RAILWAY GARDENS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 62, 10 September 1937, Page 10

RAILWAY GARDENS

PREPARING FOR SUMMER

To the hundreds of people arriving by train each morning for work in the city the well-kept gardens at the Auckland railway station give cause for justifiable civic pride (states the "New Zealand Herald"). To visitors from other centres or from overseas they are the subject-of much favourable comment, and now, at the commencement of spring, the beds are being again prepared to receive the summer flowers which have gained such unstinted admiration in the past. Manuring and trenching has already been carried out on a number of the beds, while scarlet geraniums and two brilliant varieties of calendulas, golden light and radio, still lend more than a touch of colour to the gardens. On the roof nursery the enormous total of 20,000 plants is being nurtured preparatory to being planted out during the next .few weeks.

All types of summer flowers are represented in the dozens of seed boxes filled with healthy-looking plants, from the popular phlox drummondi, zinnias, salvias, and petunias to the various types of marigolds. A large number of dwarf charm dahlias, of smaller type than the usual varieties, have been propagated for the main beds.

Attention at present is being directed to the planting of perennials such as calyopsis, niermbergeas, geums, and linums. In a few weeks the task of planting out the summer flowers also will be commenced.

Work about which the general public know very little is being carried out in the native plant section. Nearly 600 young kauri trees have been raised and are ready for distribution, while in the shade of the bush house on the roof experiments are proceeding with the native manuka. By collecting seeds from the best plants, the gardener hopes to get a better type of flower from the pink and red varieties. Some of the 300 shrubs coming along nicely in the pots already show promising signs of developing flowers equal to and perhaps better than any present stock.

Success also has attended the raising of 300 plageanthus plants. Very much like the silver birch, the plageanthus grows usually alongside streams in the river silt. Efforts are being made to raise it for ornamental purposes.