Garden News December 2011

Judy and I hope all our blog readers had a great Christmas and we wish one and all the best for the coming year.

The year 2012 looks like it’s going to be another busy year with garden presentations and bus trips already booked.

Since we opened we have bought two car loads of new plants and I have refurbished two gardens, taking out some common plants and putting in rare gingers ect.

Next year will be the last year we will open with ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’ it will be our 11^th consecutive year and it’s getting very hard to find help as a lot of our friends are quite frankly getting old.

We still intend to open for bus tours and garden clubs; we do have to charge a small $2 dollar admission fee to pay for the public liability insurance that we have to take out.

I am replacing the old retaining wall in the front driveway at the moment; it’s over 20 years old and is looking its age. The hardest part of the job is getting the old upright sleepers out of the ground, it’s a crowbar job chipping away at the old cement, painful but it has to be done.

My new mower is brilliant, mows in half the time, well worth while getting.

After exhausting virtually all our rainwater prior to the open garden we have now had some good rain and the tanks are again filling.

The sweet smother turf I planted in all the shady spots has took off and it’s great to finally see green lawn in areas that have been barren for years.

Mr Possum is back for the mango crop.

All the best and happy gardening for 2012. 

November Garden News 2011

November is of course our busiest and biggest month as we open our garden for two days to garden lovers through ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’.

This year was our 10^th opening.

The weather was not kind to us this year as we have had no rain and very hot temperatures for almost four weeks leading up to the opening, in fact it has been the driest November since records began.

We just watered and watered almost using our 107,000 litre storage, amazingly the garden actually looked very good and colourful.

The highlights were the Caladium and Day Lily showing. See Caladium video. http://youtu.be/2C6z8HOiAuE

We had some very good publicity leading up to the opening especially from the Brisbane
'Courier Mail', a three page spread, that’s unheard of.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/life/whatson/ian-and-judy-wintles-giving-garden-open-to-public-this-weekend-in-birkdale/story-fn8zvh1s-1226197878376

Family and friends start to arrive early to help us during the two days, without this help we could not do it.

The Saturday of the opening was hectic with people ready to come through the gate at 8.30am, these were the plant lovers who know Judy has some rare and well looked after plants for sale.

We also had two busloads arrive, one from Bribie and another from Bundaberg.

The caterer’s did a great job and all Saturday it was hard to find an unoccupied space.

Sunday was also a good day but steady throughout the day.

Overall we received more than 1000 visitors (a record attendance), all of whom enjoyed the garden, with nothing stolen and no damage to the garden.

The caterers made almost $2000 for their Church and the raffle raised $1200 for disabled sport.

We will do it once more and then have a break as it is so much hard work getting ready, then cleaning up.
We will still take bus tours through the garden and by appointment.

After the cleanup we head up the coast for a three day break at Mooloolaba, what do we do?

We visit our garden friends and come home with a car loaded with new plants.

The hot weather continued throughout November and the garden is looking dry and stressed, hopefully it will rain soon.