AUTUMN IN THE GARDENS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 14

AUTUMN IN THE GARDENS.

NATURE AT REST. SEASON OF MEMORIES. LAST OF THE YEAR'S COLOURS. The gold and brown hordes of autumn are advancing with inci-easlng confidence every day, and the Botanic Gardens are gradually and easily falling beneath the attacks of that russet army which follows hard on summer’s departing heels to dim the splendour of the year enough to make the slow descent into the cold and frosty valleys of winter not too sudden. For only a brief month or two Nature pauses; the wonderful cycle of germination and growth is suspended; the awakening of the inestimable and illimitable forces that lie hidden in the depths" of the warm brown earth, has ceased. There is no more of the slow unfolding of new life that we have watched these several months past. Nature, though not yet asleep, has laid her adorning brush aside while she rests and contemplates her handiwork, watching the fall of the year transmute green into gold or yellow or brown, listening for the soundless fall of a million leaves, and perhaps grieving ever so little over the drooping petal of the rose, which flutters so listlessly in the wiufl before it falls, the bowed head of the carnation with its slow disintegration, the swelling pods of the sweet pea. Here and there, perhaps, her wistful gaze may brighten as she secs some of her autumn favourites valiantly blooming and daring the killing frosts to come, but these, with their shades of orange and red and yellow and gold, the gladiola in its stately slenderness, the dahlia with its varied colour and form, the hydrangea with its weight of foliage, the aster, the phlox, and other such, none of them can altogether drive away the wonderful, perfumed, brightly coloured memories which that bed of Shot Silk roses brings to mind, not all their variety or loveliness can dim the recollection of the glory and brilliance and splendour that was summer. The dews of the morning are powerless to whip once more to life the flowers that are moving on swiftly to harvest, and all the balm of the evening can do is gloss over the signs of decay which creep steadily inwards towards the heart of the fairest rose. But yet thfere is no death in all that fading array. The mystery and grandeur of the season have descended on everything, and all around it is easy to sense the purpose of thq great fall. Every flower that fades, every pod that bursts, only makes more sure those glorious swift vitalities which will bring all earth to life again when the winter is passed and the year is once more on the rise. The gardens fill with, memories, but there arc no regrets, for after all a flower is not the less lovely because it must die. Not one of those blooms, be it ever so faded or broken, but -will, in dying, give birth to newer, brighter beauty when seed time comes.

Perhaps no better season of the year could be found than autumn in which to study the landscape gardener's art. Everywhere some falling leaf or fading flower conceals something new, so that when the blooms have all gone there will be no idle soil, no bare plots. Rotation is the secret of success, and to know what follows next is to know the art of gardening. The future is as important in to day's programme of work as the present, and the artist will not allow one season to leave him before he has prepared for the next, or perhaps for the one after. Seed beds and nurseries and forcing plots are all full at the Gardens, and in many a border the extreme youth of tender green consorts comfortably with the mellowness of the maturer growths, and when the one ia taken the other will follow on and keep the cycle in motion. Mr Tannock will not lack seedlings unless the winter is unkind to him. As an instance of his foresight, there is one wide plot of ground which holds 11,000 wallflower seedlings, and it has many companions in the form of other beds with other contents. But their story will be the story of spring. To-day they make pause with Nature.

But leaving the haunts of the drooping summer flowers there are still many bnght-hued corners. Where the gladioli flourish there is a blend of colour that fills the eye. They stand in dense ranka, hundreds and hundreds of them, pushing their proud heads ever upwards, always opening new trumpets of beauty and sweetness. The perennial phlox makes a charming show, but is never more effective than when it allows the autumn flowering hyacinth to tower in simple dignity above it. Long beds of dahlias wind in and out along path* and in the shelter of hedgerows, their stiff unbending necks standing immovably erect under the S,F de ?, of the heaviest double blooms. J-hey bloom in a score of odd corners, and one is glad to think that they will go on doing so until the frosts bring them low. Lven the begonias still brighten the ground level with their distinguished hues, and as they nestle comfortably beneath spreading fuchsias they hold outpromise ot brighter and lovelier things yet to come. And over to the left here row upon row of asters splash the landscape with rich tints, while in yonder dell and along that pathway red and blue hydrangeas flourish side by side in that rare combination which delights the heart of the gardener. Nor is it possible to ignore those bunches of quaint old-fashioned mignonette which ;can be smelt long before _ they are seen in one of the few spacious borders of annuals that still more than hold their own. But nothing flames with quite that vehemence which draws the eye to the flowering tobacco that almost surrounds the bandstand and holds the attention once again where it fills a corner plot just inside the main entrance gates. Its fiery red blooms all but blot out the green of foliage beneath. Fresh and green and dripping with water are the great tree ferns in the fernery and beneath their spreading trends the carpet of creeping varieties and smaller species are no less restful to the eye. AH around is green, and it is just a little disconcerting to open the door front the fernhouse and be confronted by one of the best displays of the most colourful of hothouse blooms that the wan ter garden has housed for many a day. The begonia may do well in the open air, but it fills the air with colour and brightness when it is nurtured in the warmth of the hothouse. In its varied form and myriad hues it strikes the eje as nothing else in the houses can ever hope to. Single, or double, or frilled, they arc all the same—indescrib* able. Whether they sit demurely in pots or hang languidly from baskets they ate still glorious. Yellow- and pink in a score of softest variations, crimson and geld and cream and white, they are one immense mass of contrast which can be studied for hours without every shade being isolated. Indeed, there are delicate tones for which it would be hard to find names, —for Nature has caught some at the very moment when one hue begins to merge into another, and the result is a shade which one word cannot describe.

Through another doorway the benches of strcptocarpns do their best to outshine the begonias, but they fail no less conspicuously than the gloxinias through the next door. Both make wonderful showings, but the eye turns once more to tire last glimpse of the begonia house that can be had through the two glass doors that divide the houses.

Built at a cost of nearly £40,000. the new public library at Hendon has a special children’s room, where juvenile books and periodicals are provided. There is also accommodation for the young patrons to wash their hands. A block of paint. 2ft long. 12in wide, aird 4in thick, is exhibited iu a Dorking decorator’s window. It grew through the practice of the painters of cleaning their brushes on the wall. The block took about 100 years to accumulate.