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.

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.