HISTORY IN THE GARDEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 782, 16 July 1954, Page 7

HISTORY IN THE GARDEN

\ OLTAIRE'S advice to "cultivate your garden" has nowhere been taken more literally than in New Zealand. At evenings and weekends, thousands of home gardeners head outdoors equipped with a few tools, a little knowledge, and a lot of good intentions. "Green fingers’ being somewhat rare, most home gardeners need advice, and the country’s press and radio see that they get it. One of the foremost experts in this field is J. W. Matthews, whose feature Garden with Matthews appears regularly in eight newspapers, with a net daily circulation of 400,000. In addition, his Horticultural Advisory Service last year answered 7000 inquiries. This week he’ll be on the air, discussing some of the less pressing questions about New Zealand’s gardens. In a series of Women’s Hour talks entitled How the Garden Got Its Plants, he tells of the origins of a number of the plants we mowadays take for granted. Behind the discovery and adaptation of our plants, says Mr. Matthews, lie stories of high courage and enterprise. The ones we can grow in New Zealand come from as far apart as the Arctic Circle and tropical Africa. Some grew on the earth long before man came to admire. them. The Monkey Puzzle and the Maidenhair tree, for instance, were both familiar to the animals that roamed the earth millions of years ago. Other classes of plants, he says, are’ those improved by selection, and-by far the largest» group--those ‘bred ‘by’ man for specific purposes: the hybrids.’ Mr. Matthews’s 12 talks consist of an->

introduction and programmes about roses, New Zealand native flora, carnations, fruit trees, camellias, sub-tropical plants, plants from China, vegetables, tulips, spring bulbs, and plant breeding. The rose, he says, was known as the Queen of Flowers nearly 3000 years ago. Nero is supposed to have spent

the equivalent of £30,000 on blooms for decorating the scene of a great feast. The Empress Josephine collected varieties sent her by Napoleon’s governors throughout the Empire. There’ were some 2000 varieties in her day. Now there are 15,000, being constantly renewed by the breeding of new hybrids. In his talk on carnations, Mr. Matthews compares a recent Otaki breed which has a bloom five inches in diameter with the original species "which had only five petals and was a weakly thing." It’s botanical name, he says, derives from the Greek for "Divine Bloom," and it was appreciated by. the Greeks for its’ perfume; which they used to mask their body odours. ‘Mr. Matthews ‘is founder- and editor of

The New Zealand Gardener, and the author of eight books on horticulture. He has lectured for the W.E.A. and the National Library Schooi, and is founder and former editor of the New Zealand Science Review. Among the fellowships he holds is that-of the Linnaean Society, one of the world’s foremost organisations devoted _ to botanical and zoological research. At Waikanae, where he_ lives, ,Mr. Matthews has his own trial e¢rounds,

where new plants, fungicides, fertilisers and. methods are tried out under varying conditions. Where possible he obtains plants two years before they are released to the public, this giving him an opportunity to study their behaviour before they reach the home gardener. How the Garden Got Its Plants starts in the Women’s Hour from 2ZB and 3ZB on Friday, July 16. It begins from 4ZB and 2ZA on July 30, 1XH on Aveust 13 end 1ZB or August 31.