An Australian Home Gardener

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30472, 20 June 1964, Page 4

An Australian Home Gardener

[Reviewed by S.Gt] The Practical Home Gardener. T. R. N. Lothian. Lothian Melbourne. 390 pp. 2nd Edition, 1963.

Mr Lothian, who is Director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, has written this book for the home gardener in Australia. Its information has greatest applicability in Adelaide itself, but serves as a very useful guide to growing in South and South-west. Australia. The wide differences in climate’ between much of this region and New Zealand makes the value of. Mr Lothian’s book limited here. Certainly, the experienced gardener, who knows the range of plants we grow and their requirements, can extract much information. But the average. home gardener, looking for immediately' applicable advice, and unable to sort the wheat from the chaff, is liable to be seriously misled. Nevertheless, there are many words of wisdom which enable us to understand why such and such a choice is made. Mr Lothian is to be commended on this approach —through logic, rather than dogma, as is too frequently the case.

This second edition has numerous additions to the original text Gardeiking without digging, plant' lists for dry areas, hints on organising a flower show, and a botanical index are some of them. Within the text it is obvious that Mr Lothian has kept up to date,, for one finds references to the use of |ron chelates, band application of fertilisers, and University of California compost mixers—all recent additions to the home gardener’s vocabulary. The general scheme of the book—an attempt to cover the whole field of home gardening-■flowers, fruits,

vegetables, pests and diseases etc.—determines its layout. Ten chapters are-devoted to general matters 15 to ornamentals, and one each to fruit and vegetables. There are weaknesses and strengths amongst these chapters. The use of fertilisers, the choice of tools, and the chapters on trees and shrubs,-for example, are good. The chapters on rock and water gardens—certainly, relatively unimportant in Australia—are weak and inadequate. And the chapter on control of pests, diseases and weeds—although obviously it has had much care devoted to' it—is likely to be more discouraging than encouraging to the home gardener, with its unselective lists of the controls available. The home gardener wants a small and select list, not a battery of chemical abbreviations that even the garden sundries-man would baulk at

The chapter on lawns—almost of no direct value in the South Island, due to its, preoccupation with warm climate grasses, is nevertheless, one of those chapters which, will provide the experienced gardener with considerable interest. The gardener in New Zealand’s warm dry areas can certainly find valuable advice here. The illustrations are not a Strong point—some are from photographs which are almost out of focus, whilst others have a very shallow depth of field. They do not compare with the high quality ot some New Zealand publications in this field. And the priceeven allowing for currency differences—is a high one. ■ “The Practical, Home Gardener" is likely to be of interest to the New Zealand gardener in warm climates only, when he will find its bias towards Australian conditions to be of considerable use.