Monday, October 03, 2016

Garden News September 2016

Well so far it’s all good news.
This month is usually very dry; in fact it is most unusual to receive any rain in September.
I forget when we last had rain in September as usually this month I am pulling my hair out looking at the sky and praying for rain.
Anthurium
 Heliconia 'Jamaican Dwarf.
 Amorphophallus 'dunnii.
 Aphelandra sinclairana 'Panama Queen'.
 Yellow Candlestick, another all year colourful shrub.
 Blue Mist, a spring flowering shrub. SPECTACULAR.

The grass is now green whereas it is usually brown this month.
We have had 60 mills, not enough to fill our tanks but enough to make us happy and make the garden smile.
We had a bus trip from a Probus Club which went down well, they enjoyed the mornings visit.




On the last Sunday of the month we hosted a meeting here of the ‘International Cordyline Society’, it was a great meeting with our peers and I gave a presentation on ‘Clever Gardening in SE Queensland’ and Trevor Crawford talked about the propagation of Cordylines.
There were plants for sale and a raffle, I was lucky to win three nice plants.

My new bird feeder is popular.


We had two phone calls in one day asking if I would fill in as a guest speaker, I could only say yes to ‘Glebe Garden Club’ as the other was just too short a notice (one day).
We had a trip to John Cragie’s Clivia farm just outside of Ipswich; wow the plants were just spectacular.
Of course we came home with some new plants.

This month was pruning all five of our Custard apple trees, heck of a job climbing trees at my age.
How good are Brugmansia's for all year round flowering.



I decided to invest in colour flyers for this year’s ‘Open Garden’ and found a really good deal which did not cost much more than the old black and white ones, I also had presentation and bus trip flyers printed which I send to garden clubs.
I am lucky to have a son who is a graphic designer he designs the flyers and is able to make them print ready.



We have one garden presentation and one bus trip to come in October then of course it is all systems go for the ‘Open Garden’.
A view from behind
the swimming pool.
All the Bromeliads were cleaned up and old mothers taken off, looks much better.

I am quite upbeat about the November opening as all the work I have done this year looks good, there is a lot more colour in the garden and we have had spring rain.

Dont forget I have two Facebook pages 'The Giving Garden' with over 1700 followers and 'Open Gardens and Events Queensland' with about 500 following.