LIGE IN THE GARDEN

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 10, 8 March 1911, Page 38

LIGE IN THE GARDEN

Official Organ of rhe Rev/Zealand Z <s\Veef Pea Society and Auckland hi ■Horticultural Society. //I

By

Veronica.

All communications for “Veronica" should be addressed to “Graphic" Office, Auckland. Secretaries of Horticultural Societies are invited to send us short reports of their proceedings, and also any items of interest to Horticulturists. Photographs of Flowers, Fruit, or New Vegetables or Garden Scenes, will be welcomed.

SHOW DATES. Schedules nmy be obtained on application to the Secretaries. Napier Amateur Horticultural Society—Chrysanthemum Show. April. 1911. — Hon. Secretary. J. G. 11. Murdoch. P.O. Box 35. Napier. Hamilton Horticultural Society.— Autumn Show. Tuesday. April 25. Hon. Secs, and Treas., Mrs. 11. Ross and Mrs. 11. Valder. Entries close with Secretaries. Saturday. April 22. 1911. Canterbury Horticultural Society— Chrysanthemum Show. May—. 1911. Secretary. Miss E. Sneyd Smith,. Manchester Street. Christchurch.

How to Work a Parish Flower Show. (By the REX’. CANON TUKE, St. Augustine’s Vicarage, Napier.) 1 am writing this on the supposition that your parish has not yet had a flower show, and that your desire is to help to foster the love of flowers among your people. Your task will be comparatively easy or difficult according to the position of your paris-h. If it be in the country, with a genial climate and fairly good soil, you will not have much trouble; but if it be in a newly-created part of the town, where rubbish, tins, and stones have been dumped ad lib, then your difficulties in raising flowers will not be imaginary. The first requisite will be that you are a flower-lover yourself. That condition being satisfied, you will, in spite of people saying it will be no good, make a garden, even if you have to get a few loads of good soil, and if your vicarage ground is small you will form beds round the

church. In a few months a transformation will have taken place. Your parishioners passing by or on their way to church will look over the fence and wonder as they behold your roses, pelargoniums, and hardy annuals, making a cluster of colour. They begin to talk about them. So do you in your visits to the sick and poor, who simply love a bunch of flowers you have thoughtfully taken for them. In a short time you will find the contagion of example visible in little plots of cottage gardens planted out by some kindred spirits. “Comparisons are odious,” but let them come into gardens. It does your heart glad to see a little enthusiasm and healthy rivalry springing up. and your neighbour declaring she can beat the parson hollow! It is quite possible now to talk about having a flower show. You call a meeting of all interested. To your joy you find an eagerness and keenness you never anticipated. Your secretary, treasurer, and committee are appointed, the date fixed, and soon schedules (simple and few), typed or printed, are left or sent to every house around.

Nothing knocks down the barriers of social caste and sectarian jealousy so quickly as a mutual love of horticulture. You soon find this out by all sorts and conditions sending in entries. People, the most unapproachable, come with floral contributions, and by the time tlie hall or schoolroom is opened on the morning of the show you realise the difficult moment has arrived—the sorting and staging of all the varieties which come pouring in upon you. But you will have forestalled what would otherwise have been endless confusion by getting an old hand at staging to take charge as managing director, whilst your ladies’ committee, drafted into sections, sort out the precious blooms into the vases you have carefully hired for those who have not brought their own. Here it is necessary to insist that all private vases must be labelled—a piece of gum paper at the base is all that will be necessary. Meanwhile whilst order and beauty are being brought out of confusion, your tea guild will be getting the tent which your C.E.M.S. men have pitched for you ready for the many patrons

you expect for afternoon tea. A tent thus provided saves much space in your school or hall, and is generally cooler. The judges you have secured. —an experienced gardener for the bloom exhibits and a eouple of ladies of 'taste for your mantelpiece and table decorations — arrive almost before you are ready, so strenuous has been the task of staging, and so exasperating the coolness of some exhibitors, who bring great baskets at the last moment, and ask you to stage them! The children’s classes, too —for you must encourage these all you can—have taken no little time to arrange; but by the time the judges have quietly made their notes and given their decisions the room is pretty well clear of boxes, flower stalks and paper, and by 2.30 p.m. t,he opening hour, the committee have returned to the hall, ready for the two-days’ show, which has been a local topic for some weeks. Before opening, take good care to have the names of successful competitors am! all exhibitors plainly written on cards. People like to see at a glanee who has taken a prize or who is exhibiting this or that group. It will be well, too, to have one person in charge of each section to show any special or rare blooms as well as to be able to give the names, and also to caution those who think daintv blooms

