GARDENS IN TAUPO

Taupo Times, Volume IV, Issue 155, 14 January 1955, Page 2

GARDENS IN TAUPO

PLANNING FOR SHRUBS

(By

"Flora")

If you plan to plant a few new I shrubs and trees this coming winter now is the time to decide what you will get. Especially if you are including some that will be in flower over the summer holidays. Watch other gardens and see what grows in Taupo. It is always disappointing to plant something that is flourishing in, say, Auckland, only to find that when grown in our more rigorous climate it fails to respond to the most loving care, or worse, succumbs to the first severe frost. It is somewhat difficult to find shrubs that bloom at this time of the year. Spring is easy, with the large Prunus family or a little later with the Australian Mints, Kolj witzias and Brooms and then the I Azaleas and Rhododendrons. But by Christmas the shrubbery is J somewhat devold of colour. One I 0f the most brilliant of flowering

shrubs to come out then is the Callestemon— it has spikes of crimson scarlet bottle-brush-like I flowers. The Cistus are in flower, and ~ cheery things they are too, none I- of them growing more than about six feet and so easy to accommodate, in fact there are some varieties suitable for the rockery. Quite a range of colours too. The Deutzia has a dainty flower mostly of the pink and mauve shades, and is an easy subject to grow. The- Hypericums are one of the best summer flowering shrubs producing many golden-yellow flowers over a long period, There !| is a new variety called H. Lesche- | naulti that is recommended. Although you . may not yet get the fruit to ripen in Taupo, the Feijoa is well worth growing for its red . Pohutukawa-like flowers I and its handsome dark green folI iage that has a lighter reverse. Diervilla, or as we used to know it, J the Weigela, is a hardy shrub bearing masses of blo'ssoms, - red-dish-crimson or pink.