QSuper Spread

August 2013 Garden News

After so much rain up until July our hopes were high that this would be one year where we would get some decent rain from August onwards.

Well, we are disappointed as August was completely dry and unusually hot, I just hope that we do not have a repeat of other years were we have gone into an ‘Open Garden’ with empty tanks and a parched garden.

I suppose the main redeeming fact is that all our seven tanks were completely full (107,500) litres right up to the end of July.

Fingers crossed for some decent rain!

Beenleigh Garden Club visited the garden early August and it looked nice for them, they seemed to enjoy their visit.

I decided to raise all the rocks in the longest walkway in the garden, must of been at least a 1000 rocks then replace them in a bed of crusher dust and backfill with good soil.

Luke and Sophie loved playing in the trailer.

By the time I had finished I could hardly move, must have pulled a muscle in my lower back and ended up unable to garden for the next fortnight.

Silly me, as soon as I felt better I decided to cut down a big seed pod on a Foxtail Palm, I had to climb a ladder and then take the weight of the cut pod, it was much heavier than I thought and I was in trouble, by the time I brought it down I was in pain and had to go for X Rays. I was really worried that I had done my hip in. Fortunately the X Rays showed no damage to my hips.

I just have to let it heal by itself, so another almost fortnight of no gardening and on a walking stick, I will have to ‘garden smarter’.

At the end of the month I gave presentations to both Boonah and Robina Garden Clubs, both being nice friendly clubs.

Our eldest son left for Italy to complete in the ‘World Disabled Water Ski Championships’, we hope he does well and brings home a Gold medal for Australia.

The Lady Slipper vine is looking as I dreamed it would when I built the structure two years ago.

My Amorphophallus collection is coming on with over 35 different varieties, it’s good to have a new ‘plant passion’.

July 2013 Garden News

July already and it’s time to visit the Nambour ‘Garden Expo’, we have been going to this event for many years and really enjoy it and we get to catch up with many of our gardening friends and acquaintances.

We are now old hands at knowing which plant stalls to head to first. We were lucky this year to get Amorphophallus bulb, a couple of hybrid sinningia’s and some crinum bulbs. We bought a few other plants including anthurnium’s.

 Medinilla.

 Anthurium

 Eucharis Lily.

Abutilon double pink.

After lunch we headed to Maroochydore to see our friends at the Natrakelp factory they gave us new kelp product '10.2.2.4' to trial, we have since tried it and wow we are impressed.

On the Sunday Helen Curran from the Sydney tropical Garden Society paid her usual yearly visit to our garden.

On Saturday 20^th we hosted a bus load of visitors from the ‘Queensland Council of Garden Clubs’, most were garden plant judges from Victoria. I told them our garden was a summer garden and there was not much in flower at the moment, they left very impressed mainly commenting on how healthy our plants were.  I said that was thanks to our continuing use of ‘Natrakelp’.

That evening I was the guest speaker at their dinner and gave the ‘Bizarre and Beautiful Botanical's’ presentation.

Impatiens 'Grandis'.

On the 23^rd we went to the ‘Albany Creek Garden Club’ and gave the ‘Passion for Plants’ presentation. What a nice club this was and they bought almost all the plants we had brought with us.

I have started to buy a few rare bulbs on Ebay and some plants that are impossible to get elsewhere, so far so good.

I walked into one of our shade houses and noticed that it was just about to fall down, well out came the plants and down came the rotten timber and a few days later I had built a new shade house.

We have decided to assist the Lions Club again by opening our garden to raise money for a special charity, so we will open to the public on the 23 and 24 November 2013, all money from the gate, catering and raffle will go to the Lions Club.

This opening will coincide with the ‘Tropical Foliage Festival’ being held in Cleveland, that’s OK because we always help each other out when dates coincide.

We will rejoin the ‘Australia’s Open Garden Scheme’ for 2014.

In the garden plenty of new plantings, trees and shrubs pruned and started to raise all the rocks lining the pathways.

 Costus cuspidatus

 Medanilla

Geranium 'Big Pink'.

This turned out to be quite a painful job because over the years so much crusher dust has been laid on the pathways and each rock had to be dug out by hand, half way through my back gave way and I am having to take it a bit easier at the moment due to being in pain and unable to bend, very frustrating for me.

