[Intro] Sonic Snippets: from the Sonica Botanica archive

[Terry Smyth]: My name is Terry Smyth and I am a horticulturalist and I look after the Southern Chinese Collection.

 I've had a fascination with Chinese plants ever since I was a child.

My mother worked at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens as a tour guide, and there were many plants in our garden that I realised later were from China, including Winter Sweet, which is a dreamy, dreamy perfume. In my family, it's a very important plant. And then, doing an apprenticeship in Wellington, there were so many Chinese plants there.

But one of the best educations for a horticulturalist, is to see plants in the wild. I went to China on a backpacking trip and, I saw lots of old friends there. Walking along the Great Wall, I saw plants that I knew from Wellington, and  it all makes sense.  You get to see the microclimate, you get to see the habitat, and to feel the earth that they're growing in, to get an inkling of the weather. You get to see, oh, that lily likes to grow up through the berberis, it doesn't want to be out on its own with a label. 

 It is a fascinating thing to see plants in the wild, it's such a good education.

[Outro] Listen to full episodes of Sonica Botanica at rbg.vic.gov.au