Garden News October 2012

I know it’s a tired old story but it is one that is stressing me out.

Yes, you have guessed it, it’s the bloody weather.

No rain since mid July, but to make matters worse we have had several gales which have ripped through the garden shredding the leaves of trees, cordylines and heliconias.

With just four weeks to go to our ‘Open Garden’ there’s still time for it to recover and look good, not lush but good, but that depends on whether we get any rain or not.

Gardening is not exactly a relaxing hobby for us at the moment; hopefully we will have a great ‘Open Garden’ and be able to relax a bit.

                                              Curcuma 'CapeYork'

                                                       Jade Vine

                                         Zingiber 'Dark Apricot'

I have a crook elbow at the moment, Doctor said it was a classic case of ‘Tennis Elbow’ or in my case ‘Gardeners Elbow’, it’s painful but I will have to grin and bear it until after the opening as there is so much to do.

We had just the one bus trip this month from the Probus Club, as usual they enjoyed the garden even though it was very dry.

                                                Hippeastrums

My time is spent mostly watering the garden, trying to keep the plants alive, we had 107,500 litres of rainwater stored on seven tanks, we are down to about 10,000 litres left, enough? I don’t think so unless it rains. I know the plants do not like town water, but it may come to that.

I have completed a couple of small jobs in the garden and planted more plants, there’s always room for more plants and more plants.

I was a bit upset when I was told by a fellow gardener that certain person hated our garden and did not like us because we promote our garden too much. What a stupid sour person she must be, of course our garden being tropical will not appeal to everyone, that’s to be expected, but to dislike us because we promote of garden is really stupid. Let’s face it if I did not do it who would? If you want visitors on your open weekend then you must let them know you are opening.

Oh well, you cannot please everyone.

                                                        Zingiber 'Early Yellow'

                                                       Peperomia puteolat

 This year Judy and I have received 12 bus tours through the garden, there’s only a $2.00 charge to help pay for the public liability insurance, we always have the back patio area cleared with enough seats for everyone and of course a urn boiling.

We have also visited 12 Garden Clubs giving one of my three power point presentations, there is no charge for this, and most garden clubs give us just enough to pay for petrol costs.

                                               Dendrobium fimbriatum

                                            Dendrobium Orchid

                                          Ansellia africana 'Leopard Orchid'

This blog is now getting over 100 visitors a day, which is very pleasing as I enjoy doing it along with the ‘garden product reviews’ site, doing this keeps my brain active and the garden looks after the body.

This year’s ‘Open Garden’  raffle has already received some great prizes, Fiskars have sent  a selection of garden tools worth $600 and Reln have donated a compost tumbler and worm farm, lots of other stuff too including a personally signed bottle of wine by the Queensland Premier.

                                         Fiskars donation

Judy has some wonderful plants ready to sell during the ‘Open Garden’, they are all at a very reasonable price and some of them are impossible to purchase at Garden Centres.

I bought a new camera last month, a Nikon D3200 and have just received my new 100mm micro lens. I am very pleased with the camera and hope to post some great photos in the future.

September 2012 Garden News

We are having an early summer with quite high temperatures and of course NO rain.

Worrying about the lack of rain seems to be the story of my life, but it is so frustrating having to spend countless hours hand watering then find your tanks are going close to empty.

Hopefully we will get some decent rain before the ‘Open Garden’.

                                                                             Clivea

I think I have probably done more to improve the garden this year than any other year, with many metres of soil, compost ect brought in and existing gardens refurbished and replanted.

As I have said before ‘“a good garden is never finished, it is always evolving”.

                                                                           Blue Mist

                                                               Queen of the Abyss

                                                                       Red Holiday

No garden talks or bus tours this month, which is good as it gives us more time to get ready for the ‘Open Garden’.

We have had two very interesting Amorphophallus plants in flower, photos shown below.

                                                            Typhonium venosum 'Voodoo Lily'

                                                           Amorphophallus Konjac

                                           Amorphophallus bulbifer (snake plant) seed pod
I have bought a new camera Nikon D3200 with 24 mega pixels; stand by for some good photos.

We are going to have some very good ‘Open Garden’ raffle prizes this year with Reln donating a worm farm and compost tumbler, Fiskars donating three very good products and a lot more, all money raised goes to disabled sport. In our previous 10 openings we have raised about $30,000 for various charities through the raffle and catering.

                                                            Clerodendrum 'Starburst'

                                                                Yellow Candlestick

We will not open next year as we need a bit of a break, whether we will do it again, well we shall just wait and see.  We still intend to host bus trips ect.
Don't forget to look at my other site. http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/

August 2012 Garden News

Today is the first day of spring.

Boy, am I glad to see the last of winter.

I have had three bouts of the Flu after going many years without even catching a common cold.

I am now a bit behind in my garden preparation and really need to rev things up; trouble is I am still suffering effects of the flu.

With the end of each winter I look at the garden and wonder how an earth will it be ready for opening in November?