 Nothing is sacred to the Noisy Miner birds.

My fertilizing corner.

June 2013 Garden News

Well, it’s been very funny month weather wise.

In Queensland we usually have our dry season during winter with mostly sunny days.

This month has been just the opposite with rain and mostly cloudy days.

The garden needs a bit of sunshine.

 Impatiens grandis

We visited the Ipswich Horticultural Society and Kilcoy Garden Clubs this month and paid host to a group from the ‘Rose Lovers’ Association.

We were invited to the Bayside Garden Club for their friendship day where a guest speaker showed many slides of her holiday in France, I am afraid I am not one for looking at holiday photos so found myself getting quite restless.

I have now sprayed the whole garden twice with Natra-kelp to help it through the winter, it is magnificent stuff and we use a lot of it both spraying and watering in new plants.

I ordered a truck load of loam and have topped up one of the front gardens and filled a few holes in the garden.

A big problem is ‘shrinkage’ where the organic element in the soil eventually decomposes and leaves holes and areas that need topping up.

Nowadays I try to use soil that has minimal organic content.

I have been buying a few rare bulbs through ebay and would really like to collect more of the Amorphophallus type plants; I did bid on a Titanum bulb but was well and truly outbid.

I have had my third article published on ‘Garden Drum’; it is a very informative site with good articles.

http://gardendrum.com/2013/06/30/how-to-open-your-garden/

We are looking forward to going to the Queensland Garden Expo at Nambour in July; we go every year and really enjoy hunting for new and rare plants.

Our Gardening Journey

Serious gardening started as rehabilitation after our eldest son became a paraplegic as a result of a motor bike accident in Switzerland, this then changed over the years to become an all encompassing passion.

Judy and Ian's one-acre Birkdale property is themed as a 'giving garden' where tropical fruit trees and vegetables thrive and supply the household with a constant supply of food.

There is not one day in the year where they cannot go out and pick something to eat.

Over seventy fruit and nut trees flourish (over 40 different varieties) and provide shade for an impressive collection of sub tropical plants.

The original soil was scraped and sold by the developer and all that was left was heavy clay, so much work has been done to transform the clay into a rich growing medium, it's been years of hard work bringing in soil, mulching and composting, but the end result has been well worth the effort.

The garden reflects Ian and Judy’s changing 'plant passions' with a range of plants as varied from day lily’s to gingers and bromeliads.

The garden design has never been planned, it has evolved over the years, they believe a good garden is always changing and evolving.

There's always something new to see in the garden as Ian and Judy are always seeking to do better and always on the lookout for new, unusual and rare plants.

This garden is a true 'Gardeners Garden'; built by passionate 'plants people', hard work and always having to work to a small budget.

Ian and Judy share their passion for gardening and do all the work themselves.

The garden remains healthy and productive all year round thanks to Ian and Judy using 'smart sustainable gardening' practices, these include using kelp fertilizers, composting worms, two native beehives, mulching, large composting areas and collected rainwater.

In order to battle the years of drought Ian and Judy have had to purchase seven rainwater tanks storing a total of 107,000 litres of rain water, without this we would not have the garden we have now.

All vegetable scraps go to the compost worms, all green material is shredded then composted in three large areas and the garden is kept mulched with over 160 bales of sugar cane mulch every year.

Ian and Judy have learnt over the years which are the right plants to grow, yes they have made mistakes but like all good gardeners have learnt from them.

They are both very happy to spend all day in the garden, believing the garden is their one acre piece of paradise.

They have made a financial and physical commitment to have a beautiful yet sustainable garden and intend to keep up the challenge.

Our biggest thrill was in 2009 to win ‘Gardening Australia’s’ ‘Golden Trowel’.

Gardening has made a big difference to Ian and Judy’s life; they also try and promote gardening through opening their garden to the public, giving regular power point presentations (three different ones at the moment) to garden clubs, and promoting gardening in schools as well as hosting many bus trips through the garden.

Ian is constantly updating his three internet sites (over 100,000 people from over a 100 countries have seen/read about the garden through  Ian’s blogs).

