PLANTING FOR SPRING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19676, 30 June 1927, Page 10

PLANTING FOR SPRING.

ALBERT PARK PREPARATIONS. A STOREHOUSE OF BEAUTY. MANY INTERESTING SPECIMENS. The dead of winter is a dull time in gardens. But though the beauty of blightflowers is almost wholly lacking, (his does not mean the gardener can at all afford to lie idle. L'"or him every season brings its appropriate and necessary task, and were it neglected aid the work of the rest of the year would be fruitless. Juno is largely a time of cleaning up and overhauling gardens, and this is the process that has been going on in Albert Park for some weeks ( past. It is a work full of rich promise for the coming spring. The ribbon border near Princes Street has just been replaced by about 6000 anemones. In some of the centre beds where salvias bloomed last season ranunculus asiaticus has been planted. Last year the borders about the fountain were set out as pattern beds. Some 1300 stocks are waiting in readiness now to be planted out there as soon as the weather is favourable. Autumn flowers continued on so long this season that the work of replanting is hardly so far advanced as usual, but there are lachenalias ready to occupy a couple of beds, and Iceland poppies and cinerarias are all to be planted out in large numbers soon. All these and a very great deal more are raised at the Domain gardens. whence comes the stock of plants for all the City Council's parks and re-

The men at Albert Park are lifting the canna. lilies just now and dividing them up, preparatory to replanting. They will make all the, more brilliant show when their time comes. One of the few flowers to be admired in bloom at this colourless period is the lucullia gratissima, a large shrub with beautiful pink scented flowers. There are two good specimens in the borders near Princes Street. Surely one of the most magnificent and wonderful of flowers is the strelitzia regina, or bird of paradise. Already one multi-coloured bloom is out on a large bush of this, and soon it will be a mass of gorgeous flowers. The beauty of some of the treasures of Albert Park does not vary with the season of the year. As a tree, for instance, what could be more delightful to gaze upon.than the stately .and most graceful cork oak (quercus suber), with its strong, spreading branches It is an evergreen member of the oak family and from its bark comes the cork so familiar now the world over. Three or four fine specimens of it may be admired on the slope above Bowen's Avenue. One strange aggressive-looking plant that always manages to show some little appearance of flower at every season of the year is the euphorbia splendens, whose real home is Mexico. It lives in the little rock-garden near the top of Victoria Street, and the savage thorns with which its stout branches are liberally protected tell of an age-long struggle with enemies in its native land. Albert Park is a delightful spot in which to enjoy a rest at any time when the weather permits, but it is something more than that. It is a storehouse of beauty and of curious knowledge about many a shrub and plant.