Flawed guide to N.Z. gardening

Press, 19 March 1983, Page 16

Flawed guide to N.Z. gardening

Eion Scarrow’s Guide to Gardening in New Zealand. By Eion Scarrow and Bruce Gooding. Lansdowne Press, 1983. 224 pp, illustrated with colour plates and line drawings. $29.95. (Reviewed by Derrick Rooney)

This gardening primer, written jointly by a well-known television horticulturist and nurseryman, and an Auckland journalist, should appeal to novice gardeners who are content with a guidebook which does not delve more deeply into the subject than does a casual magazine article, and to those who are happy with a lavishly illustrated book which looks decorative on a side-table.

It is being promoted as “Book of the Month” (at a reduced price of $19.95 during March), has been well designed and illustrated by Leonard Cobb, Suellen Allen, and Graham Gash, has been cleanly

printed in Hong Kong, and is sensibly laid out in chapters dealing with different aspects of gardening. Unfortunately, the quality of the proofreading has not matched that of the design and printing, and there are numerous minor but irritating errors in the text. There are some oddities and inconsistencies, too, and despite the generally sound advice the authors give on such basic topics as soil preparation and fruit and vegetable growing, they are sometimes on uncertain ground when dealing with , more specialised aspects of gardening. For example, the chapter on perennials describes kniphofias as winter flowering, whereas most of the species and hybrids in cultivation flower in summer or autumn.

A chapter on hedges recommends propagation of bamboos by division in late

winter, which may very well be satisfactory ■ in Auckland, but is almost certain to lead to the death of the plant in colder areas, where it is unwise to disturb bamboos or other ornamental grasses before spring is well advanced — say, midOctober. One of the plants in the list of species recommended as hedging is Berberis darwinii — a handsome shrub, but also a category B noxious plant! And four varieties of Leyland cypress are available for hedging or shelter, not two as stated by the authors. However, the authors seem to be generally sound in the advice they give on dealing with fruit, vegetables, bedding plants, and pests and diseases, though they are sometimes less than authoritative on botanical matters or in dealing with lesser known plants. The reader could be forgiven for believing, after reading the book, the differences between “species,” “hybrid,” and “cultivar” are blurred, and that raising plants from seed is not propagation. True, the book is aimed at, and written for, the reader who knows nothing, or very little, of horticulture or botany, and who wants to know only just enough to get by on a suburban section; but that is no justification for inaccuracy. The authors have not kept abreast of changes in nomenclature, and some confusion may result from their use, for some plants, of names which are now generally accepted as invalid. The section on native shrubs, for example, lists “Gaya lyalli” — but this pretty small native Canterbury tree was placed in the genus Hoheria many decades ago. Other plants referred to by invalid names include the bluebell (for which the authors retain the generic name “Scilla,” though Kew authorities have removed these plants to the genus Hyacinthoides), and the autumnflowering Cyclamen hederifolium, described here under the possibly more familiar, but invalid, name “Cyclamen neapolitanum.” The orchid, Epidendrum obrienianum, is listed as “O’brienianum,” though the International Code of Nomenclature proscribes the use of both the capital letters and the apostrophe. It is disappointing to note in the generally good chapter on fruitgrowing that the tree illustrated in a series of drawings is pruned to an open vase shape, rather than the more modern, and more space-efficient, pyramid type of tree. The chapter- on roses, contributed by Alan Scott, a well-known magazine writer on the subject, includes the extraordinary assertion that shrub roses are “hybrids between a strong bush rose and a climber”: and although the old roses, which have become very popular in recent years, get a brief mention there is no indication that these require specialised systems of pruning. These points aside, the book as a gardening primer is a well-dressed candidate in a very crowded field. The quality of the photographs is excellent.