may be stroked or fingered without detriment. Each evening it will be wise to get a small string band to give selections. Singers should be spared the trying ordeal of singing to an audience that wants to promenade, and cannot keep quiet enough; and musical selections are. therefore better. On the first day genuine lovers of flowers will not mind paying a shilling for entrance, but on the second day it will be wise to lower the entrance to sixpence, when many who cannot afford more will crowd the room and enjoy the pretty display provided. It is wonderful how keen people will be to see their own or their friends’ blooms, and how they have fared at the hands of the judges. Trophies are better than money prizes, and if no others are given, at least give the children’s classes some. Any fresh blooms at the end of the second evening will 'be gladly bought, or they can be sent to your hospital or homes. Every show you will find in advance of the last. At first it staggered you to see children’s bouquets like puddings in cloths, tightly tied up; but they rapidly improve after a first attempt. Floral nomenclature will also improve. Among your children zinnias will no lon ger be “sinners” (hardy annuals, alas!) and salpiglossis no longer “goloshes;” no r among adults will your milkman of former vcars, who had envied my “minor tohata” beamingly tells you he has got that “cream of tartar!” The show will be worth all its hard work if it fosters, as it will, love of floriculture among your people. There is no more refining and healthy recreation to be found, and if well manage.l. your show will return a good balance for your proverbial needs. Still if .i|t brought nothing in, it is an educative force which will bring its own reward in its uplifting influence.

Cineraria Hybrids.

Some years ago, before flowering of Cinerarias in the open border became generally successful, certain crosses were made by a N.S.W. enthusiast of the English with the French type of these gorgeous Howers, the object being to improve them, as hereafter mentionedGrowing these two types side by side it was quickly noticed that the flowers of the English, though small, were very rich in colour, but had one failing—the heads were so crowded with blooms that the Howers squeezed one another out of all shape, and made one think of a cauliflower. They had, however, excellent foliage—a great essential in Howers with large heads of colour, like the Cineraria. On the other hand, the French type had much fewer blooms in the head, and consequently were much more open and graceful, and although not nearly so rich in colour as the English, the blooms were very large. The foliage, however, was poor. That which was deficient in the one was recognised to be potent in the other. The object, therefore, of the crosses was, so far as possible, to work out the bad features of the one type with the aid of the better corresponding ones of the other, but at the same time keeping out the deficient qualities of both.

Various crosses were made from year to year with slight but sufficiently encouraging progress. As with nearly al. such crosses, when one forward step was attained in one direction a slipping back occurred in some other wav.

For instance, when the large flowered French was crossed upon the small but richly coloured English their seed produced, in some cases, improved flowers, hut in a number of these the foliage was not so good as the English itself. A few. of course, were better than others, and those were each year selected for recrossing. Improvements gradually came along, till one year a decided break occurred. One plant threw a head divided into numerous branches, all starting from the root and giving ?. delightful open, graceful appearance, quite the reverse to the cauliflower type. It was an enormous head measuring 3ft 7in. in diameter, but it had very tiny flowers, although thev were of a pleasing soft pink colour. The object was now to make this the standard plant and increase the size and vary the colour of the flowers, and this plant was therefore that year made one of the parents for a great number of crosses, the seed from which resulted in quite 10 per cent of the branching type, some with improved size of flowers and new colours. The foliage. as with the parent plant, was largo and luxuriant. Sufficient has been written to show how the crosses advance, and the illustration in the issue of the plants recently

in bloom at Mr L. Plowman’s garden at I l arstville, N.SA\ .. is ample testimony of the present state of their perfection. It might be added, with a view to showing to what a remarkable extent nature will adapt herself to her surroundings, that the seed of these Cinerarias, at first requiring (like the majority of small seed) to be raised with some care \nd skill, now come up in the garden almost like weeds, and. in fact, where the plants were allowed to self sow theil seed, the seedlings become quite a nuisance, necessitating, as they do. occasional weedings out. Again, although doing so well in the open garden under all day sun and blown about by the wind these Cineraria hybrids give poor results in a bushhouse or other cover.—■ L. Plowman. TTurstville, N.SAV-