Los Angeles herald., 1910-05-22
OUR GARDENS

Bringing up plants is very much like
bringing up childre. There are folk
who understand the matter instructive
ly-but not many. To embark sudden
ly on large garden enterprise; to be-
gin with a wide variety of trees and
shrubs and plants, expecting them all
to prosper-is like adopting an en-
tire orphan asylum and then wondering
why each individual child doesn't do
one credit.
Therefore for ones peace of mind
and for ones credit in the community,
it is better, when making first
years garden, to bid valor wait on
discretion and choose the strongest and
most easily grown plants, turning reso-
lutely from extraordinary novelties as
from so many temptations of the devil.
There are, in gardening, obvious evils
for which there are definite remedies
such as when insects descend or when
disease thins the ranks; but when, with
no apparent cause, one plant or an
other simply does not flourish, here
are some of the possible causes:
SOME REASONS FOR FAILURE
Wrong planting.-The hole may have
been neither wide enough nor deep
enough, in which case the roots were
cramped, perhaps broken. Not only
should the hole admit the roots com
fortably, but there should be room
enough for shovelful of manure in
the bottom to give the plant roots some
incentive to go down. In planting, look
for the earth-mark on the stem and
plant it precisely as deep-no deeper.
Starvation.-More plants suffer from
this than is supposed, for to many peo-
pie soil is an unknown and unknoW-
able element-the thing that one covers
roots with, and anything will answer
1t is on new places and where grading
has been done that starvation for gar
den or lawn is especially immanent
Contractors have a distressing habit
of burying the good top-soil several
feet deep while the hardpan is put or
top; which labor-saving process makes
a good lawn or garden impossible for
several years. Another situation in
which plants are likely to starve is
when planted near a pergola or a
plaza. Vines here are rarely given
enough to eat. If a wistaria, for in
stance, is to flourish, remember the
distance it is to travel and provision
it's new home accordingly. 1t should
have a hole dug four feet deep, a
yeard square, and the space filled in
with good soil well mixed with ma
nure.
Too rich a diet.-Perhaps the shrubs
have had the other extreme; they have
had too much manure. When they
run to leaves" as gardeners say and
do not flower, they may have been
overeating. Any manure used must be
we'll rotted and not fresh, and well
mixed with soil. The roots must not
come into direct contact with it or they
will suffer.
Planted too late-If trees or shrubs
have been planted when coming into
leaf, they have a hard time of it; they
are like people who begin to work di-
rectly after an operation, emitting the
period of rest and recovery.
Shrubs planted when leafing out
should be cut hard back to enforce rest
after the shock of transplanting, so
that the roots will have less to feed
while making their connections with
supplies. If this was not done, and
the newly planted shrub left with all
it's leaf buds to care for the poor
thing was subjected to a severe strain,
and may we'll have shown the effects
of it.
Overcrowdng.-It is customary to
plant shrubs and young trees closely
for immediate effect, with the praise
worthy intention of thinning out later
but the thinning is rarely done, and
there is no way for the shrubs to Sc
cure the space they need but the
jungle method of killing one another
until only the strongest survive. If,
therefore, the plants are too slow for
comfort, dig them up in the early
snring. while still dormant and set