Manual of Gardening Part 58

The Dwarf Pearl, originating in 1870, has long been popular, and is still so with many. But others have come to prefer the old, tall kind, the flowers of which, even if not so large, are perfect in form and seem to open better.

TULIPS are undoubtedly the most prized of all early spring bulbs.

They are hardy and easy to grow. They also bloom well in winter in a sunny climate. The garden bed will last several years if well cared for, but most satisfactory bloom is secured if the old bulbs are taken up every two or three years and replanted, all the inferior ones being cast aside. When the stock begins to run out, buy anew. The old stock, if not entirely spent, may be planted in the shrubbery or perennial borders.

September is the best time for planting tulips, but as the beds are usually occupied at this time, planting is commonly postponed till October of November. For garden culture the single early tulips are the best. There are excellent early double-flowered varieties. Some prefer the double, as their flowers last longer. Late tulips are gorgeous, but occupy the beds too long in the spring. While tulips are hardy, they are benefited by a winter mulch.

In working out design patterns, the utmost care should be used to have the lines and curves uniform, which is only to be secured by marking out the design, and careful planting. Formal planting is, however, by no means necessary for pleasing effects. Borders, lines, and ma.s.ses of single colors, or groups of mixed colors which harmonize, are always in order and pleasing. Clear colors are preferable to neutral tints. As varieties vary in height and season of blooming, only named varieties should be ordered if uniform bedding effects are desired. See pp. 286 and 345; Fig. 255.

VIOLET.--While the culture of violets as house-plants rarely proves successful, there is no reason why a good supply may not be had elsewhere through the greater part of the winter and the spring months.

A sheltered location being selected, young plants from runners may be set in August or September. Have the ground fertile and well drained.

These plants will make fine crowns by December, and often will bloom before weather sufficiently cold to freeze them.

To have flowers through the winter, it will be necessary to afford some protection. This may best be accomplished by building a frame of boards large enough to cover the plants, making the frame in the same way as for a hotbed, 4 to 6 inches higher at the back than the front. Cover the frame with sash or boards, and as the weather becomes severe, mats or straw should be placed over and around the frame to protect the plants from freezing. Whenever the weather will permit, the covering should be removed and air admitted, but no harm will come if the frames are not disturbed for several weeks. Much sunlight and a high temperature through the middle of winter are to be avoided, for if the plants are stimulated, a shorter period of bloom will result. In April the frame may be removed, the plants yielding the later part of the crop without protection.

Violets belong with the "cool" plants of florists. When well hardened off, considerable frost does not harm them. They should always be kept stocky. Start a new lot from runner-plants each year. They thrive in a temperature of 55 to 65. Pages 190, 206.

WAX-PLANT.--The wax-plant, or hoya, is one of the commonest of window-garden plants, and yet it is one that house-gardeners usually have difficulty in flowering. However, it is one of the easiest plants to manage if a person understands its nature.

It is naturally a summer-blooming plant, and should rest in winter. In the winter, keep it just alive in a cool and rather dry place. If the temperature does not go above 50 Fahr., so much the better; neither should it go much lower. In late winter or spring, the plant is brought out to warm temperature, given water, and started into growth. The old flower-stems should not be cut off, since new flowers come from them as well as from the new wood. When it is brought out to be started into growth, it may be repotted, sometimes into a size larger pot, but always with more or less fresh earth. The plant should increase in value each year. In conservatories, it is sometimes planted out in the ground and allowed to run over a wall, in which case it will reach a height of many feet.

CHAPTER IX

THE GROWING OF THE FRUIT PLANTS

Fruits should be counted a regular part of the home premises. There are few residence plots so small that fruits of some kind cannot be grown.

If there is no opportunity for planting the orchard fruits by themselves at regular intervals, there are still boundaries to the place, and along these boundaries and scattered in the border ma.s.ses, apples, pears, and other fruits may be planted.

It is not to be expected that fruits will thrive as well in these places as in well-tilled orchards, but something can be done, and the results are often very satisfactory. Along a back fence or walk, one may plant a row or two of currants, gooseberries, or blackberries, or he may make a trellis of grapes. If there are no trees near the front or back of the border, the fruit plants may be placed close together in the row and the greatest development of the tops may be allowed to take place laterally.

If one has a back yard fifty feet on a side, there will be opportunity, in three borders, for six to eight fruit trees, and bush-fruits between, without encroaching greatly on the lawn. In such cases, the trees are planted just inside the boundary line.

A suggestion for the arrangement of a fruit garden of one acre is given in Fig. 270. Such a plan allows of continuous cultivation in one direction and facilitates spraying, pruning, and harvesting; and the intermediate s.p.a.ces may be used for the growing of annual crops, at least for a few years.

