What can I say about January and February other than it has been hot and humid. This summer has been the hottest we have experienced here at Birkdale, hardly a night below 24 c and most days have been in to 30s. Perspiration when working in the garden is massive, I must wring my singlet out at the end of a working day. The heat and humidity have brought out just about every insect pest known to mankind Crinums, Clivea’s, Caladiums, Alocasia, Colocasia and others all eaten and the weird thing is they have not touched the Hippeastrums YET. It has been a real battle this year and I do n ..read more

  Usually at this time of year it is all systems go getting ready for an ‘Open Garden’ but we did say that after 20 years of opening 2022 was going to be our last and so far, we will stick to that, but you never know. Anyway, even if were planning to open the garden is so dry as we have not had rain for months, it is not looking good enough to open and we would have cancelled. All seven tanks are dry so we must be very frugal with watering. It has been a busy year with plenty of visitors coming on bus trips, we have had 14 bus visits this year. For the first time we had some selling table ..read more

  Two months without a drop of rain, it is so disheartening to see the garden so drought stricken. We have managed to use tank water until a couple of weeks ago but now we must rely on town water, not looking forward to the water bill. In fact, the whole of this year has seen little good rain, despite BOM saying summer was going to be very wet. We have been busy with a bus trip in September from Helensvale Senior Citizens Club and of course two days a week watering trying to keep the garden alive. In October we visited Caboolture Garden Club and gave the ‘Aroids in the Giving Garden’ pr ..read more

  July was a quiet month with watering taking up most of our time. Of the large Pandanus which continually dropped large prickly leaves, thanks to our good friends Mike and Wendy Budden for the help, I could not do much as my knee was giving me hell that weekend and I could not walk without a walking stick. One garden talk for ‘Indooroopilly Garden Club’ on ‘Aroids in the Giving Garden’, it was well received although club members have dropped significantly since we last went there. We will not be crossing the city to do any more garden talks; the traffic is just too bad. In August w ..read more

  I seem to be spending most of my life these past two months watering as it has been extremely dry, badly needing some good falls of rain. May has been busy with visits from ‘Banksia Garden Club’ and two ‘Probus’ Clubs. I gave a presentation to ‘Carina Senior Citizens Club’, which was good as we did not have far to travel. Arno King also visited and spent five hours here, lots of plants here that he was interested in, he will be coming back in September to take some Spring cuttings. In June we travelled to Caloundra to give a presentation to ‘Pelican Waters Garden Club’, bit of a fuss ge ..read more

  I did not post in March as I just could not get past the horrible weather that we had virtually all month. It was hot, humid, and very dry and I seemed to spend most of that month watering plants. Anyway, in March we had visits from ‘The Budding Garden Club’ and ‘Mt Tamborine Garden Club’ and I also gave presentations to ‘Mt Gravatt Garden Club’ and ‘Bayside Garden Club’. Mt Gravatt was disappointing as we carted a car load of plants there, take the out of the car and set up only to sell four plants. In April we had a break see family at Agnes Water and had an e ..read more

  Well February was quite a horrible month for gardening, only rained once and temperature was in the 30c or more most days. Having been in our Birkdale property for 34 years I would say this has been the second driest summer we have had. Must admit I am looking forward to winter because I I write this in March, we are sweltering at 35c, I am over the heat. Anyway, that is enough of my complaining. Genny Catlins sister invited a few of her close friends for lunch at a Mt Cotton restaurant, it was nice to catch up with those people and hear some stories about Genny. We will miss her. V ..read more

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  First entry for 2023, here I am sitting in front of my computer after a hard day in the garden working in 35 c heat. It’s a bad time of the year as our three large gum trees are losing all their bark and leaves, clean it all up one day and it’s just as bad the next. I just throw most of the tree rubbish on the lawn then mow over it as it will eventually make excellent compost. Even though we had our 20th and last Open Garden in November which almost 700 people attended I have still not stopped improving the garden and Judy is still potting her heart out. The garden will never go backwar ..read more

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