Gardening

Peat and sand mix too dry for winter

Once again this week I was
overcome with passionate desire.
Relax! It was nothing more than
pictures on boxes of bulbs that got
me going.

It is like a disease or an addic-
tion, but whatever it is, I simply
cannot resist the darned things. I
ended up with ten pink and ten
white wood hyacinths, a package
of yellow Iris Danfordia (the tiny
ones that look so elegant in pots
on the front porch) a package of
purple anemonies, one of mixed
ranuculus, ten pink, and ten white
scilla, and am now kicking myself
I didn’t get enough tulips to plant
up a pot apiece for all the people
on our Christmas list.

Now, of course, I still have to
plant all these things, and last time
I was a nervous wreck before
finishing. I kept cutting off the
well-advanced growth of tulips
and daffodils planted other years.

Maybe I'll just stick to freshly
filled pots this time. These bulbs
won't flower by Christmas, of
course, but should by sometume in
January, just when everything
looks bleak and dreary, and a pot
of tulips would dazzle the most
depressed.

I won’t go through all the pre-
paration usually considered neces-
Sary; just pot them up and put
them on a shelf in the greenhouse,
which is sheltered, of course, but
unheated.

In a month they should be up,
and because they are sitting in
light rather than darkness, the
foliage should be green. At this
time they may be given as gifts, to
be brought inside for earliest
bloom, or left out on a porch,
perhaps, for flowers somewhat
later.

Please, if you have pots of bulbs
under an overhang, do keep them
watered all winter, otherwise they

won't flower, just produce bulbs
which won’t open. Heartbreak
City! as the kids say.

It seems mad to talk about
watering, when it is coming down
in buckets outside, but everything
growing under an overhanging
roof will, by spring, be as dry as
two-week-old toast.

Before you drain your hoses, and
put them in storage for the winter,
do, for Heaven’s sake, thoroughly
soak all such covered shrubs, plus
any similar spot where you may
have bulbs trying to grow!

Mary Hyde called to ask about
geraniums potted up for the winter
in a mixture of peat and sand. She
was concemed, quite rightly too,
that this medium might be too dry.

Since the peat had not been
soaked beforehand, I’m afraid it
would gradually suck every bit of
moisture out of the geranium roots.
She was sweet about having to
re-pot them in soil. (I’d have had a
stroke myself!)

Watering was also a concem, but
I’d think watering once a month

‘We just have fo learn to throw
things out when all sensible
remedies have been applied and
miserably failed’

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would be enough, unless the soil
seemed awfully dry between
times.

We talked about rooting cut-
tings, as well, and how satisfactory
sand is, aS a rooting medium for
geraniums and pelargoniums ...
actually for everything I can think
of. Not beach sand, though ... too
much salt in it.

Ginny Clarke called to ask me
about a plant that, from her
description, I think is a Draecena
Marginata. This plant has lost a
great many of its long skinny
leaves, and the question was about
nipping out the growing tip to
encourage it to bush out, lower
down. I honestly don’t think this
would work ... a bare stem is
natural for this handsome housepl-
ant.

In Mrs. Clarke’s case J think the
best bet would be to re-pot it,
spreading out the roots as much as
possible, before placing it in a spot
where it will get lots of light.

It may still die, since right now;
from her report, it doesn’t seem
too strong, but these things some-
times happen. We just have to
learn to throw things out when all
sensible remedies have been
applied and miserably failed.
Another instance of Heartbreak
City, I suppose!

Caesarian section
task force formed

Health Minister John Jansen last
week announced the establishment
of a provincial task force to review
the use and rate of increase in
Caesarian sections in British
Columbia.

“The increase in the use of
Caesarian sections over the past 10
years appears to be greater than
can be explained by changes in the
numbers of mothers and babies at
risk,” Jansen said. :

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