LIKE PAINTER'S PALETTE

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 11, 14 January 1926, Page 10

LIKE PAINTER'S PALETTE

IN THE WINTER GARDEN. WEALTH OP SUMMER COLOUR. BEGONIAS NEARING THEIR PRIME. While it will not be looking its best until a couple of weeks later, the winter garden in the Auckland Domain is full of lovely blooms and ferns just now, and it is* rather remarkable that more Aucklanders do not pay the place a visit. As a rule this sort of thing is left for visitors to find out, and the loral resident is content to read about the sight in a newspaper paragraph. Although they are nearly over, the calceolarias still make a 'very gorgeous show. They are of all colours, some self colour, while others have those beautiful markings which make them so strongly resemble a leopard or tiger skin. And they are not the ordinary small bloocf that some of us know in our small gardens; they are all about the size of a small purse, and in fact Tather resemble that article, or perhaps a miniature mob-cap would be a better likeness. Just coming into their prime are begonias, for which the garden is noted. Already many of the pots are throwing up wonderfully fine blooms, and the range of colouring is bewildering. Many of the flowers are five inches across. There are singles and doubles, plain ones, others crimped at the edges, some with a crest-like tuft in the centre. Reds, yellows and whites seem to be tbe favourite colours of these striking blooms. The petals have a wavy texture without the coldness of most wax plants. Like most beautiful things, they are delicate, and the slightest rough handling will snap off a precious bloom. "When enthusiastic ladies visit the garden, and ignoring the injunction "Please don't toneh," lift up a bloom, remarking the while, "Isn't that a beauty?" the pardenera go about with their hearts in their mouths, and a strong desire to decapitate" somebody. These blooms have to be handled like a piece of egg-shell china, and the object of the enthusiastic Indies' mis-directed attention invariably drops off on to the floor. "When the gardeners want to display the blooms they lift the drooping ones and hold them in a little cleft stick, turning the full face to the spectator; but their handling is very different from that of the people who flout the notice hoards. To see a professional gardener setting up a begonia plant for display reminds you of a bachelor uncle who has been entrusted with his new niece for the first time, and fears that he will drop it and break its little head. This' fragility of the begonia is well exemplified in the hanging variety, the begonia Lloydii, the one that is seen in the baskets hanging from the roof, its profusion of salmon pink blooms falling in lovely festoons. Often in the mornings the attendants when they come in find several branches or fronds of thi3 beautiful plant strewn about the floor. The bold sparrows manage to find their way into the garden, in spite of its glass covering, and they go rummaging among the begonia Lloydii for the caterpillars, but the waxy-like branch is too frail to bear the weight for the foraging bird, and snaps off. Other exquisite flowers now in bloom are the streptocarpus, which for the uninitiated may be described as a large and glorified salpiglossis. It seems to favour white, and the beauty of it lies in the great variety of the markings in the throat of the bloom, thp markings being in some colour which contrasts with that of the re : : " the petals, which form the trumj c Hanging baskets are a featim- in the garden, and two very noticeable flowers used in this way are the achimene, with its blooms of faience blue, and the hanging lobelia, called sapphire. 2s one of these blues ever seem to clash in nature ais'they would if worn by a human being. In addition to being used in the hanging baskets the lobelia is also used in pots oh the tables, the trails of blue looking just like a shower of the lovely atone after which the variety is named. Perns, bamboos, and dozens of other refreshingly green things go to make up a very fine show. Unfortunately the Domain is rather far away from town for many people, and .probably that accounts for the comparative few that visit it. The garden is very well looked after, but elderly people who have toiled up so far would be glad of a seat where they could rest awhiTe. There is not a single chair or a seat to he'found anywhere near the place. An"other,, request of visitors may strike adfe'e,.,people as being father odd, but it is ,fpr a. visitors' book. • '[■■ So lovely. are the flowers, that they move quite unemotional folk to words, and no doubt they wish to give expression to the pleasure the sight has given them.