Worsleya procera.

Wow, almost at the 20,000 visitor mark from well over 100 different countries.
It's great to see that our garden has been viewed so many times, isn't the wide world web wonderful when we can share our beautiful garden with so many others.
I have just bought the latest issue of 'Sub Tropical Gardening' magazine and note with interest the article on the 'Blue Hippeastrum' or Worsleya procera.

It's a good article but I feel it does not give enough credit to John and Genny Catlan who are perhaps the best growers of this plant in Australia, they have a magnificent collection of both mature and young plants all propagated by John and Genny.
Hopefully Gardening Australia will do a feature on them, they will make for Great Television.
Have a look at my review site.
http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/

May 2012 Garden New's

This month our garden featured on Channel 10s ‘Totally Wild’, they did a great job and we were very pleased with the segment.

You too can see it on this link: http://ten.com.au/totally-wild-tw20-077.htm ,we are on after the lizards.

This month we had the Sunshine Coast fern and Foliage Society visit the garden and then we had a fairly long trip to give a presentation to the Kilcoy Garden Club, they were most hospitable as most country people are and offered us lunch before we left. We just got home in time to watch our garden feature on ‘Totally Wild’.

                                                           Mattress Button Plant

                                                                    Haemanthus alba

                                                                   Curly Poinsettisa

                                                              Mussaenda 'Dona Luz'

We now have a bit of a break until the next garden visit so I have started some serious fruit tree pruning and have stripped a couple of gardens to start afresh.

                                                Sunshine Coast Fern and Foliage Society

Gardening is all about renewal and change and I have been doing quite a bit of that this month with room made for lots of new plants.

I have brought in trailer loads of organic soil, mushi compost and crusher dust to do all the jobs that need doing.

Our first Grand-Daughter turned three and we gave her a very special Birthday, we will soon have three Grand-Daughters and one Grand-Son, they have really changed our lives for the better.

                                                                            Sophie

Friday is our day off gardening as we look after the Grand-Children this day and we find it more tiring than if we had worked all day in the garden.

How did I ever find time to go to work? 

                                                                         Hog Plum

                                                                            Triplaris

April Garden News

What a big month April has been.

First lot of visitors were from Logan Garden Club, then a field trip by members of Redlands Horticultural Society, Next were the Bribie Island Garden Club followed by a meeting of ‘Australia’s Open garden’ selectors.

Judy and I drove to Toowoomba so I could join the Retired Police Dog Handlers on the ANZAC day march, that was great and I was able to catch up with people I had not seen for 25 years. I will be doing that again for sure.

I am refurbishing three gardens, taking old plants out and putting in new soil and compost then new plants, it’s all about reviving and renewing the garden on a fairly regular basis.

It is also the time where I have to start a lot of pruning, I have been holding off due to the large amount of visitors we have been having, but seeing as there is only one more bus trip until August I will get started soon.

The dreaded Black Lily Grub has been busy eating the Hippaestrums , these are our worst pest in the garden.

                                                                

We had six inches of rain last week, it has rained off and on for weeks now and I really need to do some spraying.

March 2012 Garden News

What a big month for Judy and I.

First was a visit to ‘Rose Lovers Society’ at Keperra it was a good visit as they enjoyed the presentation and bought a lot of Judy’s plants.

Then we went out to ‘Karana Downs Garden Club’, again a good visit.

Next was a drive out to ‘Forest Lake Garden Club’, this was an evening presentation so we were quite late home.

Our last presentation for the month was ‘Robina Garden Club’; this was a long day as we had to sit and wait a few hours before I could do my presentation.

We had visitors from ‘get up and Go’, Forest Lake Garden Club’ and ‘Oxley Garden Club’.

So, as you can see we had a very busy month and April looks like it will be just as busy.

For the bus trips we clear the back patio, put chairs out and have an urn boiling, plus plants for sale.

I had a new gardening book arrive from Amazon, it’s called ‘Bizarre Botanicals’ and it’s a great book, surprisingly we have a lot of the plants featured in it.

One thing I did learn was why a bat plant is so called, it’s not the flower but the seed pod (picture attached).

Lots of pruning done, we have had quite a wet summer and all the fruit trees have grown so much that not much light was getting through to the understory, so I had to make some openings where the light could reach the plants. If you don’t do this then you risk a diseased tree.

Zingiber 'Golden Glory' beehive measured 35 cm high, looked amazing.

I am in the process of raising part of the pool fence and the turning the existing garden into another ‘Caladium Corner’ as we now have a great source of new Caladiums.