_Dwarf fruit-trees._

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 270. Plan for a fruit-garden of one acre. From "Principles of Fruit-growing."]

For very small areas, and for the growing of the finest dessert fruits, dwarf trees may be grown of apples and pears. The apple is dwarfed when it is worked on certain small and slow-growing types of apple trees, as the paradise and doucin stocks. The paradise is the better, if one desires a very small and productive tree or bush. The doucin makes only a half-dwarf.

The pear is dwarfed when it is grown on the root of quince. Dwarf pears may be planted as close as ten feet apart each way, although more room should be given them if possible. Paradise dwarfs (apples) may be planted eight or ten feet each way, and doucin twice that distance. All dwarfs should be kept small by vigorous annual heading-in. If the tree is making good growth, say one to three feet, a half to two-thirds of the growth may be taken off in winter. A dwarf apple or pear tree should be kept within a height of twelve or fifteen feet, and it should not attain this stature in less than ten or twelve years. A dwarf apple tree, in full bearing, should average from two pecks to a bushel of first quality apples, and a dwarf pear should do somewhat more than this.

If one grows dwarf fruit trees, he should expect to give them extra attention in pruning and cultivating. Only in very exceptional instances can the dwarf fruits be expected to equal the free-growing standards in commercial results. This is particularly true of dwarf apples, which are practically home-garden plants in this country. This being the case, only the choice dessert fruits should be attempted on paradise and doucin roots. For home gardens the paradise will probably give more satisfaction than the doucin.

If the tree is taken young, it may be trained along a wall or on an espalier trellis; and in such conditions the fruits should be of extra quality if the varieties are choice. Plate XXII shows the training of a dwarf pear on a wall. This tree has been many years in good bearing. In most parts of the country a southern wall exposure is likely to force the bloom so early as to invite danger from spring frosts.

_Age and size of trees._

For ordinary planting, it is desirable to choose trees two years from bud or graft, except in case of the peach, which should be one year old.

Many growers find strong one-year trees preferable. A good size is about five-eighths of an inch in diameter just above the collar, and five feet in height, and if they have been well grown, trees of this size will give as good results as those seven-eighths of an inch, or more, in diameter, and six or seven feet high. Buy first-cla.s.s trees of reliable dealers. It rarely pays to try to save a few cents on a tree, for quality is likely to be sacrificed.

If properly packed, trees can be shipped long distances and may do as well as those grown in a home nursery, but it will generally be best to secure the trees as near home as possible, provided the quality of the trees and the price are satisfactory. When a large number is to be purchased, it will be better to send the order direct to some reliable nursery, or to select the trees in person, than to rely on tree peddlers.

_Pruning._

Having planted the trees, they should be carefully pruned. As a rule, trees with low heads are desirable. Peaches and dwarf pears should have the lower branches from 12 to 24 inches above ground, and sweet cherries and standard pears generally not over 30 inches; plums, sour cherries, and apples may be somewhat higher, but if properly handled, when started 3 feet from the ground, the tops will not be in the way of the cultivation of the orchard.

For all except the peach in the northern states, a pyramidal form will be desirable. To secure this, four or five side branches with three or four buds each, should be allowed to grow and the center shoot should be cut off at a height of 10 to 12 inches. After growth has started, the trees should be occasionally examined and all surplus shoots removed, thus throwing the full vigor of the plant into those that remain. As a rule three or four shoots on each branch may be left to advantage. The following spring the shoots should be cut back one-half and about half of the branches removed. Care should be taken to avoid crotches, and if any of the branches cross, so that they are likely to rub, one or the other should be cut out. This cutting-back and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g-out should be continued for two or three years, and in the case of dwarf pear trees regular heading-back each year should be continued. Although an occasional heading-back will be of advantage to the trees, apple, plum, and cherry trees that have been properly pruned while young will not require so much attention after they come into bearing.

Heavy pruning of the top tends to the production of wood; therefore the severe pruning of orchard trees, following three or four years of neglect, sets the trees into heavy wood-bearing, and makes them more vigorous. Such treatment generally tends away from fruit-bearing. This heavy pruning is usually necessary in neglected orchards, however, to bring trees back into shape and to revitalize them; but the best pruning-treatment of an orchard is to prune it a little every year. It should be so pruned that the tops of the trees will be open, that no two limbs will interfere with each other, and so that the fruit itself will not be so abundant as to overload the tree.

In general, it is best to prune orchard trees late in winter or early in spring. It is sometimes better, however, to leave peaches and other tender fruits until after the buds have swollen, or even after the flowers have fallen, in order that one may determine how much they have been injured by the winter. Grape vines should be pruned in winter or not later (in New York) than the first of March. If pruned later than this, they may bleed. The above remarks will apply to other trees as well as to fruits.

