Hundscheidt Tropical Gardens

The Hundscheidt Tropical Gardens are open over this weekend (22-24 February) as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme. I visited them yesterday afternoon and it was worth the drive. There were quite a few people there , but not so it was difficult to see or to move around.

The gardens are amazing. You have to remember that you are in the middle of suburbia and not in some topical paradise. The gardens feature water features, pavilions and balaliness inspired outdoor areas as well as bamboos, gingers , palms and bromeliads.

Tiger grass and extending the back garden

Last weekend I cleaned up the bed along the bottom of the pool as the lawn was invading quite badly. It's most full of rhoeo but also contains a dwarf variegated bouganvilla. Used to have two but lost one over winter - I suspect the salt from the pool may have contributed. I added 2 tiger grasses to this bed, so hopefully they gain some height and width and provide some privacy.

I also extended the back border garden so that it mostly extends along the entire border. Emptied the entire compost bin and combined with the existing soil as it was quite dry and chalky even after the recent rains.

The main reason for doing this was so I could move the Corkwood (Euodia Elleryana) and Tulipwood (Harpullia pendula) trees from the existing beds to the newly created ones as they simply would not have had enough room to grow. They should both fill the space between the existing palm trees and provide shade.

The timor black bamboo shoot is now at tall as me (about 6ft) and almost growing before my eyes. I suspect that the hot humid weather as wel as the rain all are contributing to this. About to my the lawn after doing the edges with the brush cutter yesterday.

Timor Black Bamboo & other goings on

Had a pretty busy schedule last week so didn't get to spend much time in the garden. Nick mowed the lawn on Saturday and that has tidied things up.

In the back garden I noticed the first new shoot on the Timor Black Bamboo (Bambusa lako) on Monday (26/11) and it is now about 20-25cm and growing fast.

The leafy green seeds I planted last weekend have all come up. The greens that are in the garden are all doing well but I'll probably need some help to get through them. I need to stagger the plantings better and have less in each sowing. I'm now using seed trays to bring up the seedlings so this should help.

The weather has been pretty mild with a few short sharp showers, the best was on Tuesday morning. Into summer now and things are meant to hot up this week with temps around 30C and the promise of storms.