By James Wall with reference to a Jim Fogarty written article in The Age on Saturday October 22nd.
Well, the kiwis may have won the rugby world cup, but while all that was happening, there was a much more exciting World Cup of Gardening event going on in Japan. Who said gardening wasn't a sport ? The competition was first held last year in Japan to commemorate 65 years since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Brits won that one with a garden designed by 2010 Chelsea Flower Show Best in Show winner Andy Sturgeon.
The challenge with this show is that each designer has to work with a 100sq metre site and the same budget. Each designer is appointed a Japanese building contractor. So you can see that money alone can't buy a victory in this event. You have 10 days to build the project, and all plants must be sourced during this time. Not like the exhaustive months of preparation allowed for Chelsea.
Sixteen of the world's best garden designers, representing 12 countries were there this year, including Sarah Eberle, winner of nine gold medals and a best in show at Chelsea. Every conversation with the contractor had to be conducted through appointed translators and the theme this year was 'peace and plants', using horticulture as a way of unifying countries.
Jim Fogarty was invited as the Australian entrant and he designed a garden telling the story of bushfires and there impact on the community. Jim witnessed the ‘Black Saturday’ fires of February 7th 2009, which were only an hour north east of his home. His message was that out of devastation comes new life. Every plant used was native to Australia. It obviously resonated with the Japanese after their recent earthquake and tsunami, and it was awarded best in show. That's right, this was a world cup that Australia won.
As stated, much of this info was the words of Jim in his article in The Age on Saturday. It was a very well told story, but Jim Fogarty was much too humble with regard to his achievement and we congratulate him on his brilliance which has once again shone through. This shows the world that Australia is up there with the best when it comes to gardening and our industry should be proud that we can create such beauty to enrich ones' lives.
More pics can be seen at Jim Fogarty Design
Or go to the World Cup website: gardeningworldcup.com
By James Wall with Dennis Ting.
Walnut trees are not a big seller but we do like them here at Gardenworld. I can recall watching the Tour de France and seeing Gabriel Gate' wandering through a very old plantation, and of course there was our famous blog story by one of our staff Dennis Ting who has one large tree growing in suburban Melbourne. He successfully used curtain lace to hide the nuts from the cockatoos.
Dennis has now sourced some walnut trees from Walnuts Australia Nursery in Tasmania who have developed orchards in north eastern Tasmania and Riverina totalling 600,000 trees. They have trialed many varieties of walnuts from Europe - France, Italy, Spain and the United States - newly developed Californian varieties resulting from active breeding programs.
We at Gardenworld have selected two Californian walnut Varieties - "Chandler" and "Howard" to offer to customers for the following reasons:
Late leafing out with warmer and drier weather (Oct - Nov) so reduces risk of the major disease "Walnut Blight" infecting the tree on early leafing out cultivars.
Lateral bearing so many lateral buds on a shoot have flower buds and not just the terminal bud on older varieties so increased yield.
More compact size as used in hedge rowing in commercial orchards to 4 metres tall and mechanically pruned so can be regularly pruned without any ill effects.
Self pollinating as the tree ages (3 - 4 years) so only one tree is required to set a full crop while older varieties definately required two or more trees.
Heavy regular crops as a locally grown "Chandler" tree set 10 kg of nuts at 10 years of age.
Difference between Chandler and Howard not much except Howard nuts may be slightly larger.
These trees were harvested bare-root, wrapped in hessian, put on a boat and sent to Port Melbourne. We picked them up from there, potted them in 300mm pots and offer them for $85. When you think of their journey, I think you will agree they are of very good value. We don't make much on these, but then, we do love our walnuts.
By James Wall
Well it was a beautiful Melbourne Day today and I was fortunate to be invited to do a talk at the Box Hill Horticultural Society Floral Exibition at the Box Hill Town Hall.
Here are a few snaps of some of the exibitors work. A lot of hours have been spent in doing these displays and it was work of a very high standard. I observed good colour use and excellent balance and structure.
Continue reading "Box Hill Horticultural Society - 60th Anniversary Floral Exhibition" »
Well, there are some sore muscles inside my body. My sides just below my shoulders have a bit of an ache because I have just laid about 30 sq metres of turf. Having never done this before, I had a few chats with the team down at The Smart Water Shop here at Gardenworld. They sell around 6 different varieties of turf, and have them all on display. I am going for Sir Walter Buffalo as that is the already existing grass that I will be joining up to. Sure you can also buy grass seed, and both methods of raising a lawn have there own special tricks, but here are a few that I have learned whilst laying turf:
Don't let the whole project drag out or your greatest emeny will emerge before your turf - those wretched weeds. Once entrenched in your patch, you will be forever plotting their demise. The sooner you lay the turf, the less area for them to multiply.
Preparation. I can't express the importance of this enough. Getting it right means the turf laying is the easy bit. The topsoil we had seemed a bit fine and I was worried about it draining well, so I added some granitic sand and forked this through the soil. This would add larger particles and allow more oxygen to help aid rot growth.
The other key to good preparation is getting the levels right. If you are running up to a hard surface, you need to level the ground about 20mm below this surface so as the two end up level. This will help when it comes to mowing and will ensure that no dangerous blades hit the hard surface. It will also make doing the edges easier. At one stage I was too high, and as I had not checked this with an actual piece of turf, when I got the turf, it had been cut quite thickly. Maybe it is thicker when they harvest it in winter. I am not sure, but I had to skim some soil of the surface and this took me quite a while.