It always seems to work out except 2009 when it did not rain for seven months.

Talking about rain, we are in a very dry spell at the moment, six weeks without any rain.

The place is very dry but fortunately we have 107,000 litres of water stored, it’s just so time consuming hand watering a garden as large as ours.

After over 20 years of driving up a kerb we finally decided to have it ripped out and redone and concreted.

In-between bouts of flu I replaced the retaining wall opposite our back patio; it was part of our swimming pool fence and was not legal. I had to bring the whole thing forward and add another sleeper height. My main worry was the Cardinal Creeper vine; would I have to cut it back? Fortunately not but when we eventually sell it will have to go along with other vines and limbs that are close to the pool.

Digging the holes were the worst job as our ground is solid clay; it was a crowbar job cm by cm until I reached the desired depth, I was well and truly worn out by the end of it.

I did two garden presentations, one to the ‘Redlands Horticultural Society’ and another to the ‘Logan City Garden Club’. Both went well and nice people.

On a very sad note was the passing of our Queensland ‘Garden Guru’ Colin Campbell. He was a true gentleman and we were privileged to have him visit us in 2010 with ‘Gardening Australia’.

All gardeners throughout Australia will miss this fine man.

.

July 2012 Garden News

We have had more good rain this month, enough to saturate the ground.

What a relief not having to spend hours watering.

I have been sick most of this month, that makes almost seven weeks with the flu and that’s with the flu inoculation.

Hopefully I will start to feel better soon.

We had our usual trip to the Nambour Garden Expo and as always really enjoyed it, we then went on to see our friends at Natrakelp and came back home with some interesting plants and some  liquid seaweed.

Even though I have been sick it has not stopped me working in the garden, I must admit I hate being inside.

Resurfaced all the pathways with crusher dust, dug out all the Caladiums and revitalized the soil with compost, rice husks and blood and bone, plus of course the kelp.

  A big job was to pull out all the rocks and pavers on the walkway to back garden as they had sunk and water was collecting, also due to the shade no grass would grow. I re-cemented them all back at a higher level then filled the area in with a smooth gold pebble. I am very pleased with the result, made a dirty area look clean and fresh.

I collected a trailer load of mushroom compost from our local mushroom farm, partly to include in my compost heap and some to put under the Custard Apple trees. We can usually get heaps of our own home-grown Mushrooms.

We had one garden presentation this month, back to ‘Eagleby garden Club’ for the third time, it’s just like seeing old friends. They are a very nice group of garden lovers.

We have a busy time coming up in August with more bus trips and presentations.

Looks like an early spring, Torch Lily’s, Mexican Mist, Day Lily’s are all just starting to flower.

I am very happy with the soil I had delivered from ‘Green Fingers’, it’s probably the best soil I have ever used in the garden.

I was so impressed with their product that I did a review for them on my web site http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/

We now have our fourth Grand Child in four years, congratulations to our son Warrick, his wife Fabienne and of course little Celeste.

With the birth of our fourth Grand Child I thought this would be a good addition to the garden.

Amorphophallus titanum

Totally Wild TV show. This is the Amorphophallus titanum grown by John and Genny Catlan from Jacobs Well, Queensland.

Totally Wild Garden Segment

Totally Wild filmed here earlier this year. This segment was shown in May on Channel 10.
WE were very happy about the way it was done as it featured our Grand Children in the garden.

June 2012 Garden News

What a rotten month it has been. I have had the flu and am now in my fourth week of coughing and sneezing and this is just a couple of weeks after having a flu vaccination.

Needless to say not a lot has been done in the garden.

It’s a good job we have not had any bus tours here this month.

I did attend a meeting of the Ipswich Bromeliad Society’ and gave a presentation on ‘Smart Sub Tropical Gardening’.

I have now started to prepare a third presentation ‘Bizarre and Beautiful Botanicals’, I am up to 100 slides already and it’s going to be a very stunning power point.

Our friends John and Genny Catlan are to appear on ‘Gardening Australia’ sometime in August, this will be a very interesting segment.

After seeing John and Genny we called into ‘Greenfingers’ and collected a metre of their great potting mix, also had a look at their premium organic soil, it looked good so I ordered a truck load to be delivered.

I have reviewed their potting mix and premium soil on my review site at http://www.gardenproductreviews.com/

We hope to dig out all our Day Lily’s and put them back into this good soil, that’s if there’s any left as our Grand Children have found the heap and the Tonka trucks ect are having a busy time, that’s ok as children should be allowed to play in the dirt.

We had a trip to Caboolture to see some friends who have a wonderful nursery full of orchids, bromeliads ect.

Not a lot has been done in our garden this month due to sickness although I did manage to spread a couple of metres of crusher dust to build up the pathways.

It is very dull and wet here here, Brisbane is the coldest it has been for 10 years but the winter rain is of course welcome.
We have had 100 mills or four inches during the last week of this month.