Late Blog for Garden News.

 

Well, it has now been over three months since I had my right hip replaced and I feel about 70% better, hopefully give or take I will be fully fit by Christmas.

My Surgeon said I have made a spectacular recovery, I tend to agree as pain level has been minimum, and I was off using walking aids after three weeks.

I am back in the garden trying to working full time and have done a couple of landscaping jobs and a few trips to the dump.

Just much slower than usual and more careful as I do not want a fall.

The bad news is that I had X-ray's done last week on my knees and yes, I have severe Osteo Arthritis in both knees, so looks like new knees in the new year.

I have seen my surgeon who thinks I have 12 months before getting my knees fixed, not sure if that is good or bad news.

AS for my hip four months later, I still have some pain but not to the extent it was before, I believe it can be 12 months before the hip is completely pain free.

Anyway, onto the garden.

In July we went as usual to the Nambour Garden Show, parking was a nightmare and I did not think the show was as good as past years.

In August we had the Sunshine Coast Tropical Garden Society visit, a nice group of 40 people, all garden lovers.

In September we had a visit from Carindale Rotary Club.

We took delivery of 30 bales of Sugar Cane mulch and it has been quite a job to spread it as there is so much bending which does not help my hip.

One of the jobs I have done was to replace timber and stones around the back of the bromeliad house and spray ‘Stone Set” hoping it will stop the pebbles going on the lawn.

In October we are hosted a meeting of the International Cordyline Society, a great group of keen tropical garden lovers, always pleased to see them here.

It has been quite a hard four months as the last rain we had was in late July, so much hand watering to do which takes up so much time, fortunately it has started to rain this week and the garden and us are enjoying it.

Latest Garden Blog for 2026

 I know I have been very slack but time has a way of passing very quickly as you will see later on in this post.

First I have just realized that this it the the 20th year of writing this blog.

It it always interesting to go back and see what we were doing all those years ago.

One thing for sure is the garden has certainly changed over the years with many new gardens, species and changing plant passions. 

After the massive November hailstorm of course came Christmas and we hosted all our family here.

The family from Agnes had Fabienne's mother who was to return back to Switzerland after a few months staying at Agnes Water, so it was a very crowded house for a few weeks.

After Christmas we had the insurance assessor check hailstorm damage and it turned out to be more than we thought.

We have to replace our patio roof and the shed roof as well as Solar electrical and hot water system as well of a few other smaller things.

Judy and I decided that we would stop doing garden presentations as most involved either city or long drives so we let the 'Queensland Council of Garden Clubs' know.

We had a couple booked from last year, one at Logan Village and one at Logan City, so we attended those.

We do like hosting bus visits and intend to continue doing this.

In March we had a bus visit from 'Mt Gravatt Garden Club' the garden was looking great and was enjoyed by all.

Then in April 'Bayside Garden Club' visited and again the garden put on a show and was enjoyed by all.

One day I received a message from the Monty Don BBC garden show who had viewed my 'Giving Garden' Facebook page and said they were trying to get funding to come to Australia and if successful would like to visit.

That would be fantastic.

What a shocking summer we had, hot and humid all the time and hardly any rain.

Just two weeks ago we thought we would go into Winter with seven empty tanks but thankfully we had good rain in May and all our tanks are full.

It has been a few sad months with three of our garden friends passing away, we lost Erica who used to help at our Open Garden , Doug from Natra-kelp and Genya from Lagoon View Nursery. So sad, all lovely people.

My last job prior to going into Hospital was to store all my Amorphophallus corms in the shed.

I have been having hip pain for some time to it was time to bite the bullet and arrange for a new hip, this operation was to happened on 18th May 2026 at Greenslopes Private Hospital by Dr Dekkers a highly recommended Surgeon.

Prior to that I had to work really hard to do as much trimming and maintenance as possible, sometimes two trips to the dump with a trailer full every week, I got a fair bit done but never enough.

I had my operation six days ago and was in Hospital for three days, released when I could use crutches.

Still in pain and very uncomfortable and missing going out in the garden, so here I am finally doing my blog.