Two Humorists Ask How Does Your Garden Grow

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 32, 20 January 1939, Page 16

Two Humorists Ask How Does Your Garden Grow

Dedication To Gardeners With Relatives Out In | New Zealand

RTIST Heath Robinson and writer K. R. G. Browne have got together once again, and although I am _ inelined to suspect that they are exploiting the gift of humour common to them both to the point of boiling pots, there’s a good deal of fun in their latest effort. "How to Make a Garden Grow’? is what they call it, and if you know your Heath Robin. son and your K. R. G. Browne, there’s really no need to. say any more about it. Quaint Gadgets However, for the benefit of those who. haven’t seen Mr. Robinson lately ‘(he doesn’t'seem to be en--joying the vogue he once did) it should be mentioned that he is as ‘full of quaint: gadgets as ever. There is the. Handy Device ‘for’ De-spiking Cacti, .the -Fowloperated : Kwiksplasche — Bird Bath, patent Magnetic Braces for Corpulent Gardeners whose braces strangle them’. when they bend down, an extension pump for those who are forced

through climatic conditions to hose their garden with their bath-water, and, most delightful of all, a gadget for Reviving ' Wilted Plants, which | am afraid is usually used for reviving wilted gardeners. It consists of a whisky. battle and soda syphon, superimposed and -ingeniously controlled by the same. trigger release. As: for. what Mr. Browne has to say ‘about ‘all this, well, although he did not rouse me to many of those expressions of mirth which Americans: so picturesquely describe .as "belly laughs," he brought -Ime Many chuckles and even a few titters. Observing self-righteously ‘ "Ewo dedications for the price of one! What more could. the heart desire?" Mr. Browne has written precisely two dedications, : Dedication The first dedication is a very general one, "To young. gardeners, old .garden*rs (I am quoting it for a purpose) gardeners in their second or third childhood ... gardeners bald, gardeners hirsute .... "gardeners named Popjoy or Snafflethwaite, gardeners who believe

that the earth is flat... gardeners with double-jointed thumbs or relatives in New Zealand. . ." Now, over the phrase, "or relatives in New Zealand" EI would like. to pick a bone with Mr. Browne. . Why does ke couple that sort of gardener with gardeners with double-jointed thumbs? For all Mr. Browne knows, there may be some horticultural cir cles in which "double-jointed thumb" is a term of reproach. ’ But I suspect the only reason he mentioned New Zealand is that he very astutely knows that a New Zealand reviewer has only to see the two words New Zealand mentioned in an overseas publication to start off.on 2 long historical and/or geographical dissertation very distantly connected with. the subject in hand. And that’s the sort of thing Mr. Browne evidently feels will sell hundreds of copies of his book out here. However, that’s by the way. As I have indicated, "How to Make a Garden Grow" is very good fun and I am glad to have read it, if only to remark and sympathise with the regret with whieh Mr. Browne observes, "In recent years the fair face of England has broken out in a. horrid rash of little model gnomes, dwarts, elves and similar whimsicalities in terracotta." Mr. Browne should know that they have broken out in suburban gardens in New Zealand, too. Also that in the New Zealand variety of the rash, "similar whimsicalities" include dwellings erected by the. State and adorned with bright red, blue and green tile roofs.J.G.M. "How to Make a Garden po. " Heath Robinson and G. Browne. Hutchinson, London " Our copy. from the pubtisher.