Garden News October 2007

It’s far too hot far too soon; it’s only the beginning of October and its 33c. I just hope this heat will not bring out the flowering plants too early.
Bought two dozen caladium bulbs on ‘ebay’ as caladiums were among the many other plants that we lost due to last winter’s extreme cold, the bulbs arrived and were very large and just starting to shoot, at $3.50 each it may a good buy, let's see the colours first.
At this time every year I start to think that the Garden will never be ready in time for the opening, it always is.
We have had a few storms and in one of them we had gale winds, hail and 30mm of welcome rain, it was worrying but a later inspection showed little damage to the garden but a later inspection showed the bromeliads have suffered with some damage to the leaves.
I must admit my focus is now only on our opening and getting letters/flyers/articles out to the public.
We bought some standard ‘Abutilons’ from the Chandler markets, three plants intertwined through each other, they were only $20 each so we bought four, may still get a couple more. There will be a no show of heliconia’s this year as they were badly burnt by this year’s winter frost and are still recovering.
Another busy weekend in the garden with the compost heap turned over and lots of other jobs done.
All the caladiums are starting to shoot and a few gingers are starting to pop up.
Had some awful weather this week, gale winds for three days, the heliconias that were not killed by the winter’s frost have been shredded and some of the new standard abutilons damaged as well as leave/debris everywhere. Such is a gardener’s life.
So in the lead up to the ‘Open Garden’ we have had drought, frost, hail and gales, what else is there other than floods, bushfires and cyclones. I am on holiday now, it's all go for the next two weeks getting the garden ready.