TIMARU PARK.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13291, 21 May 1907, Page 6

TIMARU PARK.

THE CURATOR'S WORK.

Tlio Timaru Park is putting on its winter -suit of grays, "within its strong belt of u;uk green pinns insignis, the- members of which begin to wear ail appearance of maturity. Home of the deciduous tree:. — poplars and Jarclies for instance, have already shed their leaves and needles, and the oaks are in the sere and yellow leaf, preparatory to stripping bare for winter. The grass is everywhere still green, though making no growth since tlw frosts set in. Mr C. Brown, the Curator, has housed a: large number of (lie flowering plant:.;, geranium-; and begonias, which made the garden plots gay during last spring- and summer ;and other flowing plants have been cut back as thu ait of the gardener dictates.

A member of the "ITerald" staff had an interesting talk with Mr Brown a day or two'ago. on the improvements that have bten made in the Domain since lie took charge, about, three years ago. Shortly before his arrival the Borough Council had spent a considerable sum of mor.ey in enlarging an ancient pond in the gully and digging out a larger one lower down. The result was far from satisfactory, as the gullv drainage which flowed through the ponds, in time of rains was densely charged with clay, and the ponds remained pools of very muddy water from year's end to year's end. A considerable improvement in the appearance of the pools has been made fey laying a pipe drain all along the gully to cany through this discoloured and all ordinary drainage, and the ponds are kept full by means of a small inflow of pure Pareora. The water is not however clear, and is not likely to be clear, with its clayey bed and banks, and with a colony of ducks upon it. (Among these, by the way, are four grey ducks, caught and winged when young, and the,«e act as decoys to wild ones flying over, as many as half a- dozen sometimes alighting on the pond.) Another great improvement recently made was the culvert ing and filling in of tli - .' old creek bed above the ponds. These works were, of course done by the Council. Mr Brown's own hand lia.s left its mark in other directions, notably, and most popularly, in the formation and grassing of two tennis courts. The appearance of these prove that they haver been well used during the late season, and it is time now that they were closed, top-dressed, and resown where worn. Tli ess tennis courts have bejn very popular, and have drawn frequently to the Park many people who otherwise might have '.seldom entered it;: gates. So much have they been in demand, indeed, that Mr Brown lias planned the preparation of two in-Te court«, these two to be asphalted for choice l . A little lawn, with flower plots and seats supplies a pleasant- lounging place f or those looking on at the games. ' Another notable improvement effected during Mr Brown's regime has been the thorough cultivation of the chain-wide strip between the m iin avenue and Queen street, a particularly tough job at the eastern end. Walks have been laid out through it, and grass verges grown, and many new plants and flowers planted.. Special care should be taken of a number of native shrubs and trees which have made a good start near the main entrance gates. Mr Brown says he was told that the. native trees would not grow • from cuttings, but be has proved that to be ;m error, having grown many varieiies from cuttings. He would like to be able to devote a good deal of time to the establishment of native growths, and there is a very large choice of trees and shrubs that will grow almost f-ywheve. with a reasonable amount of' care. Nome of them may make but little headway compared with th'.'ir growth under present conditions, but they may nevertheless be healthy and shapely and interesting, as is the. ca::e with a totara rear the main avenue. This must be many years old. yefc it is a. shrub rather than a tree, and seems likely to remain a shrub, though probably under other conditions it would have become a tree. Here and there about the Park are to be seen specimens of -many different kinds of native trees and shrubs, and in these days of extending technical education it would seem to be a valuable as well as a simple thing to have a good plain label attached to one or more of each kind of tree and shrub, native and foreign to help the young people and some older ones to learn the names of the different. species and families. A description of the work lie has done in the Park suggests that if Mr Brown suffers from nightmare at all, it will take the form of smothering under a stack of twitch. He has had a continual contest with twitch, and whoever succeeds him as curator must continue the fight. The old grass of the park appears to be nearly all twitch, <uvl a sod of it hangs together like a bit ofTpir matting. The late dry summer was a godsend to him in this connection, as the twitch when turned up dicci altogether for the first time. .Some plots of planted ground have been cultivated again and again, with horse and scanner and harrows, and have apparently been got clear of the pest. Larger plots, planted four or five years ago, have only been dug in a circle- round the roots, andthe tufts of twitch roots lying on the sui - face are evidence of the necessity for tli" work. Still better evidence is seen in the difference in the amount of growth made by trees and! shrubs in a plot that had be™ well cleared and kept clear of twitch, and tho.-'e growing in srround fill lately infer Ud with it. The contrast is striking indeed between the cultivated plot on the south side of the x>ufht-rn drive and tli: trees lower down among the grass, as both are seen from the distance of the southern side of the park. This kind of work has had to be done over and over again, but of course the repetitions make no additional showing. Mr Simmons has had a fight with twitch too, in getting in his crop of potatoes; much more trouble to git them in than to get them out, the diy summer destroying all chance of a good crop on the- sunny facing. The dry season, however, helped him to destroy the enemy hc was called in to get rid of, and perhaps tht! second crop will make amends.

