The Giving Garden
2019
Ian and
Judy Wintle are opening their ‘Giving garden’ for the 18th
consecutive year on 23 and 24 November 2019.
Why is it
called ‘The Giving Garden’? Well it gives so much pleasure to us, our family
and friends and visitors.
Plant
Passions, yes, Ian loves Amorphophallus, Costus and Beehive Gingers, Judy loves
her Bromeliad’s and is a great propagator of plants.
The garden
microclimate is provided by over 50 fruit and nut trees and the understory is
full of colourful and interesting tropical plants some of which are extremely
rare.
The fruit
we pick is shared among family and friends and not forgetting the abundant
wildlife.
Why do we
open our garden? We love meeting so many gardeners who have similar interests
to us and people just love the atmosphere here which is relaxing and of course
interesting, we say it is a ‘visitor
friendly’ garden.
What
happens if it rains? In 2017 it absolutely poured with rain both days and yet
we had over 600 visitors who took their shoes and socks off and walked the
garden.
Will
refreshments be available? A coffee van will be situated on the front lawn with
coffee, tea and homemade cakes available to purchase, there will also be a
toilet available.
What is the
worst thing that could happen? A repeat of 2009 where it did not rain for seven
months and the garden was drought stressed.
What has
the garden done for you? We have raised over $60,000 for charity mainly through
a local ‘Lions Club’ and in 2017 were honored by Redland City on Australia Day
as ‘Local hero’s’. We also won ‘Gardening Australia’s ‘Golden Trowel’ and have
appeared on many Television programs.
What prompted you to start opening? After finishing University our eldest
son Scott went backpacking in Europe for a year. Only a couple of weeks before
he was due to return home, we received news from Switzerland that he had broken
his back in a motorbike accident and would never walk again.
The months that followed drew on
our mental, financial, and physical strength. It was not for a further six
months that he could finally return to his home. By that time not only he
needed rehabilitation Mum and Dad also did.
Our garden gave us the ability to
heal, it was our rehabilitation and two decades on; it has blossomed into a
lush sub-tropical oasis, featuring some of the world’s most exotic unusual
plants and fruit trees.
In 2001 we
opened for the first time through the ‘Open garden Scheme’ (This scheme has now
folded) so we now open privately.
Is our garden sustainable? Very much so,
water has always been a big problem and about 10 years ago we decided to sink a
bore, this was a disaster because all we found was salt water.
We now have seven rainwater tanks
holding 109,000 litres of rain water, solar power, worm farms, native bee hives, large compost bins and use
around 150 bales of sugar cane mulch in the garden every year.
Has the garden changed over the years? It would
be unrecognizable for those early years, every year we complete garden related
projects and this year has seen more work done to improve the garden. We
have done all the work ourselves, with the help from our trusty wheelbarrow and
shovel, everything has been done on a budget, in other words it is a true ‘Gardener’s
Garden’.
It’s not been an easy garden to
establish with all topsoil taken away by the developer and no underground
water, but we have persevered to the point where we have a garden that is one
of the best in SEQ.
Scott is
now a of father of two children and a World Champion Disabled Water Skier, he
recently returned from the World Championships held in Norway with a Gold,
Silver and two pending world records.
We have welcomed many bus tours through our garden and have given almost
200 power point presentations to gardening and service clubs throughout
Redlands and South East Queensland.
Physically we keep fit working in the garden
and mentally Ian has a garden blog at http://ianjudy.blogspot.com/
over 350,000 people from over 100 countries around the world have seen our
garden this way. The blog has been archived by the Queensland State Library as
being of significant importance to the state of Queensland.
Ian also has a Facebook page called
‘The Giving Garden’ which has
over 2600 followers and another Facebook page ‘Open Gardens and Events Queensland’ where people who intend to
open their garden or have a gardening related event can post information. This
was badly needed as the ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’ Scheme closed down in June
2015. He also has a web site
reviewing garden products http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/
Gardening has
not quite taken over our lives as we are very family orientated and we feel
blessed to have a wonderful family, two sons with four Grandchildren all of
whom are close to our hearts.
