September October 2023 Garden News

 

Two months without a drop of rain, it is so disheartening to see the garden so drought stricken.

We have managed to use tank water until a couple of weeks ago but now we must rely on town water, not looking forward to the water bill.

In fact, the whole of this year has seen little good rain, despite BOM saying summer was going to be very wet.

We have been busy with a bus trip in September from Helensvale Senior Citizens Club and of course two days a week watering trying to keep the garden alive.

In October we visited Caboolture Garden Club and gave the ‘Aroids in the Giving Garden’ presentation then after that we visited our friend at Elimbah where we bought some fertilizer (Crop King 88) for $32 a kilo bag, here it is over $44.

Caboolture Garden Club then visited our garden the following week and that same week Glebe Garden Club visited.

 

So that was 14 bus visits this year, we are going to slow down the garden presentation as I cannot stand driving through the city any more.

We now must get ready for the Tropical Foliage Festival where we will be selling plants.

A big job was to remove the old thatch roof and put a new one on.

We went to Nursery Traders and found this amongst a few plain green ones, all at $50 so we bought this one and all the staff were incredulous that they failed to see it.

I think we had a bargain.

Garden news July/August 2023

 

July was a quiet month with watering taking up most of our time.

Of the large Pandanus which continually dropped large prickly leaves, thanks to our good friends Mike and Wendy Budden for the help, I could not do much as my knee was giving me hell that weekend and I could not walk without a walking stick.

One garden talk for ‘Indooroopilly Garden Club’ on ‘Aroids in the Giving Garden’, it was well received although club members have dropped significantly since we last went there.

We will not be crossing the city to do any more garden talks; the traffic is just too bad.

In August we went to ‘Ormiston Garden Club’ to do the Aroid presentation, this club seems to be very active with new members.

We had a bus visit from ‘Karana Downs Garden Club’ and that went well with them all enjoying the winter garden.

It was our very good friend Rod Paterson’s 90^th Birthday and Judy made him a special lunch.

 

We had our annual ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ garage sale and sold quite a few plants.

After all that we drove to Agnes Water to see our son and family, after a few days we get restless for the garden, still it was lovely to see family and have a bit of a rest.

Still no rain, garden is parched and getting low on rainwater.

 

 

May- June Garden News 2023

 

I seem to be spending most of my life these past two months watering as it has been extremely dry, badly needing some good falls of rain.

May has been busy with visits from ‘Banksia Garden Club’ and two ‘Probus’ Clubs.

I gave a presentation to ‘Carina Senior Citizens Club’, which was good as we did not have far to travel.

Arno King also visited and spent five hours here, lots of plants here that he was interested in, he will be coming back in September to take some Spring cuttings.

In June we travelled to Caloundra to give a presentation to ‘Pelican Waters Garden Club’, bit of a fuss getting set up but turned out well.

We had bus trips here from ‘Logan Village Garden Club’ and Caboolture Bromeliad Society’ both went down well.

Another presentation in June was to ‘Bribie Island Garden Club.’

We have given over the years over 200 presentations and feel it is now time to cut back, we will still accept bus visits as we enjoy those and it’ is relatively easy to prepare for them.

Not a lot happening in the garden, just a lot of Winter cutting back, old Heliconias, Costus and Gingers and of course it is time to cut back all the fruit trees.

While doing all this I have done something to my knee, very painful and X Rays show no damage so it will be off to the Physio for some treatment as I still have lots to do.

I have been trying to add to my Amorphophallus collection and the only way I can do this is through auction on eBay, I get beaten every time and the competition is fierce, I am limited in what I can spend.

Talking about Amorphophallus, I have emptied them out of their pots, cleaned the tubers and stored them dry in my shed on a layer of vermiculite, a big job.

My petrol pressure cleaner pump packed in, so I had to purchase a new pump from Karcher.

My new best tool is this Ryobi hand held Chain Saw, I can climb a tree, hang onto one branch, and cut with the other and I bought it at a great promotional price.

Talking about Ryobi One tools, my lopper broke, so as it has a six-year warranty back to Bunnings to get an immediate replacement.

Another job was our almost 30 year old swimming pool which had become quite badly stained over the years, I bought a product which claimed to get rid of all the stains, well it did, so much calcium, irons and other metals that had to be vacuumed off the pool floor, but it was well worth it to see our pool so sparking clean.

Some photos.

March and April 2023 Garden News

 

I did not post in March as I just could not get past the horrible weather that we had virtually all month. It was hot, humid, and very dry and I seemed to spend most of that month watering plants.

Anyway, in March we had visits from ‘The Budding Garden Club’ and ‘Mt Tamborine Garden Club’ and I also gave presentations to ‘Mt Gravatt Garden Club’ and ‘Bayside Garden Club’.

Mt Gravatt was disappointing as we carted a car load of plants there, take the out of the car and set up only to sell four plants.

In April we had a break see family at Agnes Water and had an enjoyable visit, it was nice to swim in the ocean and have time to read a book.

We had one bus trip that month from ‘Clayfield Ascot Garden Club’, only 16 members but were all nice and enjoyed the visit.

 

No big jobs in the garden just one building a new garden bench for Judy, otherwise putting mulch down and general maintenance, always plenty to do.