• Tweet
• 

• Tweet
• 

It is difficult to come to the point of preparing the garden of next December, January and February in August. but if you want winter bedding annuals you must not only prepare the areas now but live with barren ground for a while.

It is important that the earth into which stock and snapdragon and other winter-flowering plants go and the trench where sweet peas are to be sown are adequately fertilized, worked deeply and kept moist until the seedlings are planted and the seed sown.

Let the ground lie fallow until near the end of the month. When a cool spell comes pop in the young plants from the flats, disturbing them as little as possible. Guard them from drought and aphids. A mulch will help keep the soil cool during periods of hot weather. Give camellias and azaleas one more feeding. Snow-form iron sulphate (a granulated form) helps to put that healthy rich green into foliage. Use 1 heaping tablespoon per gallon of water.

California Fog Belt

Unceasingly the question is asked, “What shall I plant under my live oaks and pines?” Many gardeners say, “I know ferns will do, but I want color.” If you want a change from the usual cinerarias and tuberous begonias, here are a few from a long list of plants that will grow under a tree headed high enough to get some slanting sunlight – columbine, haste, primula, viola, lobelia, bedding begonia, torenia and the two low, spreading saxifrages. London Pride and Mother-of-Thousands. Grape hyacinths, daffodils, particularly the hoop petticoat daffodil, and even freesias are bulbs that will take these conditions.

Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys

When sowing seeds for next winter’s bloom keep the flats cool, shaded and moist, not wet. Use wet burlap over the flats, removing it just as soon as seeds germinate to admit the necessary air or the tiny seedlings will damp off. Guard the flats from the birds and see that although there is circulation of air there is no damage from wind.

Wallflowers are among the biennials suited to the Big Valley. The excellent branching stocks are even more of a triumph if they are nipped back to make wide bushes. Use the annual Virginia stock for a filler, sowing the seed, if possible, where it is to bloom. Put Sternhergia lutes bulbs in this month for fall bloom. They are a success in the ground as well as in pots. This is the month to gather those graceful grasses you find edging the irrigation ditches for use in dried bouquets.

Pacific Northwest

If you are going to do anything about iris, this is the month to go into action. The Northwest is a land of iris specialists who have produced new varieties of bearded iris in new shades, different heights and time of bloom. They handle native iris, bulbous and tuberous iris and the Japanese iris which extend the season. Bulbous I. reticulata, among the delightful dwarf iris, is about 9 inches tall, its erect leaves a little taller. The type is deep purple with a golden streak on each fall. It has a violet fragrance. I. reticulata Hercules is violet-red and I. r. Cantab is pale blue. Try some of these in your rock garden; they bloom with aubrieta, crocus and alyssum. Another dwarf is I. danfordiae, bright yellow with olive-brown markings. Place your order for these now.

When Matilija poppy, Romneya coulteri, has finished blossoming cut the flowering stalks back, leaving the low, leafy ones. No more bloom will come this year on the poppy, but if you cut the Russell lupins back as soon us they have flowered you are almost sure to get another blooming.

L Rowntree