and young seedlings for a week or two 

 of dry weather. 



The Sowing^ of Annuals. 



When little children begin gardening, the 

 sowing of annuals is usually one of the first 

 things to ibe tried, and the mistakes they 

 niake are commonly made by grown-ups, 

 even when they are past the stage of be- 

 ginners, such as sowing too late in the 

 spring and too thickly at all times, with, 

 too much watering, and too little thinning. 

 Though the sowing of annuals is considered 

 such a simple matter, many, if not most, 

 of them need to be very well grown to be 

 worth growing at all. Sown in the open 

 ground at the end of April they have little 

 chance of beM:'oming established before dry 

 weather comes, with the result that they 

 run up to flower in a wee<ly fashion. When 

 the seed is sown too thickly, the seefllings 

 become leggy before they are big enough to 

 thin, almost as soon as they are up, in fact, 

 and that is the ruin of any seedlings. 

 Watering should be dispensed with, alto- 

 gether until the weather really becomes dry, 

 3« surface waterine: draws the roots to the 



surface, when, if not kept watered, they 

 will succumb to a few hot days. There are 

 other cultural disadvantages in unneces- 

 sary watering, and the best thing is to re- 

 duce the need for it to a minimum by deep 

 cultivation, when many annuals in a fairly 

 retentive soil will go through an ordinary 

 summer without any attention in this re- 

 spect, and will grow more sturdily and pro- 

 duce more blossom than if subjected to the 

 frequent sprinklings to which the suburban 

 gardener too often subjects them. 



Mulching: 



is another operation that is often wrongly 

 practised, even by gardeners of experience. 

 We see mulches put on late in the autumn 

 or early in winter, with the result that the 

 goodness is, for the most part, waslied away 

 before the plant can begin to make use of it 

 in the spring, and when this time comes it 

 prevents the soil being warmed by the 

 sun, wdiich is especially necessary if the 

 soil is a cold and wet one, and, in such cir- 

 cumstances, harbours slugs. The time to 

 apply a mulch is in dry weather, so that it 

 may not only feed the plants and trees when 

 the next rain comes, but keep the soil moist 

 both by shielding it from the hot sun and 

 lessening evaporation from its surface. If 

 the soil is loosened before the miilch is put 

 over it in June it will then facilitate tlie 

 passage of water into the soil, and the latter 

 will not run together as it does when the 

 water is poured directly upon the surface. 

 In the case of fruit trees a heavy midch is 

 often applied, and copious waterings given 

 when the fruit is approaching maturity, 



and though the fruit may obviously swell 

 as a result of the treatment, it is the re- 

 verse of what should be done, as it pre- 

 vents the fruit acquiring its full flavotir. 

 Have a mulch over the roots during what 

 may be called the growing season by all 

 means, but in the case of late summer and 

 autumn fruits, at any rate, it is better 

 raked away, unless it has already crumbled 

 to pieces, before the fruit begins to ripen, 

 so that it may liave all the 'benefit possible 

 from sun and air to the soil about the sur- 



face feeding roots, fruit always acquirmg a 

 better flavour if the soil is dry at the time 

 of ripening. Tn the case of late apples and 

 pears, especially, the effect of feeding and 

 watering late in the summer, to say nothing 

 of autumn, is often disastrous in its effects, 

 as by prolonging growth it delays maturity, 

 with the result that the fruits do not 

 ''finish," as fruit growers term it, before 

 gathering time comes, and the result is 

 that they shrivel before they are properly 

 in season. 



The Removal of Foliage. 



The cutting down of plants and the re- 

 moval of foliage generally, show that many 

 people are quite ignorant of the functions 

 of leaves, though it seems almost unneces- 

 sary to state here that it is by them that 

 the digestive and respiratory processes of 

 the plants are performed. If people 

 realised this they would not so ruthlessly 

 strip tomato plants of their foliage, but 

 would so arrange matters that every pos- 

 sible square inch of leaf surface should re- 

 ceive the maximum amount of sun and air. 



Most people seem to know that bulbs should 

 have the benefit of their foliage as long as 

 possible, consistent with their minimum 

 standard of tidiness, but they do not carry 

 out their knowledge so far as to apply it to 

 the cutting down of plants generally after 

 they have flowered. Perennials like lark- 

 spurs and Chinese pteonies, for instance, 

 need their foliage most of the summer to 

 strengthen the roots and form the flowering 

 cPowns for next year. The cutting off of 

 dead flower-heads and spikes should be done 



as soon as possible, but the more foliage 

 which can be left to ripen the better. This 

 applies to border chrysanthemums and 

 others, the young growths from the base 

 of which benefit by the stems being left till 

 the foliage on them is finally destroyed by 

 frost. Though some perennials, if par- 

 tially cut down and well fed, will 

 flower again to some small extent the same 

 season, this is partly at the expense of the 

 following year, and it is perhaps better to 

 regard the roots as bulbs or tubers which 

 need the foliage to be left as long as pos- 

 sible to give them the best chance of gather- 

 ing strength for next year's display. 



Alger Petts. 



ASSISTING NATURE. 



To obtain a full measure of success the 

 gardener must, to a large extent, work hand 

 in hand with Nature. He certainly cannot 

 perform tasks that are contrary to Nature's 

 laws, but rather has to assist Nature mate- 

 rially. A close study of plant life, and the 

 way Nature deals with it, is most desirable, 

 for without a knowledge thereof he cannot 

 possibly obtain results that would otherwise 

 be within his reach. The requirements of 

 plants differ so largely as regards position, 

 soil, and general treatment that much in- 

 formation on their respective requirements 

 is essential in assisting them to attain their 

 perfect development. 



Observation is a faculty to be cultivated 

 by all who would achieve success, and unless 

 it is fully exercised the cultivator will not bo 

 able to give the plants under his care so 

 much assistance as he could wish. Left 

 to herself, Nature is capable of creating 

 very charming scenes and features in field 

 and woodland, and it is only by a knowltnlge 

 of her methods that artistic and otherwise 

 satisfactory effects can be produced in the 

 garden. Plants and flowers, growing natu- 

 rally in the fields and hedgerows, often pro- 

 duce effects that in their simplicity and 

 beauty are equal to the most highly-con- 

 sidered examples of the gardener s art. The 

 semi-wild garden is, perhaps, the depart- 

 ment where Nature, assisted by one who is 

 fully acquainted with her moods, pro- 

 duces the most delightful effects. 



In such a garden Nature should be 

 allowed a certain degree of freedom, or, in 

 other words, plants should be permitted to 

 grow away in much the same manner as they 

 would in the wild state, a check only being 

 placed on the rampant growers that have 

 been included in the scheme of planting 

 and upon undesirable invaders of the do- 

 main. The arrangement of the various sub- 

 jects should l:»e such as to suggest that they 

 had sprung up naturally, instead of being 

 located in a stereotyped manner, as natural 

 grouping is one of the great charms of the 



semi-wild garden. 



An intermingling of spec'es can often be 



permitted, but breadths of distinct kinds 

 are generally preferable; their form and 

 blending, however, must be studitxl from a 

 natural point of view. How often it hap- 

 pens that a group of some diminutive plant 

 in an odd comer gives a sense of complete- 

 ness. Many forms of plant life would pro- 

 duce but poor effects if it were not for 

 man's assistance ; they would frequently be 

 but one wild, tangled mass of worthless 

 growths . 



How vast is the number of Nature's pro. 

 ducts that are tunied to account and ren- 

 dered serviceable, knowle<lge and skilful 

 manipulation being brought to bear upon 

 them ; products that Avould in many in- 

 stances be of little or no benefit to mankind 



pert 



GABDNmR 



