Flowers-En Masse

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 35, 23 February 1940, Page 43

Flowers-En Masse

that lured many a gardener from end to end of New Zealand — a lavish display of blooms both lovely and exotic in the assembly hall. Exhibition staged a flower show In, the corridor one was struck by. a prize-winning lay-out for howse and twoacre grounds. The section was undulating, with the house well up on the slope. The long, low side was a semi-circular lawn made cosy by shrubs’ that bordered it and fitted in the corners. On the higher level were bright flower-beds, a secluded tennis court, a vegetable garden usefully near. the kitchen door and a potting shed. In the main hall, to the left, one was met by a wall of gledioli in magnificent variety, " Miss New Zealand" has it, perhaps, for size, but the "variety marked Jalua presented subtlest colour blends.

Of the hydrangeas " King George" was aiprize-winner -- but the copper-greens are always my preference. Begonias hung from their swinging cradles or wtpod at attention with waxy heads wire-supported. Grotesque and Snails But a table of novelties soon took all my interest. ‘Hére were the grotesque and the unusual exhibits. Seed pots, strange-shaped and furry, cones of. amazing size, cacti, huge purple clematis, black pansiés, green roses, a minute potted hydrangea, natural :size; dated 1840.

Here was a West Indian cactus, sealed from air and water, that had flourished — under the name of the Englishman’s Head, whiskers and all — for half a century. Here was the strange, deep-throated " fly-catcher," magnolia leaves in perfect skeleton, and the beautiful nikau flower and fruit. But truly beautiful, too, was a collection of New Zealand snails --- huge, bronze and polished — that come from our deepest forests, whose felling they

do not survive.

D.

R.