                                                          Ceropega 'String of Hearts'

                                                                        Golden Lycoris

                                  The above is called 'Tapeworm Plant' or 'Bad Hair Day Plant'

                                                                   Cardinal Creeper

                                                                Heliconia 'Mildred'

A few dislkes

There’s not a lot I dislike about gardening, here’s just a few of the things that niggle me.

First are the big multi national stores that get in truckloads of plants from the southern states for sale in Queensland and probably knowing very well that when they stop flowering that’s it and they will not survive. Take Cymbidium Orchids, they are for sale here in Brisbane especially on Mothers Day but what the purchaser does not know is that they will only flower when subjected to a cold winter.

Organic soil, I have learnt my lesson over the years and have found that the goodness soon goes out of this so called soil and all you have left is usually sawdust. Then you have the terrible shrinkage problems as later on the gardens have to be topped up with a good mix, which ideally should have the base of at least 70% topsoil and sand.

Garden talk back shows, where the presenter, if not sure of the answer to a question from a listener should not answer the question if he/she is unsure of the answer. An incorrect answer can sometimes do more harm than good. Don’t get me wrong there are some great presenters out there. 

Cheaply made garden tools. I bought a good branded fork, which is  a well-known and respected brand of equipment. I found its prongs bent almost immediately, made in China of course.

Lawn mowers not made for Australian conditions, mainly referring to the safety features found on the made in USA mowers, ‘painful’.

Garden Nurseries where they only stock plants which cater to the lowest common denominator.

Television make-over shows, I remember watching Jamie Durie on ‘Backyard Blitz’ planting a ‘Fictus’ in a small unit forecourt, they are all like that, look good for a TV grab, but in the future?

Garden designers who mass plant the same plant; let’s have colour and variety.

Those who think that native plants are the only answer to gardening in a drought.

The demise of the small nurseries, these are the ones that were not afraid to stock rare and interesting plants.

Garden owners who employ a garden designer and a landscaping crew and then without doing any of the ‘hard yakka’ themselves open their garden to the public through the ‘Open Garden Scheme’.

People who hire a personal gardener and in conversation talk about “my gardener”.

People who think you can’t use chemicals in the garden.

Television garden shows, which presents most of the program from the presenter’s back yard, it’s getting to be ‘cheap TV’ and perhaps a little boring.

Things we love about Gardening

My morning, midday and evening walks around the garden, I never tire of this routine.

Seeing a plant flower for the first time.

Sourcing a plant, which we do not have already growing.

Visiting garden shows.

Visiting garden centres, especially the smaller ones.

Meeting and making friends with fellow gardeners.

Seeing our landscaping and plant selection coming to fruition.

Keeping me fit, healthy and fully occupied in retirement.

Opening our garden to the public and meeting up to a 1000 great people in our backyard is an awesome experience.  It is months of hard work and effort to prepare for the open weekend, but well worth it and we have done it on the last ten consecutive years.

Garden photography.

Keeping my garden blog, my ‘photobucket’ album and my garden product review sites up to date. I get a real thrill knowing ten's of thousands of gardeners from well over 100 different countries have seen our garden through the blog and photo album.

Talking to Garden Clubs and sharing our passion, I have now bought a laptop and projector and give presentations on ‘Smart Sub Tropical Gardening’ and ‘A passion for Plants’parts one and two.

The fact that my wife also loves gardening, so it’s a passion shared.

Knowing that we have raised $30,000 for charity through opening our garden.

My web sites:
http://ianjudy.blogspot.com/
http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v160/Ianrobert/?src=wap

Repot Cattleya Orchids

Mix up a sterilizing liquid which will be used sterilize your cutting instrument each time you trim an orchid, this is to stop any root borne disease/virus from transferring from one plant to another.
Your planting media should be a mix of commercially available composted pine bark, medium size is best for all, then mix this with enough corse perlite to be seen throughout the mix without going overboard and then add a small amount of peat moss. Then damp down, only so much that the peat moss sticks to the bark.
If you are satisfied with your growing medium DO NOT CHANGE, I unfortunately did with disastrous results. I switched from the above mix to 'Absorbastone' and what happened was the roots got too cold in Winter and killed over half my collection.

I find that I can pot about 50 Orchids from one 40 litre bag of bark, cost of bark about $27 from your local produce store.
Remove any old stalks from the main plant, if the plant has split into different shoots then each of these can be split and will be new plants for you.
Make sure you have a container for the old shoots which can be disposed of.
Pack the mix into a squat pot with good drainage and with just a little long life fertilizer on the top.
Then all that will be needed is weekly watering and fortnightly fertilizing with a half strength liquid fertilizer.
Quite simple really.
Almost forgot, your biggest enemy (other than your self) will be the ‘Dendrobium Beetle’ who will love to visit and have a great big chew on your beautiful flowers, you must either spray or take the plant inside.