AN EPSOM GARDEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21279, 5 September 1932, Page 11

AN EPSOM GARDEN

INSPECTION BY VISITORS Members of the Institute of Horticulture and their friends who took advantage of the invitation of Professor A.. P.#W. Thomas, to visit his garden in Mountain Road on Saturday afternoon, found there a. wealth of flowers and plants to interest and to charm. It is in narcissi that Professor Thomas has principally specialised, and the many glorious beds of these were a revelation in size and substance of the blooms, as well as in their richness of variety. Of the hundreds of different kinds to be admired, a. large proportion were seedlings produced by Professor Thomas. There were hundreds of blooms fit to take their place in any show. When Professor Thomas, greatly daring, took over these acres of scoria rock and untamed bush 42 years ago, it is related that he advertised for a quarryman with gardening experience. Through all the intervening years the work of quarryman and gardener has gone steadily forward under skilled and far-seeing direction, until the area ha s been transformed into a garden and glades of rare charm and entrancing beauty. The visitors found new treasures to attract them in every ordered bed and by every winding path through the carefully preserved native bush. A magnificent magnolia stellata covered with its white blooms was greatly admired, and there were masses of clematis at its very best. Tall heaths, grape hyacinths and dainty primroses graced the entrance path. Iceland poppies, irises, lachenalia and saxifrage each lent, their charm in various parts, and sweetpeas already 9ft,. high were blooming freely. Native trees, shrubs and ferns, some of them exceedingly rare, were identified and studied with much interest. Mr. N. R. W. Thomas, secretary of. the institute, and Professor Thomas, placed themselves freely at the disposal of guests, and the visit proved to be an education to expert as well as to amateur, not only in the endless possibilities of the daffodil, but in the art of landscape gardening and in many problems of interest to the gardener. The garden will be similarly opened again to institute members and friends on the afternoon of Saturday week.