November Garden News 2017

It is a big undertaking putting on an ‘Open Garden’ I wonder how many people realize just how much work is involved, I probably think not.

It has taken us three months to get to the stage where we are ready to open.

We were just so fortunate to get over 100 mills of rain in October as we were just so dry prior to that and were even thinking about cancelling our opening.

After 15 years this was last BIG ‘Open Garden’ and what a weekend we had, rained both days sometimes torrential but still the people kept on coming.

We had about 700 visitors to the garden most armed with an umbrella, must admit I have never seen such a wide variety of umbrellas.

People were even taking off their shoes and walking the garden in barefoot.

No complaints from anyone and the comments from visitors was amazing and sad that we are not doing it again.

The Black Sapote crop was big and our grandchildren made $65 each which was nice just before Christmas.

As usual Judy had an amazing variety of plants ready for sale and lots of plants walked out of the door going to new homes, so many people commented on how good previously bought plants were.

The Lions Club was happy with making almost $4000.

All in all it was a great weekend for everyone.

The Aristolochia grandifolia was in flower and visitors were amazed.

So many visitors were followers of my Facebook page (The Giving Garden) and (Open Gardens and Events Queensland) and said how much they liked it, which made me feel real good.

The only sad part other than the weather was someone picked to flower head off the beautiful Medinilla miniata which was a shame as we wanted the seed.

On the Wednesday after our opening we had a bus trip from the ‘Bayside Garden Club’ as we were still in ‘Open Garden’ mode the garden was still in great condition. 

We are going to have two plant sales a year on a much smaller scale than a fully blown 'Open Garden' but people will still be free to walk the garden and hopefully walk away with some wonderful plants. We will not have toilet or refreshments available and there will be a ‘Gold Coin’ entry donation for a charity of our choice.

We will have the first plant sale on 7 April 2018.

Judy and I want to thank all who braved the rain 'THANK YOU’ and it has been a great experience for us.