October to December Garden News 2024

 

Pretty well all of October and part of November we were dog sitting, our son and family went To Thailand for a four-week holiday so we had a Jack Russell and a large sheepdog to look after.

This meant that all the gates had to be kept shut and made it very difficult to do a lot of gardening.

Very little happened in October and Judy had to spend a lot of time getting plants ready for ‘The Tropical Foliage Festival’.

We were back to watering the garden by hand as there was quite a few very dry spells.

I did manage to top soil the back lawn with a sand dressing.

Well, did it ever rain in November in the space of a week we had over 350mm of soaking rain and everything like crazy, I can see so much pruning will have to be done in winter.

Our Mango showed so much promise with a magnificent flowering, but of course we had a shower of rain and will only have six Mangos to pick, that is if we can beat to Flying foxes.

They have already eaten most of the Longan and Lychee crop, they eat them when they are the size of your small fingernail.

We took a lot of plants to the ‘Tropical Foliage Festival’ it was hard work setting up and the Saturday was quite busy, nice to meet some old friends there.

We had a bus visit with 37 people from the ‘Cleveland Over 50s’ visit us again as they wanted to see the mass plantings of Caladiums, they enjoyed the garden.

I have had to say no to presentations to a couple of garden clubs as we do not want to travel through peak hour traffic, and believe me it’s bad here in Brisbane. We will still do reasonably local ones.

Well, that’s it from a very wet ‘Giving Garden’ for the rest of the year, lets see what 2025 brings.

I know one thing it will bring and that is my 80^th, apart from aches and pains I am going reasonably well.

Have a great Christmas and a happy new year, all the best.

Garden Hose

I know a bit, perhaps a lot about garden hoses and the trouble they can be.

With our large one-acre garden I have to do a lot of watering so I need a good quality hose.

There is nothing worse than having to continually take out kinks in a hose.

Some hoses go hard and perish in the sun which is so frustrating, especially if they have been expensive.

I recently bought this hose from Bunnings, it was a risk as it was made from new material.

To my delight the hose has never kinked and remains supple and easy to handle and has an eight year warranty.

Yes, I am happy with my purchase and would recommend it.

July August and September Garden news

 

I am afraid I have been a bit slack in keeping this garden blog up to date, anyway as they say better late than never.

In July we did our usual trip to the Nambour Garden Expo, always interesting but only a few plants bought as we have so many already.

Then we drop in to see our friends at Natra-kelp whose factory is based at Maroochydore, really great product that we use all the time in our garden.

Still trimming back all the fruit trees, on my 24^th trip to the dump this month of July, all the summer rain has caused everything to grow so much.

No bus visits or garden talks this month, big change from last year where we were very busy hosting trips.

I got fed up with the Bombax Tree never flowering and dropping off dead limbs, so I took off as many limbs as I could then paid someone to take down the trunk, such a messy tree, one that I will not miss.

Went to get my long Fiskars pruner out and found the chain had come loose and disappeared inside the mechanism, not a problem as Fiskars have a 25 year warranty so it was off to Bunnings to do a quick exchange, great as a new one costs $239.

I love my Ryobi One tools as they are cordless and if you register online you get six year warranty, how good is that.

Judy was out of 15mm pine back which she used for her Bromeliad mix, nowhere seems to sell it so it was a trip to Bassett Bark at Glasshouse Mountain to fill up the trailer, great and very helpful people there.

 

In August and September we seemed to spend most of our time watering as it was very dry except for one day.

We hosted a bus trip from the ‘Cleveland Over 50s’ and that was good, they really enjoyed the Winter Garden and plan to come back late November to see the mass plantings of Caladiums and other summer flowering plants.

After cutting back very heavy, the Mango is showing it's appreciation.

it was also time to get my Amorphophallus tubers/corms out of hibernation and start to repot, the drill auger comes in very handy for mixing the potting media.

In September we hosted a bus trip from ‘Stafford Garden Club’, again in was a successful visit with all our visitors enjoying the garden.

Again, very dry and I really hate having to spend two days watering when there are other jobs that need doing.

Still trimming, pruning, and cutting back shrubs and trees and took trailer load 30 to the dump, thank goodness our dump is free otherwise I would have to get a bank loan.

I top dressed the back lawn with sand and thankful that I had the electric wheelbarrow as my knees are both not the best these days.

My Facebook page is doing well with 4000 plus likes and 4000 plus followers and ‘Open Gardens and Events Queensland’ has over 7000 likes, thanks Marie Jones for helping me out by becoming the second Admin.

 

May and June Garden News

 

May was not a terribly busy month gardening.

We started off visiting Logan Village Garden Club to give a presentation for their friendship day.

The drive there was quite unpleasant due to heavy traffic but once there we found the club to be very welcoming and friendly.

I gave the ‘Clever Gardening’ presentation which seemed to be enjoyed by all.

The club put on morning tea and lunch which was very nice.

Did not sell many plants.

The big job of the month beside general gardening was to remove a Macadamia tree which had died, to make matters more difficult the tree had been strangled with a massive ‘Queen of the Night’ Epiphyllum climber.

I then hired a stump grinder, well that was hard work as it was a big heavy machine that kept bogging.

This climber was very hard to remove as it was very thorny and covering the tree.

I had to buy a new chain saw as my little one could not handle the Macadamia trunk.

June turned out to be very busy as I set about trimming the fruit trees and ended up taking 20 big trailer loads to the dump, thank goodness our dump is free.

We had a small visit from Mt Gravatt Probus Club. And I gave a presentation to a small group at Carina Senior Citizens Club.

Then the big job started.

I had to replace the rotted wood beams in my Amorphophallus shade house with metal which turned out to be a bigger job than expected and when I finished that I noticed that the Orchid shed beams were rotten and the shade cloth worn, so then I started on that.

Every bit of wood was rotten and all bolts were rusted, I only wish I had a dollar for every time I went up the ladder.

I replaced all the side timber with hardwood and put metal beams through the center then replaced the shade cloth as I bought a new roll from the Shade Centre at Brendale.

After finishing that I noticed the timber on the benches was rotten so I have had to replace those.

I am exhausted after this undertaking.

Just some garden photos.