Video of our Garden

Garden News March 2008

It’s been a month of hard work, the new front garden is finally complete and Judy has started to put in the plants, it is a nice addition to the garden and will be very colourful when the day Lilies are in full bloom.
As usual it cost about twice as much as I planned and that’s doing it all myself.
The price of good soil has gone up, now costing $57 a metre; the new garden took 11 metres all hand shovelled into place.
There was cementing, paving stones, another shade area, a trellis to hide the new water tank, a post for the dragon fruit, hot house, and bridge over drain.
That was the last major job in the garden, still plenty of small jobs to do which all go together to improve the garden.
One thing I am really looking forward to is a weekend where I am not shovelling soil, I seem to of been doing this forever and my bones are telling me that I need a break.
I wish I had a dollar refund for every metre of stuff I have brought in; I think I could have been very rich.
March has been very dry and we are back to hand watering, it’s a pity because the sub soil is becoming dry again.
The bugs are still really bad, grasshoppers, caterpillars, grubs are eating everything and the cockatoos have just about finished off this years crop of pecan nuts.

Garden News February 2008

I have my boat being serviced, I have come to the realisation that the garden is starting to own me, so I am determined to go prawning/fishing at the very least once a month. I have almost finished the new front garden and have decided on the new feature for the back garden, it’s going to be very simple, a little difficult to put into place, will look very natural and WILL stand out as a feature. I had toyed with the idea of a garden statue but thinking about it statues are not really my style.
On Sunday 3/2 we had 175mm of rain in the morning, all my drains worked very well as the rear patio remained dry. It was really strange not to be completely ‘shagged’ by Sunday night.
I spent most of Sunday cleaning up the shed and repairing prawn cast nets.
More heavy rain during the week, by Wednesday we had 300mm, almost 12 inches of beautiful rain, cannot ever remember so much rain in such a short time. All tanks are full, a whole 65,000 litres in storage.
The front is too wet for a truckload of soil to be delivered for the front garden so I have been trimming fruit trees and doing other garden tasks.
I have had to hand mow for the past few weeks and was glad to get my ride on mower back, but at a price, over $700, of that nearly $500 in parts, a drive belt is $140, it wants to go well for the next few years.
Towards the end of the month we had a day where the temperature reached 42c and it was very hot, all the plants started to wilt in the heat.
In the space of a week the lawn grubs have destroyed a major part of my back lawn, I have never seen so many insect pests as there are at the moment. Grasshoppers are eating the cordylines, grubs in the crinnins and alocasias, cockatoos in the pecan’s and flying foxes in the longans, very frustrating gardening at the moment.

Costus

I must admit costus are my favourite plant, they are sometimes known as spiral gingers due to the growth habit of spiralling upwards.
One of the biggest problems when purchasing these plants is the misnaming by nurseries either on purpose of by mistake; our local nursery recently was selling ‘french kiss’ as costus ‘malortieanus’.
Most costus look the same when young and sometimes it is not until a couple of years later that you realise that you have been done, either through ignorance or on purpose. I know as I have bought a rare costus by mail order only to find later that it is really a ‘spicatus’ (Indian head) which is probably one of the most common of the costus family.
There are many different names for each one, take ‘barbatus’ sometimes known as ‘comosus’ or ‘red tower ginger’.

Propagation is quite easy; the ‘speciosus’ variety give off small side shoots and all these will give you a new plant. With ‘barbatus’ the root rhizome can be divided or you can cut the old stalk off after flowering and cut into pieces about 8inches long and place in a good potting mix, we have a high success rate with this method, otherwise just place the whole stalk just under a layer of mulch in semi shaded spot in your garden and leave it, eventually it will give you several new plants, Couldn’t get much easier than that.
Costus flowers range from white, yellow and red, some cone on the top and others cone on the base of the plant.
Costus ‘dubius’ has an excellent green cone with white flowers and when massed makes a great show.

The yellow flower offshoots on the costus ‘barbatus’ flowers are very edible and can be eaten straight off the plant or are excellent in a salad, another interesting factor with ‘barbatus’ is the smooth silk feeling of the underside of the leaves, I call this the sexiest plant in my garden.
The largest Costus in my experience is guyanenis ‘buddas belly’ this can grow up to three metres in height.
Costus rhizomes are used in Asia for medicinal purposes.
My favourite costus are ‘barbartus’, ‘productus’, ‘green mountain’, ‘pulverulentus’, ‘costa flores’ ‘red stem’, ‘asplundii’, ‘dubius’ and ‘french kiss’ all of these grow well for me. I have had problems with variegated ‘amazonius’, ‘eskimo kiss’, ‘tappenbeckianus’, and sorry to say cuspidosis ‘fiery’.
I have about 36 different varieties of costus.
Costus do well in understorey positions with filtered light, they like plenty of water but not waterlogged.
Remember the more hairy the costus is the more cold sensitive it is.
All in all they are a great landscaping plant which will give you years of pleasure, of course the better the soil and having the ability to give them good watering will make them healthier.

