September Garden News 2022

 

I am finding it quite hard to do this month’s blog as I am just so time poor with getting ready for bus visits and of course this years ‘Open garden’ which will be our last one.

We had a bus load from ‘Carina Senior Citizens Club’ visit and one from Sandgate Garden Club.

I gave presentation’s to ‘The Potted Plant Society’ and the “Cordyline Society’.

There is very little spare time these days as there is always so much to do.

It is quite dry as we have not had a decent rainfall for a couple of months.

Some pictures from September garden.

The Giving Garden’s 20^th and last Open Garden

77-year old’s Ian and Judy Wintle are going to open their beautiful one-acre Birkdale Garden for the final time on the weekend of 19 and 20 November 2022, this will be our 20^th and last opening.

This seems a fitting number to close this chapter of our lives.

The garden is probably the only garden in Australia where the shade canopy is provided by more than 50 tropical fruit and nut trees, there are Sapotes, Lychees, Sapodillas, Mango’s, Custard Apples, Carambolas, just to name a few.

The garden has meandering pathways throughout and as you walk through you must look left, right and above to see and appreciate the vast array of plants growing.

There are shade houses full of Bromeliads, Orchids, Aroids , gingers and other rare and exotic plants, not forgetting a collection of over 60 different and rare Amorphophallus.

Ian and Judy have been collecting for 30 years so you will get to see some very rare botanicals.

Their garden has been described as ‘Birkdale’s ‘Botanical Garden’.

A must see is the mass planting of Caladiums.

There will be a large range of plants for sale and a coffee van will be serving refreshments on the front lawn.

A toilet portable will be available.

All gate takings now go to assist our paraplegic son compete in the ‘World Disabled Water Ski Championships’ which are held every two years, it must be noted that he is the World Champion in the trick and Jump events.

It must be said in the 20 years of opening we have never taken the gate money.

Ian and Judy were Redland City’s ‘Local Hero’s’ in 2017 having raised over $60,000 for the Lion’s Club.

In 1996 our son has a motor bike accident and became a paraplegic, as well as him needing rehabilitation Mum and Dad also needed rehabilitation and gardening fitted the bill, we needed to keep active and not to dwell on what happened to our son.

Gardening has now become a passion and we have given over 200 presentations to garden clubs in SEQ  and hosted many bus tours in the garden, not to mention the friends we have made on our journey.

We both work hard every day in the garden and our doctor’s say “keep on doing that” forget about the aches and pains.

Judy does all the potting and propagation and Ian the garden and maintenance, we jokingly say we have a happy marriage (54 years) as of a morning we each go our own way in the garden and see each other during the day for morning tea and lunch.

Ian has a garden Blog which has had over 350,000 visits and has been archived by the state library also a web page ‘Garden Product Reviews’, a Facebook page ‘The Giving Garden’ with 3600 likes and another Facebook page ‘Open Gardens and Events Queensland’ with over 4000 likes.

While gardening keeps my body healthy and fit, I also need to keep my mind active and doing the blog and Facebook pages does that.