_Thinning the fruit._

If the best size and quality of fruit are desired, care must be taken to see that the plant does not overbear.

Thinning of fruit has four general uses: to cause the remaining fruit to grow larger; to increase the chances of annual crops; to save the vitality of the tree; to enable one to combat insects and diseases by destroying the injured fruit.

The thinning is nearly always performed soon after the fruit is thoroughly set. It is then possible to determine which of the fruits are likely to persist. Peaches are usually thinned when they are the size of one's thumb. If thinned before this time, they are so small that it is difficult to pick them off; and it is not so easy to see the work of the curculio and thereby to select the injured fruits. Similar remarks apply to other fruits. The general tendency is, even with those who thin their fruits, not to thin enough. It is usually safer to take off what would seem to be too many than not to take off enough. The remaining specimens are better. Varieties that tend to overbear profit very greatly by thinning. This is notably the case with many j.a.panese plums, which, if not thinned, are very inferior.

Thinning may also be accomplished by pruning. Cutting off the fruit-buds will have the effect of removing the fruit. In the case of tender fruits, as peaches, however, it may not be advisable to thin very heavily by means of pruning, since the fruit may be still further thinned by the remaining days of winter, by late spring frost, or by the leaf-curl or other disease. However, the proper pruning of a peach tree in winter is, in part, a thinning of the fruit. The peach is borne on the wood of the previous season's growth. The best fruits are to be expected the strongest and heaviest growth. It is the practice of peach-growers to remove all the weak and immature wood from the inside of the tree. This has the effect of thinning out the inferior fruit and allowing the energy of the tree to be expended on the remainder.

Apples are rarely thinned; but, in many cases, thinning can be done with profit.

_Washing and scrubbing the trees._

The washing of orchard trees is an old practice. It usually results in making a tree more vigorous. One reason is that it destroys insects and fungi that lodge underneath the bark; but probably the chief reason is that it softens the bark and allows the trunk to expand. It is possible, also, that the potash from the soap or lye eventually pa.s.ses into the ground and affords some plant-food. Trees are ordinarily washed with soap suds or with a lye solution. The material is usually applied with an old broom or a stiff brush. The scrubbing of the tree is perhaps nearly or quite as beneficial as the application of the wash itself.

It is customary to wash trees late in spring or early in summer, and again in the fall, with the idea that such washing destroys the eggs and the young of borers. It no doubt will destroy borers if they are just getting a start, but it will not keep away the insects that lay the eggs, and will not destroy the borers that have found their way beneath the bark. It is perhaps quite as well to wash the trees very early in the spring, when they are starting into growth.

It is an old practice to wash trees with strong lye when they are affected with the oyster-sh.e.l.l bark louse. The modern method of treating these pests, however, is to spray with some kerosene or oil compound when the young growth is starting, for at that time the young insects are migrating to the new wood and they are very easily destroyed.

The whitewashing of the trunks of trees tends also to relieve them of insects and fungi; and it is probable that in hot and dry regions the white covering affords protection from climate.

_Gathering and keeping fruit._

Nearly all fruits should be gathered as soon as they will readily part from the stems on which they are borne. With many perishable fruits the proper time for gathering will be determined largely by the distance they are to be shipped. With the exception of winter varieties of apples and pears and a few kinds of grapes, it is best to dispose of fruit soon after it is gathered, unless it is kept for family use.

If for winter use, the fruit should at once be placed in the cellar or fruit house in which it is to be stored, and there kept as near the freezing point as possible. There will be less danger of shriveling if the fruit is placed at once in closed barrels or other tight packages, but if proper ventilation is provided, it may be kept in bins with little loss. Even though no ice is used, it will be possible to maintain a fairly low temperature by opening the windows at night when the outside atmosphere is colder than that inside the building, and closing them during the day as the outer air becomes warmer.

Fruit should be handled with great care at all times, for if the cells become broken by rough handling, the keeping qualities will be greatly injured. The ill.u.s.trations (Figs. 187-189) show three types of fruit storage houses.

Apples and winter pears may be packed in sand or leaves in the cellar (in boxes) and thereby be kept from shriveling.

ALMOND.--The almond tree is seldom seen in the eastern states, but now and then one will be found in a yard and not bearing. The failure to bear may be due to frost injury or lack of pollination.

The almond is about as hardy as the peach, but it blooms so early in the spring that it is little grown east of the Pacific slope. It is an interesting ornamental tree, and its early bloom is a merit when the fruit is not desired. The almonds commonly sold by nurserymen in the east are hard-sh.e.l.l varieties, and the nuts are not good enough for commerce. The almond fruit is a drupe, like the peach, but the flesh is thin and hard and the pit is the "almond" of commerce. Culture as for peach.