Around the Garden
Courtesy of our friendly Horticulturist, Juanita:
We have welcomed a day of showers, resulting in only 14mm for myself at home in Ulverstone, 48mm for my dad in Railton, 50mm for two of our volunteers, Tess and Baz in Spreyton and around 22mm for us here at the garden. It’s hard to believe that we’re about 45 mins apart, yet the rainfall is so different. We’ll take whatever we are given though as we head into the last month of summer.
Plenty of jobs in need of getting to here for the outdoor crew. With warmer days brings the pesky thrip and lace bug into top gear so we must put some time aside to spray for them. For those who are new to our newsletters and might need some helpful gardening tips, we use confidor and spray up underneath the leaves. That’s where the sap sucking pests live and do the damage.
Brush cutting as far as the eye can see! Unfortunately we don’t have as many people jumping up and down wanting to do this job, however there’s plenty of it and we sure could do with more help. Having said that, Josh is covering a heap of ground and I can see where he’s been and it’s looking great, Perseverance and determination = satisfying achievement Well done!
Irrigation is ongoing and could be a full time job on it’s own! Pruning, again another full time job really, along with the need to take thousands of cuttings. I hope to really get stuck into this starting next week. This is where I love to spend most of my time. Walking around the hill side, taking cut-tings of all sorts of different plant varieties and species that we are lucky enough to have growing in the garden. In the early stages, once on the hotbed for several months as they grow a healthy root system, we then pot them up to the next stage and out they go to harden off onto the roller beds. Extremely rewarding to watch them grow on where they can get to the stage of being available to for sale for someone else to then enjoy, or add to our plant collection in the gar-den to help make sure we have a healthy number of rare and unique plant survival.
From the time I take the cuttings through to the stage that the plant is ready to find it’s new forever home here in the garden or at someone else’s garden, its anywhere from 3 to 5 years, and big leaf varieties are even longer! (I am referring to rhododendron cuttings for this example). Taking cuttings are easy, it’s the waiting game that’s the hardest part.
