NATIVE GARDEN

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 256, 27 July 1939, Page 13

NATIVE GARDEN

Feature Of Exhibition Grounds HARDY POHUTUKAWAS To those interested in native flora, one of the features of the Centennial Exhibition will be the native garden, which is being formed and planted under the supervision of the director of parks and reserves, Mr. J. G. MacKenzie. Mr. MacKenzie is receiving contributions from all parts of the country for planting within the next week or two. Already some of the more hardy specimens have been transferred to their riew home, an area of land to the south of the main entrance to the grounds, which is partially sheltered by a high fence. One lot conies from nurseries situated on Mount Cargill, the hill between Dunedin and Port Chalmers, but, according to latest advices, any further immediate transplantings are out of the question, as the nursery is under snow. Mr. MacKenzie states that the garden will represent much of the flora of New Zealand, including various kinds of kowhais, veronicas, fuchsias, manukas, olearias (New Zealand daisies), youthful totaras, the family of mountain brooms and koromikos. He has made extensive use of pohutukawas all round the exhibition buildings, some of them 18 to 20 feet in height, which should make a good show at Christmas time. The director said yesterday that he considered that the pohutukawa was the only New Zealand tree that could survive the conditions existing at Rongotai this winter. It was not so much that the site of the exhibition was exposed to every wind, either from Cook Strait or the harbour, but the flying sand from Lyall Bay beach was. in windy weather, an element highly destructive to growing plants and shrubs. So far the pohutukawas planted three months ago had stood up to the weaIher in good style. Losses were negligible. In regard to the suggestion that lupins might bo planted between the Lyall Bay parade and the beach to prevent sand drift, Mr. MacKenzie said that lupins were very effective where it was possible to plant them in a sufficiently broad swathe. A narrow strip, such as the area at Lyall Bay offered, would, he was afraid, not do very well. Lupins, which were nitrogenous in character, forming their own soil after a time, did well in clumps, and the bigger the clumps the better.