June 2011 Garden New's

June was a fairly quiet month in the garden, mainly trimming and pruning jobs.

 The biggest job was trimming the four Carambola trees. I really took the saw to them this year as I want to keep their size down in future as I am not getting any younger and I don’t want to have to climb to high to trim them in future.

I will be doing the same with the Custard Apples in August.

I gave my ‘Passion for Plants’ presentation to Stafford Garden Club and ‘Smart Sub Tropical Gardening’ to the Redlands Horticultural Society, both were well received.

We have a very busy couple few weeks coming up with four bus tours and five presentations. It’s a bit disappointing to have the bus tours visit us in mid winter as our garden is a summer garden, but if they see it now they may want to come back for the ‘Open Garden’.

I have started a bathroom renovation and have ripped out all fixtures, tiles and concrete floor, all ready for the tiler to come and do his bit, it’s been a big dirty and heavy job and I am pleased my part is finished.

Very little rain during June so we have had to do quite a lot of watering also it has been one of the coldest winters for some time and the tropical plants are starting to show the signs of cold.

I had a delivery of ‘sweet smother’ turf and laid it in those areas which now receive too much shade for couch to grow.

Judy is having a big clean out of her Neo bromeliads as she has far too many and there were still a few bales of sugar cane mulch to spread.

My eldest son Scott and his partner Eliza gave us a Grand Son this month, a healthy 3.9 kilo boy named Luke Robert