Thursday, December 02, 2010

November 2010 Garden News

What a busy time it is during the lead up to our ‘Open garden’, so much to do and of course with the cold spring things are different in the garden.
Bright points were the great show of Caladiums and Oncidium orchids that looked stunning.
On the down side leaves were dropping everywhere and no Cape York Gingers or Scadoxus ‘Blood Lilys’ were in flower
Everyone’s favourite plant was Costus vargassi, it had both base and top flowers on and combined with the segmented stem it looked stunning.
We had a gale on Saturday which ripped the roof off one of our car shelters.
The whole garden looked really good and there was plenty for everyone to see, as far as I know all 630 visitors left with a smile on their face and happy.
As usual we enlisted the help of family and friends to help us on the gate and with plant sales.
The raffle and catering raised $2000 for charity and we sold a good number of plants.
Bromeliads are so plentiful these days that it is getting very hard to get rid of them.
I was very disappointed with the ‘Open Garden Scheme’s’ publicity as the interview on morning radio 4 BC was  confused with another garden, good job Colin Campbell had previously visited our garden and was able to part correct the misinformation.  I was interviewed on ABC radio and promoted the garden best I could.
After it was all over, it was two days of cleaning and getting things back to normal then a relaxing few days in a unit at Mooloolaba for a very well earned rest.
No rain in November but we have plenty of water stored in our seven tanks.
Will we do it again? I think it will depend on Judy’s health as her Arthritis is not getting any better and this year was a real struggle for her.