Last weekend the annual orchid show was held at the Springers Leisure Centre, just around the corner from Gardenworld. Folk came from all over Victoria and even interstate. Once again it was a packed weekend, and the standard of entries this year was high. The main reason being there was plenty of rain this year. In fact some orchids had 8 or more flower spikes yet were still well proportioned because of the bushiness of the plants.
In case you missed the show, here are a few photos. If you would like to see more spectacular flowering orchids, then get down to Collector's Corner at Gardenworld as they have hundreds on show and for sale.
You've seen the movie - no you haven't. But this story does somehow remind me of 'Thelma and Louise' which sees our cast comprising of two of 3AW's finest gardeners and experienced travellers. I bet they do have a few travellers stashed away somehwere in that caravan.
That's right, you probably heard Vasili filling in for Jane Edmanson on the 3AW gardening show. Jane is caravanning across the Nullarbor with Robyn Hollaway - a legend herself in the art of selling radio advertising. So as the 2 ride off into the distance looking for their Brad Pitt, lets hear a few thoughts from this dynamic travelling duo:
August 3rd
Hi All, it’s Wed 2pm and we are at Ceduna just about to go for a walk/explore. 27 degrees, sunny, eating at the sailing club tonight with the sailors!!
Car and caravan just magnificent. Sleeping like logs and drinking and eating like royalty.Scenery just perfect, birds lots of galahs, dingoes, elephants, emus (true) Staying in Wayside stops with other caravanneeeers and also at parks.
Both well and laughing all the time.
August 7th
Still on the Nulla and having the best time ever. Yesterday we spent 5 hours at the head of the Bight watching the magnificent whales with their amazing babies, So close to the shore and around 40 Mums and calves!!! Today as we crossed from Ceduna to Eucla we stopped off at every point possible, drove down to the Bight and sat watching more whales, giant limestone cliffs, sand dunes, turquoise sea, very restful and quite overwhelming again.
The wayside stops are fantastic and lot’s of travellers use them instead of staying in caravan parks. They are set in the scrub, no electricity of course but we have the battery pack for all power and the Baby Q Weber for cooking on.
August 12th
Hi all,
We are off the Nulla, we made it, we received our diploma from the Information centre Norseman, we also bought one of those lovely we crossed the nulla tea towel for you all!!!
We didn’t contribute to any road kill . We managed to eat and drink our way across in great humour, laughing all the way to the next gum tree.
So here we are in sunny downtown Esperance in the Foreshore Caravan Park, after camping off road across the nulla, the hot shower was fantastic.
Today we spent touring the Archipelago, sea lions, fur seals, dolphins, sea eagles just to mention a few of the highlights, and the great tourist road around the most magnificent beaches I have ever seen.
We met this bloke who lives in Mornington, travels here each year to take visitors into Cape le Grand and he is taking Jane and I out for the day tomorrow..... not my type but Jane? He’s a true blue aussie rough diamond. Lovely bloke who helped us unhitch the caravan, please note the corrects terminology we are picking up!!, and talked for the hour and a half on the intricacies of caravanning....tyre pressure, parking, backing...etc.
From us both we are good, enjoying the fun of travelling this wonderful country, listening to the sea, watching the bright stars.
August 15th
Beautiful morning to wake up to this morning . we are sending this today as we are heading back across the Nulla calling into Fowlers Cove (3 days away) to go whale watching in a boat. Then to Streaky Bay to pick some supplies for the way home and that will be a hessian bag of oysters. Bike riding into the Clare Valley and topping up the cellar at Barossa.
We have had 3 days in Esperance lovely to have a sabbatical. Cape Le Grand is a wonder. The wildflowers were beautiful and the beaches superb. We left at 8am and got home around 5pm. Long day but worth it. Yesterday we went to Lake Moonabell gardens to see the grevilleas, Banksias, Hakeas etc. All natives endemic in W.A. amazing!!
We then saw a sign ‘Yabbies’ and bought 1,1/2 Kilos– 9 inches long. Before we could prepare them for eating they escaped from there carry box and scuttled all across the floor in the bathroom, into the sink .into the veggie box etc. Tricky little devils to pick up. We are hoping we don’t meet any on Nulla waiting for us in the bathroom!!! They were big enough to even eat the claw meat.
This will be the Rob and Jane Show saying Hooroo for now, and we hope you tune to have a listen in Monday morning next week....We think we’ll go home now!!!
Loropetalum chinense 'Plum Gorgeous'
Height: 1.5m Spread: up to 2m
We have had a look at this plant for nearly six months now. The growers at PGA had told us that this is the deepest and darkest coloured foliage of any Loropetalum on the market, and retains its colour all year round. It's interesting that this fact is seen as a greater attribute than the hot pink tasseled flowers it has through the spring and summer. Maybe foliage is the new flower when it comes to colour.
Plum Georgeous is the one on the right, with an unnamed variety on the left. Note the different leaf shape. This was not a scientific comparison, and the plant on the left has been in the garden for nearly a year. It will be interesting to see Plum Gorgeous in the same situation.
Our test plant has been planted in a large square vanilla ceramic pot and its contrasting deep crimson leaf colour makes them a great combo. Obviously the plant will stay smaller in the pot, but it will be interesting in a couple of years to see how it does develop in size. It certainly appears naturally bushy and compact.
The Loropetalums can take some shade, are hardy, and may require a light trim occasionally. It can even be informally hedged or mass planted in large 'parks and gardens' type areas. You could splash one or two nicely through a contemporary garden, maybe part of an underplanting of a larger tree.
Once established, water requirements are minimal, but mulch well in summer and do not allow the plant to dry out. Fertilise occasionally including after flowering and try shaping it if you are so inclined.
All in all a flexible plant with some showy features. Available at the nursery right now.
