PLANT WORSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1932, Page 5

PLANT WORSHIP

ITS OUTWARD SIGNS

AND ITS INWARD GRACES

Few changes have been so marked in the city streets as the advent of thousands of for-sale plants that never used to be. But a few years ago, the plant offerings were confined to a few shops strictly in the line, and were comparatively modest. Now, the. shops offering for sale rooted things, in bundles or boxes, are many and divers. The wave has swept over ironmongery. Anyone would think that the iron age had come in mainly to make the earth blossom. (Which would be as it should be!) ; : •■;:..,

Quite a long time ago .the; sale of cut flowers showed a sudden increase; but now the era has come of the plant itself—flower, vegetable, tree—which marks an advance from' ttie dead to the living; The people will not merely'be content to buy the flower or the crop from the- professional garden. " They will themselves bo gardeners. • . "Plant worship is a form, of pantheism which, was in a manner reborn with the present- century," says an observer who has. studied horticultural trends both in New Zealand and in England. "The horticultural -wave began in the Old Country about' a quarter of a century ago, and it has taken a< fairly long time to reach New Zealand. : But it is here now.: The wave is at last strong enough to carry the amateur gardener on even in the face of a popular illusion that you cannot garden in Wellington because of natural obstacle's—mostly climate, partly soil. There are no natural forces that cannot be turned into allies. We complain of the wind, but the wind is the life of the garden." "But you would not ripen tomatoes on Ward Island?"

"Perhaps ■it would not be worth while. ?ut something could be done with Ward Island, and something is being done "in even the most exposed situations in Wellington. ' The people are now seized with the will to'do, and done it will be. Amends will be made for. past despoliation of plant life." "What is the psychology behind this wave?" . ' ' .' • ' ■ ■ ' ■

"It is. partly,; I think, an.unrecognised reaction, against the : modern spirit of finding your pleasures away from your habitation,' The1 cult, of the garden—and it is a cult of ' amazing breadth, both, technical and philosophical—is all in favour of a return to simple,' 'happy living. It is' ; home* making, as against home-breaking; It owes something: to. new scientific technique and facilities—which save time and unnecessary labour—something to press publications; that have remained loyal to gardening notes, and something to the new thought-provoking problems raised by science in, the way of plantbreeding, genetics, hybridism; , parasitolo'gy,- etc. Science has so: far'opened the unsolved problems of the botanical world that' the layman may look inside,-and be lured to go-farther. He sees things that. he can do, himself."

'' Has . the^^cult of the indigenous been a help?''!" ' .

' 'Very much so, and,it will' be;increasingly a help. For a long time the great' Dr. Cockayne worked as on© in the wilderness, but his. botanical.harvest) was such that the eyes of botanical Europe were directed to New Zealand,- and the work since done under his: leadership has spurred New Zealanders to a realisation of what, was long recognised, abroad—the peculiar character and charm of New Zealand vegetation. Wellington -in the last thirty years, has acclimatised the poh'utukawa, but in /Presto (Scilly Islands) they have, a pohutukawa, grove about a. hundred years : old. .Still, the main .thing is that the cult of the indigenous haa.at last seized Wellington. and otlier places in New Zealand.' Under exotic shelter, native plants' will gr.ow. I do not mean that exotic shelter is needed, when the ngaio and many others are available; but the exotic and the native can be of mutual, service, and this fact is reflected^in 'the trade' tq-day, just as the, general' cult of the garden proclaims its ascendancy through the plant offerings, in the, streets' of Weil.ihgton: "Love of.plant, and love-of.bird, in fact love of all outdoor life, is a sign Qi culture in. civilisation to-day, .'and the tendencies exhibited are all If or. gOOdi'' ' ,::'■'.' ■■■■ . • '•' :