Courier Mail Article

A great article in today's Courier Mail.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/life/whatson/ian-and-judy-wintles-giving-garden-open-to-public-this-weekend-in-birkdale/story-fn8zvh1s-1226197878376
What a difficult lead up to this years Open Garden. No rain for a month and 30 degree heat almost every day. We have used up almost all our stored rainwater. The garden is looking good, not perfect but no-one who comes on the weekend should be disappointed. It's a real pity we did not have a bit of rain, I have had to waste so much time watering when I could be doing other gardening jobs and helping Judy prepare the 1000s of plants she has prepared for sale. If you want nice plants at very reasonable prices then you should visit us.

 For example Bromeliads that retail for $30 are here for $10 and Blood Lilys which sell for $44.00 a bulb are just $9.00, that's just a small example.
My other web sites are to be found at:
http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v160/Ianrobert/?src=wap
Hope you enjoy the blog, I lost a lot of photos due to a Google stuff up but am slowly putting them back on.
Happy Gardening.

October 2011 in the Garden

What a busy year it has been, I have given 17 power point presentations on 'Smart Sub Tropical Gardening' and 'A Passion for Plants' to various garden clubs in SE Queensland. We have also have hosted 12 bus tours through the garden, have I enough energy to get through an Open Garden?
October is the month when I start to plan this year’s Open Garden. I send out flyers to all Garden Clubs and leave some at local Garden Centres, libraries ect, all in all I give out over 4000 in the hope it will attract visitors for our opening, I also write to all news organisations in the hope that they may be interested, it worked last year as we appeared on Channel 7s 'Great South East' and so far this year the Courier Mail will be doing a story on 18 November, just at the right time.

Another Queensland ‘Open Garden’ Co-ordinator has resigned, they do not seem to last too long in the job, so here we are just a few weeks from opening with no-one in Queensland except me to promote our open garden,  people say I do too much promotion, well if I did not do it who would?

We welcomed the 'Cordyline Society' bus trip to our garden, it was a little wet but they enjoyed the garden we also hosted the 'Redland’s Camera Club' who spent quite some time in the garden with their cameras.

I gave a presentation to the Geranium Society at New Farm and another very special presentation to preps (five year old's) at Moreton Bay Girls College, this was a very satisfying talk, I took in some fruit and some composting worms which the girls loved. The next day I received drawings by the girls of my visit.

We have had a couple of rainy days, 17mills and 27 mills, every little bit is appreciated.

The Jaboticabas are all fruiting like crazy, so much fruit.

What a year for the Hippeastrums, I have never seen them look so good.

I bought a new ride on mower and am very pleased with it.

The Day Lily's are all coming into flower, what a great plant they are.

Someone said to me regarding so called ‘Global Warming’ that one thing about the weather that we can be sure of is that next year is going to be different from this year and so on, how true.

September 2011 Garden News

September has been a very dry month with no rain recorded.

The garden is looking very dry, thank goodness we have 107,000 litres of backup water in our tanks, and we just could not continue gardening if we did not have these, OK, it cost a lot to put in seven tanks but we think it’s been worth it.

I suppose I had better get my ‘great big gripe’ off my chest first. Mr Google has deleted all my blog photos, that’s going back about four years, this is so disappointing as a lot of people get a lot of enjoyment out of my blog. They also deleted the photos from my ‘garden products review’ site with is bad especially when I have to pay for that domain name. Anyway I will put some of the photos back on when I get a spare minute.

How did I ever go to work?

Spring has arrived and the Hippeastrums are looking magnificent and although it is dry I believe the garden will be at its very best for our opening on 19^th and 20^th November.

Every day I seem to do some sort of improvement to the garden, whether it’s a new pot or a new planting or even a change in the position of a plant, there’s always lots to do.

Bayside Garden Club asked me to give a presentation at very short notice, I did not mind as they are a great club, very vibrant with lots of new members, as usual first time talk is ‘Smart Sub Tropical Gardening’, then if they want me back its ‘A passion for plants’.

Our second presentation was to the ‘Jimboomba Garden Club’, this was different as it was held in the evening, again a nice club who appreciated us taking the time to come out to them.

Judy and I both have this rotten flu that’s going around, it seems to stick around forever.

In between all this I have found time to paint the lounge/dining area and rip up all the old carpet from the four bedrooms ready for new wool carpet.

Published Article in Open Garden Magazine 2011-12

Gardening Australia Article

We ended up being runners up.

Lost Photos, here's some ideas what to do with Mr Google

Only joking of course, but I am very upset that all my blog photos have been deleted by Google, so much work lost and history. What a stuff up.

Garden News August 2011

August has been an especially busy month. It started off with a presentation at ‘Ormiston Garden Club’ this is a local club and as usual were well received.

Then we had a full bus load visit from ‘Caloundra Garden Club’ and the next day a visit from ‘Clayfield-Ascot garden Club’.

Both lots of visitors enjoyed the garden.

Then the following week we drove to Mount Tamborine to attend an ‘Australia’s Open Gardens’ selector’s meeting then the launch of the 2011-2012 season. I spoke about opening our garden.

Next was a presentation to ‘Oxley Garden Club’.

Then the following week, a presentation to ‘The Gap Garden Club’, it was a shocking drive into the Gap as it was wet and peak hour traffic.

I actually also found time to visit the ‘Brisbane Boat Show with my son.

At the end of the month I attended the ‘Cordyline Society’ meeting and won three nice plants in the raffle.

After all that I still found time to prune all six Custard Apple trees, mulch what I could and take the rest to the dump.

I also trimmed some large overhanging gum branches and one really big one I had to get a tree guy in to cut that down. Cut a load of old mother bromeliads and started to paint the house.

We had some good and needed rain at the end of the month, just in time for spring.

Garden is looking good at the moment and should present well when we open on 19^th and 20^th November.