Garden News April 2016

Well, it is unfortunately the usual situation in our part of the world. In one word ‘DRY’.

April has been completely dry, not a drop of rain has fallen, and it is now a real worry with our tanks almost empty and going in to our supposed dry season with empty tanks.

It would be just so nice to have a downpour that would fill our tanks and water the garden.

I must admit I really hate standing around with hose in hand watering every individual plant in our garden, not only does it take forever but I am always thinking of other more productive things I could be doing.

Still it does not stop me working in the garden and buying more and more plants.

For my Birthday we drove up to the Nambour to see our friend Maureen Simons who has a great Tropical Nursery there and of course we came back with a car full of Heliconias, Gingers and Costus.

We also have a Nursery Traders card and that is real temptation.

My Garden related Facebook pages are doing really well, Open Gardens and Events Queensland has 400 likes and The Giving Garden has over 1500.

As for working in the garden, well I have been going nonstop with several alterations and enlargements to existing gardens.

A new bench for Judy.

 Extending this garden.

 Another refurbishment.

Old Broms out and Heliconias and Gingers to go in.

One of the biggest jobs was to dig all the Day Lilys out of the front garden as they were strangled with invasive tree roots; we have now planted a selection of nice Agapanthus in their place and the Day Lilys will be planted elsewhere in the garden.

 Repointing between rocks.

Another big job was to transfer all the material out of the large composting area and take it to the back compost bins, it took 50 wheelbarrow loads to complete but at least I now have space for new compost.

 All transferred to back bins.

 As you can see it was full.

We went to our friend Rod Paterson’s ‘Open Garden’ in early April and as usual enjoyed the garden and bought a few plants.

Caladium 'Thai Beauty'.

No presentations this month only a bus of visitors from Caloundra African Violet and Indoor Plant Society, they stayed for about 2.5 hours and enjoyed the garden.

   

I have made an amazing difference to the garden in the last two years so if you have been to our garden before you can come again because it has changed quite dramatically.

Some of the plants flowering in April.

 Hoffmannia ghiesbreghtii.

 Fiery Costus.

 Yellow Crinum xanthophyllum.

Costus wanisai.

I have been lucky enough to acquire a few more Amorphophallus tubers, so that gives me almost 70 different; you just have to be a bit lucky to get them for the right price when purchasing them on eBay.
So all in all it has been a big moth of physical work and I am always happy when I look at the garden and see that I have made a difference.