GARDENING IN NEW ZEALAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20509, 29 August 1936, Page 11

GARDENING IN NEW ZEALAND

AMERICAN WOMAN’S VIEWS An American visitor who has been touring New Zealand this month was surprised that with such excellent soil at their disposal and so many kinds of flowers, the New Zealand women did not take more interest in gardening. When they did possess gardens they seemed to leave most of the actual work in them either to a gardener or to their husbands. In the United States the reverse was the rule. Every home, no matter how small, possessed its front plot garden, unfenced, and flowering the entire year round. So interested in this hobby were the American women that they not only did most of the work of it themselves, but also formed gardening clubs, where they attended lectures, compared experiences, exchanged seeds and plants, and gained advice. They experimented with flowers and shrubs, and were very enthusiastic about rock-garden-ing, as most of their homes were surrounded by low, carefully tended and intricately built rockeries. Further evidence of the American woman’s love of flowers and gardening was to be found in the cities, where gaily painted window boxes adorned the many flats and apartment houses. These bright touches of colour with flowers of all descriptions added a picturesque touch to many of the tall-storyed buildings.