August 2013 Garden News

After so much rain up until July our hopes were high that this would be one year where we would get some decent rain from August onwards.

Well, we are disappointed as August was completely dry and unusually hot, I just hope that we do not have a repeat of other years were we have gone into an ‘Open Garden’ with empty tanks and a parched garden.

I suppose the main redeeming fact is that all our seven tanks were completely full (107,500) litres right up to the end of July.

Fingers crossed for some decent rain!

Beenleigh Garden Club visited the garden early August and it looked nice for them, they seemed to enjoy their visit.

I decided to raise all the rocks in the longest walkway in the garden, must of been at least a 1000 rocks then replace them in a bed of crusher dust and backfill with good soil.

Luke and Sophie loved playing in the trailer.

By the time I had finished I could hardly move, must have pulled a muscle in my lower back and ended up unable to garden for the next fortnight.

Silly me, as soon as I felt better I decided to cut down a big seed pod on a Foxtail Palm, I had to climb a ladder and then take the weight of the cut pod, it was much heavier than I thought and I was in trouble, by the time I brought it down I was in pain and had to go for X Rays. I was really worried that I had done my hip in. Fortunately the X Rays showed no damage to my hips.

I just have to let it heal by itself, so another almost fortnight of no gardening and on a walking stick, I will have to ‘garden smarter’.

At the end of the month I gave presentations to both Boonah and Robina Garden Clubs, both being nice friendly clubs.

Our eldest son left for Italy to complete in the ‘World Disabled Water Ski Championships’, we hope he does well and brings home a Gold medal for Australia.

The Lady Slipper vine is looking as I dreamed it would when I built the structure two years ago.

My Amorphophallus collection is coming on with over 35 different varieties, it’s good to have a new ‘plant passion’.