Sunday, December 1, 2002		Garden Life

Get the spring effect with winter blooms
Satish Narula

THERE is a wide range of flowering annuals to choose from during winter. Those who are planning for the spring effect, meticulously plan each and every bed. The main things to be kept in mind are the availability of cut flowers, height-wise planning of annuals and their colour combinations and so on. But there are a few basics which, if not observed, may absolutely deprive one of the desired effect, no matter howsoever good the quality of seeds you use.

Preparation of beds is of utmost importance. A good amount of well-rotten farmyard manure is mixed with the soil and left for about a week to 10 days. A bed is watered at least twice before actually planting the seedlings. Routinely, the seedlings are planted in a freshly dug and prepared bed followed by watering. Unevenness in the beds causes uneven distribution of water and nutrients. This leads to uneven plant growth and completely destroys the uniformity of a bed. Remember that the bed level should be smooth like the tabletop.

Always procure a few more seedlings than actually required. Due to one or the other reason, some of the seedlings die or give poor growth. Replace such seedlings and fill the gaps as soon as possible to catch up with the other plants in the bed.

Careless watering of the beds is one of the major mistakes that affect uniformity. Usually, the mali throws a water hose with a strong current of water in the bed and leaves it there to fill the bed. Small puddles are formed due to the water current as the soil gets eroded. Most of the time the freshly planted fragile seedlings are also uprooted and carried away with the current to be buried and killed under the soil. The nutrients also get carried away to be collected in one corner of the bed where there is tremendous vegetative growth rather than flowering at later stage. Always muzzle the end of the pipe with a piece of cloth. You can also keep a stone or an inverted bucket to break the strong current of water.

Uniform application of fertilisers in the bed is also of great importance. Light hoeing and gentle watering should follow any such application.

Last but not the least, keep a vigil on insects, pests and diseases that appear at any time during the short span of life that these annuals have. Watch out for the leaf miner in dahlia, nasturtium, antirrhinum, calandula, poppy etc. It makes zigzag shining tunnels on leaves and sucks sap. Plants affected by it may lose vitality. Thrips, aphids and caterpillars of may moths and butterflies damage most winter annuals by sucking sap or voraciously feeding on them. Spraying roger or metasystox can check these insects. Use one of these chemicals at one millilitre to a litre of water at fortnightly intervals. In case of caterpillar attack, you can use sevin or hexavin at 2.5 gram to a litre of water for immediate effect.