Garden news April 2019

At last enough rain to almost fill all our seven rainwater tanks, overall, we have had some good follow up rain  and what a relief not having to stand and water for hours on end.

It is amazing how quickly to garden has responded to the rain although the lawns have taken a real beating.

So, to say the least we are happy gardeners at the moment.

We had a very nice visit to ‘Mt Mee Garden Club’ where I gave a presentation, very nice country people.

We hosted ‘Mitchelton and District Senior Citizens Club’ and ‘Greenpark Garden Club’, all who enjoyed the refreshed garden.

I am already having to trim trees to let more light into the garden, amazing change from a month ago.

Our youngest son and family visited us then went on a two-week holiday to Bali, unfortunately Warrick was bitten by a mosquito carrying Dengue Fever and fell very sick.

Upon return to Brisbane he had to be hospitalized and put on a drip, it’s a shocking disease and will take him a while to recover.

The rain has of course brought many weeds into the garden and I am digging them out by the bucket load before they seed again.

Nice orchids out at the moment.

My back and left hip is not the best at the moment, not interested in doing any heavy work at the moment.

I have finished my new presentation 'Aroids, Colour and Orchids in the Giving Garden' Judy has seen it and is happy so I will try it out this month when we vist 'Clayfield Ascot Garden Club'.

March 2019 Garden News

After the hottest and driest summer, I have ever gone through it has been such a relief to of had some good rain.

We had around the 120 mills in total during March and thank goodness the temperature has finally gone into the 20s.

Basically, every day during summer at the end of the day I was soaked in sweat and had to leave my work clothes outside as they smelled so much of sweat.

No matter how hot it was I still worked every day in the garden making both big and small improvements.

Aroids are gaining in popularity, so here are some of ours.

Several trailer loads of rocks and soil and new plant plus two new shade areas have made the garden more interesting and an draw-card for this year’s ‘Open Garden’.

Wow our 'Condom Plant has flowered.

We had bus trips from Mt Tamborine and Caloundra Garden Clubs which were great always nice people and keen gardeners who loved our garden.

It's a small world a lady from 'Caloundra garden club' had an English accent and I asked her where she was from, and it was not far from where I lived as a child, I then asked her what school she went to and lo and behold it was "Haslucks Green Primary School' same as me, we are the same age and were possibly in the same class.

I have started preparing a new garden presentation starting with Aroid family followed by colour in the garden red, yellow ect.

Amazing just how many red flowering plants we have.

Still have plenty of visitors of the feathered variety.

I have decided to name the presentation 'Aroids, Orchids and Colour in the Giving Garden'.

After the rain it is amazing just how quickly the garden has sprung back to life, there are still quite a few bare patches on the lawn where the grass has died but hopefully that will come back, otherwise everything is looking very healthy.

What a relief.

Garden News February 2019

Sorry but NO update for February.
The reason is the temperature in the shade here for the whole month has been in the mid to high 30s Celsius and that's in the shade.
So, the garden has been basking in scorching conditions without a drop of rain.
It has been the hottest and driest summer I can remember and it has been a monumental struggle to keep most of our plants alive.
All out seven tanks are now empty.

January 2019 Garden News

I did not publish a blog for December as that month turned out to be a rest from gardening as we had worked very hard to open our November ‘Open Garden’ and left us ‘gardened out’.

Also, Christmas is a family affair and we had grandchildren to look after and of course everything else that goes with a family Christmas.

Some nice orchids out which do not seem to be affected by the heat.

December was completely dry and for the most part HOT, not a good time for gardening.

January, well it has been an absolute disaster with only a small shower which dried up with the strong winds that followed with 30c plus temperatures every day with no respite for the whole month.

We did get a good bunch of bananas off our sugar banana.

It is so bad, much worse for the garden than the drought of 2009 where all the politicians panicked and built pipelines to nowhere, dams not hooked up to pipes, waste water that no one wants to use and a desalination plant that is rusting away, not to forget the travesty of Traveston Dam where the Queensland Government went ahead and bought all the land for untold millions then realized they did not have to OK from the Federal government and had to resell the land at an incredible loss.

Politicians are a useless breed, for the most part afraid to make a decision and when they do it’s usually the wrong one. 

A prime example is the $50 billion submarine program we are buying from the French, atomic subs converted to diesel by 2050, what a joke.

Sorry about my rant but sometimes I despair for this wonderful country.

The cost of all these failures can be counted in the billions and who is paying for it, you the taxpayer of course.

I bought a ‘Power Planter’, not the one advertised but from Trade Tools, much more cheaper and yes it is a good tool.

Even with the heat I have still I managed to get three projects finished, photos below.

The dry has really affected two of our Custard Apple trees and they are slowly dying, so I have had to create a shaded are for the under-story, not a job I really wanted to do but the plants are getting burnt in this long heatwave.

Every spare bit of shade cloth has been used somewhere in the garden as it is so hot that even our water hoses are melting.

We are hosting a meeting in February for ‘The International Cordyline Society’, hope we get some rain before then.