Garden Club Presentations and Bus Tours

The year 2012 has again been busy with garden presentations and bus trips.

I just thought I would elaborate on what we do.

With garden presentations I have a laptop, projector and large screen which I bring with me.

I now have three 'Power Point' presentations at the moment; all go for approx 45 minutes to one hour depending on questions.

The presentations are ‘Smart Sub Tropical gardening’, ‘A Passion for Plants’ and ‘Bizarre and Beautiful Botanical's , all have about 200 slides of plants from our garden. 
All my presentations have been very well recieved.

We do bring up to seven trays of plants to sell at very reasonable prices and usually donate a Bromeliad for the clubs raffle.

We have travelled as far as Tweed Heads and have been as far north as Kilcoy Garden Club.

The feedback from the presentations has always been very good.

In regard to bus trips we are more than happy to accommodate visitors on bus tours.

Visitors are charged a nominal fee of $4.00 which goes to cover the cost of rising public liability insurance.

We are happy to have the urn boiling and milk in the fridge when you arrive and have a large patio area where visitors can sit and have morning tea.

Most bus trips bring their own coffee and tea, but if that is not possible we will supply the tea and coffee at no extra cost.

We let visitors use our laundry toilet.

We have a wonderful selection of garden plants and bromeliads for sale.

We recommend at the very minimum a 1.5 hour stay.
If you would like to contact us my email address is iwintle@bigpond.net.au.

There is plenty to see at our one acre garden and it does not really matter if clubs visit more than once as there are different things to see each season.

Judy and I do our utmost to make visitors feel welcome, that’s why we call our garden a ‘Giving Garden’.

After they finish with us I recommend they go to ‘Lagoon View Gardens’ nursery situated at Lagoon View Road, Redland Bay.

Peter and Genya Robinson are the owners and have created a stunning display garden situated between two beautiful lagoons.

As a selector I recommended this garden open through ‘Open Gardens Australia’ but they now have a new policy that retail outlets are no longer available to open through the scheme.

I can honestly say this garden is well worth going to.

Their phone numbers are 0408181970 or 0732068169.

December 2012 Garden News

December was all about recovering from the Open Garden.

I think we had the best Open Garden we have ever had, such nice people visited and they bought lots of Judy’s beautiful plants.

We raised $715 for disabled sport and the catering raised almost $2000 for a local food bank.

We will not be opening in 2013, after 11 consecutive openings we feel it’s time to take a break.

The weather since our open garden has been awful with 30 degree plus heat, wind and absolutely no rain until Boxing Day when we had 18 mills.

All our seven tanks are  now completely empty.

It has been a real struggle this year to keep our plants alive; we have to use town water just to keep our plants alive.

 Crinum 'Rose Parade'.

 Curcuma 'White'

Beehive Ginger 'Coffee'

The place is a mess at the moment as the gum trees are shedding their bark and there’s bark everywhere.

I have planted all the new plants we bought on our holidays, there’s always room for more plants.

New Project.

I am building an extension to one of the shade houses at the moment, once that is finished I have to rebuild the oldest shade house as the timber has rotted, it sure is a busy life.

 Lady Slipper Vine.

 Rose Ginger

 Double Abutilon pink

 Caladium 'Thai Beauty'

Costus 'Peru Pineapple'

We attended a couple of Christmas party’s for Bayside Garden Club and the Cordyline Society enjoyed both.

 Crinum 'White'

 Swamp Hibiscus

Christmas lights keep the Flying Foxes away from our Mango crop.

We start the New Year with a presentation to the Tweed Heads garden Club on the 14^th January.

Judy and I hope you all had a great Christmas and have some wonderful gardening for 2013.

Merry Christmas

Judy and I would like to wish all our blog readers a very happy Christmas and all the very best for 2013.
We hope the weather is better than this year as it has only rained twice since mid July and the garden is to say the least "parched'.
I will be putting on another post in the next few days.
All the very best and happy gardening to you all.

November Garden News 2012

We went into November with despair; the weather had been so unkind to us. Just two lots of 2 mills of rain since late July and the winds were the worst in our memory. Judy and I looked at each other and commented that ‘we could just walk away and leave it all'.

All our rainwater tanks (107,500 litres) were empty

On the second week of November we had 30 mills of rain and on the third weekend (this is when we usually have our open garden) we had 51 mills.

We were saved, the garden sparked up like you would not believe, and what a relief not having to water the garden.

I had a garden presentation at ‘Springdale garden club' which was well attended and two presentations for the Cordyline Society’s ‘Tropical Affair’ plant sale.

Thank goodness we opened our garden one week later than usual as the weather could not have been better with a top temperature of 27c and fine.

The ‘Open Garden’ was a success with over 600 people visiting the garden and great plant sales.

The raffle raised over $700 for disabled sport and catering did well for a local food bank.

The main thing that struck me was how nice all the visitors were.

After eleven successive openings we are going to have a break and reassess our situation in 2014.

I already have 11 garden presentations booked for next year and there’s sure to be more including bus trips.

As usual after the opening we head up to Mooloolaba to have a three day rest away from the garden.

We see all our garden friends up there and of course return with a load of new plants, this year I was able to secure some new Costus and Zingibers.

To all my blog readers I wish them all a very happy Christmas and hope that 2013 will be a great year for them in the garden and in life.

Newspaper Article

This was in Brisbane's Saturday's Courier Mail colour magazine (24th November) I was interviewed as an 'ordinary person'.

Tropical Garden

We usually have our Open Garden on the third  weekend of November but this year we decided to have it a week later.
What a good decision that was as we have had great rain (51 mills) and next weekend is forecast to be fine with max temp at 26c.
You can already see the difference in the garden.
Our two mass plantings of Caladiums and blood lily's should stunning.
We have over $1200 worth of prizes for our raffle which goes to disabled sport and of course Judy has loads of stunning plants for sale at prices you will not believe.
I am feeling very positive unlike a couple of weeks ago when I felt like walking away.
It's all good.

There's a great tropical nursery at El Arish (North Queensland) run by Scott and Ann Marie Cairns, lots of information on tropical plants and their care on their web site.
Well worth a visit if you like sub tropical or tropical gardening.
I hope to go there some day.

Our 2012 Open Garden

It's only a few day's until we open.
I must admit I was getting very stressed with the lack of rain and the severe winds we have had this Spring.
Last Saturday a great weight was lifted off my shoulders, we actually had 30 mills of rain.
That was the greatest sound I have ever heard.
The lawns are turning green already and the plants are smiling.
Unfortunately the rain was followed by gale winds again, but you have to be thankful for small mercies.
The garden will look good, but not lush, the costus, gingers and heliconias have suffered from the winds and do look a bit ragged.
Judy as usual has a great selection of plants for sale, in fact it's worth coming just for that.
Given the circumstances I do not think any of our visitors will be disappointed.

The Courier Mail's 'Qweekend' magazine will be featuring me on Saturday 24th November, I will be an 'Ordinary Person'.