January 2008 Garden News

Well a rough start to 2008, we have had gale winds for a week and one of my nice pink brumansia’s was ripped from the ground, pity as it was just flowering and would of looked really good, the good news was several days of soaking rain and cool weather.
I made a good start on this year’s new project having all rocks, paver mowing strip and drain cemented into place and the base is ready for the new tank which arrives next week.
Lots of soaking rain, best I have seen for years, not much I could do in the garden due to the wet weather, and that something that has not happened at least for seven years.
Another rain water tank arrived from Bundaberg Plastics and is in place. This now gives us 65000 litres of water, I am pretty sure this will make us drought proof.
I have now plumbed all tanks with proper fittings and pipe with taps situated where they are most needed.
The lawns are growing like crazy and of course my ride on has broken down and so far it’s been three weeks waiting for parts, it’s a big job to mow it all with the hand mower as I did last weekend.
I am always thinking that my weekends will get easier but of course that is just not true, now that things are finally growing there are lots of trees and shrubs to trim.
If it’s not the cycads being eaten then it’s the abutilons now I find there is a plague of grasshoppers munching merrily through my beautiful cordylines, pests are becoming rampant. Not sure if I have mentioned it before but the lychee crop was eaten by flying foxes way before becoming ripe.
This weekend’s job is to mow, then point in between the rocks in the new garden then build a bridge across the new front drain.
After a hard long weekend the new front garden is complete all but a truck load of soil, rocks have been pointed and a bridge built, all looks good.

Heliconia Struggle

In my imagination I pictured my garden with many beautiful Heliconia’s all in flower both upright and pendant; in my mind it was certainly going to be a beautiful sight.
Over a period of time we bought a total of 56 different varieties, being told that all the varieties we picked would perform in the Brisbane area. We spent up to $75 for some of the better plants. All that was left was to wait for the flowers to come.
Well, we waited and waited and eventually found that only certain varieties would flower here and even then some of those would not survive a cold winter.
All in all it’s been a disappointing and expensive experiment.
Out of the 56 different Heliconia’s about 25 have survived with a number of those yet to flower.
So, here in Birkdale with poor soil and little water I can give you some recommendations based upon my experiences, the following Heliconia’s will grow, and believe me if these varieties can survive in my garden they will survive in any Brisbane Garden.

Here are my recommendations:
Caribaea ‘Kawachi’ has been a prolific flowerer.
Bihai ‘Lobster Claw’s’ one & two have also been good.
Bihai ‘Yellow Dancer’ has been good.
Orthotricas are perhaps my favourite Heliconia, but are temperamental, hate the cold and do not reproduce well here.
Augusta’s grow well ‘Red holiday’ and ‘Yellow Christmas’
The best of all Rostrata ‘Parrots Beak’, thank goodness it flowers well; in my opinion when in flower it is the most spectacular Heliconia of all.
Jamaican Dwarf has done well and always flowers.
Bihai ‘Chocolate Dancer’ is good.
Papsiana is good
Pseudoemygdiana ‘Birdiana’ has a great yellow flower and has survived for a number of years.
Hirsuta ‘costa flores’ is a great looking Heliconia and flowered spectacularly for me last year but was hit especially hard last winter’s cold, I am trying again, this time in a more sheltered position.
Spissa ‘Mexican Red’ flowered well but then died on me.
I know ‘Hot Rio Nights’ can grow well here but not for me.
I soon dug out the strictas as they were ‘travellers’.
Richmond red foliage grows well but has never flowered.
Chartacea ‘extra sexy’ and ‘sexy pink’ are not worth trying, not at all cold tolerant.
No luck whatsoever with Champneiana ‘Maya blood’ and ‘Maya gold’.
I am still trying with several others such as ‘emerald forest’, ‘prince of darkness’ ‘manoa sunrise’ ect.
I am not saying that given the right circumstances some of the ones that will not grow for me will not grow else where in Brisbane, given good soil plenty of water and a sheltered position they may do very well; all you can do is to keep trying.

Hope this is of some help to those of you who want to bring the tropics to Brisbane.

Garden in December 2007

I must be an idiot, talk about ‘making a rod for your own back’, I have just ordered a truck load of rocks and will collect sleepers, pavers sand and cement on the weekend, so starts the first project for 2008.
This project will be in the front yard and will extend the front gardens quite considerably, plus another rain water tank will be placed in front of the two already in place, I am planning a trellis in front of the tank with a nice climber to hide it.
Just had a letter from ‘Burkes Backyard’ magazine who want to visit.
We have already bought lots of new plants including some nice torch gingers.
I started on digging out the area for the new tank stand and nearly suffered heat stroke, the problem is that my mind tells me I have the body and energy of a 30 year old but my body is starting to tell me I am 62, I will just have to pace myself and get things done tomorrow instead of yesterday.
Burke Backyard visited on Sunday 16th and they were very impressed by the size of the garden and the vast array of different plants we have. They took lots of photos so we will just have to wait and see what comes out in the magazine.
The garden has really suffered from heat and lack of moisture, the rain that was forecast did not arrive (same old story).
I spent Saturday mixing crusher dust and cement for the tank stand, it was very hot and I am again exhausted, anyway it’s all done and the tank arrives on 14th of next month.
I will not get a lot done over Christmas as I am only having two days off, anyway it will be nice to have all the family around and relax, oops did I say relax, did not think I knew what it meant.
To all that read this blog, a very merry Christmas and happy gardening for 2008.