NZBS GARDEN EXPERTS—4

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 892, 7 September 1956, Page 20

NZBS GARDEN EXPERTS—4

\V HEN we asked Joseph Passmore, the garden expert heard from 4YA on Tuesday nights, whether he finds running a garden session keeps him "on the ball" horticulturally speaking, he replied without hesitation: "I certainly do -there is always something to find even in one’s own garden." After six and a half years of answering listeners’ questions, Mr. Passmore still insists that he’s no more than a "home gardener." "This has been a life-long hobby," he says. "We garden for pleasure only." His garden is home size, too-a quarter acre. All this no doubt helps .Mr. Passmore to see things from the home gardener’s point of view, though the impressive number of new introductions he is able to try out even in the restricted space he has shows that he is no ordinary gardener, Plants he will be trying, out this season were sent from England, where he has visited a number of nurseries. And, of course, for all his modesty he has the qualifications of an expert-including a Fellowship of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture-and he has won many gardening awards. Mr. Passmore has no trouble answering listeners’ questions from Dunedin or other parts of the country. "I don’t always know the answer," he says, "but I have an excellent library and many PS ars 8 re PSs og mes Care laa AP ye ef OX 8 Eee So

good gardening friends, and I keep myself up-to-date by reading New Zealand and overseas gardening literature." However, people who want plants identified still often send incomplete infor-mation-a point which Mr. Passmore mentioned in a note about him on this page last year. Questions, he thinks, should all be sent through 4YA, not asked in the street or by telephone. Inquirers who make a more direct ap proach are all the harder to deal with since horticulture is not Mr. Passmore’s full-time work.