Mr Brown has arrived at the conclusion that it. is not worth while trying to grow anything else until the twitch i- got ri-i of, and for this reason lie has post-pone-1 the. planting of a strip of ground alongside the upper pond, which the Park Committee had planned. Instead of planting or laying out, lie has lind the ground wo: ke 1 and cropped, and worked again, and ii is now apparently clean and fit, for beautiiication. Mr Brown proposed to lay out. a. broad walk, with a greensward sloping to tho pond, interspersed with groups of low flowering -shrubs, and with a few willow s along tho edge of the pond - - io decorate, not to hide it. Sjmih r treatmi nt of the further sid.' would make a piet'y spot of it. U. would bj the prettier, of course, if tint water of the pond Wri" clear, but there is not much hope of its ever being cleaner than it i j at present.

The Domain, Mr Brown considers, is an exceptionally favourable piece of ground for landscape forestry. Hitherto tlu planting has been dona in too formal a. manner, in straight lints and ruled oh' clumps. And shelter trees planted to miiS!' English sp> 'ijin.ii tie', t have been allow, ii to grow and .-mother those they were to have nourish'ii for ;■ time. [some thinning i-* called for in other cases, in the row of oaks on the southern side for example. It .-(.i ni:, a pity to cut down trees that at pr ■- sent a'-e doing well, but in dealing with trei s whether planting oi tliiiining, one musL look a lonir ivav ahrad. fo the time when

they will be well jvoivn, and consider what v>pac'o each requires to attain perfection of form. And in growing trees for decorative purposes, apart irom avenues, Mr Brown msisiis, mathematical accuracy ot line or distance is the very last consideration to bj taken into account, and as a rule should be avoided, though there are circuin.si.ances, (if course, in which a row of trees is desirable. He recommends, tor instance, for future planting, a, row of good deciduous shade trees parallel with the middle drive, and on the lower or -vouth *ide of it, but this would be a curved row unci of unequal height. As lor the future of the Park Mi' Brown says the first desideratum is a survey plan, upon which further improvements can bo plotted, and work laid out on the ground in accordance therewith. A plan would save repeated explanatory measuring of the ground, and it. would be a record of what had been done, after it had been undone, as in tlio case of the planting of shelter trees to nunse jnorc valuable ones.

Jn rha flower bed section tlio curator was successful "in producing a fine display of flowers last summer,- in spite of the dryness of the season, and his begonia, tricolor geranium and dahlia beds were greatly admired The roses too did well, thank's to a deep trenching, and some belated blooms are still coming out. A small glass house contains a good stock of plants taken in for the winter, and of cuttings being.rooted for next season, seventy shallow trays• being packed with geraniums and. begonias. In a plot near this house aro a few nursery plants of native trees and shrubs, to be set out in due season. Regarding the planting done at Caroline Bay, Mr Brown expressed surprise at tho success of the, work done there, the proportion of failures having been astonishingly small. At the same time it -should be borne in mind that the. climatic conditions of the Bay are widely different from thuse of the park, and it would be wise to prepare some nursery beds there are plants to be required, as transplanting Irom :hs Park must be attended with some risk of failure. So far, however, everything had grown wonderfully well there, except some deciduous shrubs put in 'at the first planting, and these could not ba expected to thrive in such an exposed situation.