Ian and Judy have raised over $30,000 for charity through the past eleven garden openings and raised a further $3500 through a recent Charity ‘Open Garden’ enabling an eight year old local boy with Cerebral Palsy purchase a special walker.

Gardening and our four Grandchildren have given life a meaning that was not there previously.

Ian and Judy have now got over their son’s accident as he has done really well representing Australia in disabled water ski-ing and wheelchair basketball sports and most importantly has given them two beautiful grand children.

We no longer think of him as disabled as he has so much strength of character and a will to make the best out of life. In fact he put’s many able bodied to shame.

The accident that left Scott in wheelchair was a turning point in their lives, which saw them turn to their garden for solace.

What was a healing and nurturing time for them has now turning into a life time passion and has given them an oasis for all the family and many visitors to enjoy.

Ian and Judy now really enjoy their present life, sure it’s hard work but its enjoyable work and they are at their happiest working in the garden and meeting so many fellow gardeners.

Manure and Compost

I love manure, the older and smellier the better.

The odour is a gardener’s delight.

I am lucky as there is a stable just down the road and I can fill up a trailer any time for $10.00, it’s hard work shovelling especially if it’s a bit wet and tends to make a bit of a mess inside the car after finished, wife loves the smell ‘’I think not’.

I do not put it on the Garden pure, but mix with lawn clippings and waste I have put through the Greenfield Shredder.

The Greenfield shredder is probably the most useful piece of equipment that I have, it shreds just about everything and never clogs up. I have learnt that about the only thing not to put in are the fibrous plants like gingers and heliconias.

My ideal compost consists of manure, lawn clippings, shredded material, crusher dust, urea and blood and bone.

Leave for a few months and you end up with great compost.

I do not turn the heap over as my heaps tend to be too big and also I do not have the space to put the turned over material, doing it my way just takes a little while longer to compost.

Instead of turning the heap over I place 90mm storm-water pipes both horizontally and vertically within the compost heap with lots of holes drilled into them and a cover over the ends.

While it’s not as quick as turning the heap over it does let the air in to circulate and accelerates the composting process.

I do not put the vegetable scraps on the heap as we have two large areas where we breed compost worms, so all the household scraps go to feed the worms, no meat or fish of course.

You realise the value of composting when you think back to what our soil was like initially, where the developers had scraped and sold all the topsoil on our estate leaving only a clay top.

Our soil is now a rich dark loam that grows many tropical plants, thanks to many years of composting and mulching.

May 2013 Garden News

Winter is very close as we have had some very cool nights.

A lot of the tropical plants including Caladiums and gingers have all died back leaving a lot of empty spaces in the garden although one thing has really surprised me, that is the Cardinal Creeper is still in full flower it’ s usually well and truly finished by now.

Like the weather the garden is never the same any given year.

This time of the year the ruellia’s come into their own, they provide some nice colour in the garden.

A winter job is pruning a lot of the fruit trees, I have just finished cutting back four Carambola trees, three Grumichama’s and four Jaboticaba’s. A very big job, and very hard on my poor right arm that has a bad dose of ‘tennis elbow’ at the moment.

We had members of Jacobs Well Garden Club visit the garden and a bus load from Glebe Garden Club, all enjoyed the garden the only presentation this month was to my Grand Daughters Kindergarten where I presented ‘Adventure in the Garden’.

We have a very nice crop of Monstera’s at the moment; I love them, no wonder it’s called the ‘Fruit Salad Plant’.

Monstera Fruit.

 Tacca 'Black Bat Plant'.

 Staghorn.

 Star Apple Fruit Tree.

Philodendrum Pink Princess.

 Rose 'Candy Corn'.

Ruellia.

I have just finished ‘winterising’ the garden by spreading sugar cane mulch and spraying all the plants with a good dose of kelp.

We have had a few light showers but no rain of note, garden is getting a bit dry and I will soon have to start watering.

 Brazil Cloak.

Impatient 'Congo Cockatoo'.

We are now starting to think about raising some sponsorship money so our eldest son can travel to Italy in August to compete for Australia in the ‘World Disabled Water Ski Championships’. Unfortunately this is only partly sponsored so we have to think of ways to raise some extra money. I have put a photo on so you can see what a hero he is.