June Monthly Meeting:

A 20 or so strong group of Willow Glen Gardeners gathered together on the deck of John and Carolyn’s beautiful weekender for our June monthly meeting. With a lot of hard work, Carolyn’s strong eye for detail and John’s abilities to bring her visions to life- the couple have created an idealistic country style retreat in which to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.

As we settled in for our meeting, well wishes went out to some of the group unable to attend due to illness, we discussed our horticultural trials and tribulations and of course enjoyed the coffee and delicious cakes on offer.

We finished our morning tea and embarked on our garden tour, led by Carolyn, who walked us through her majestic wooden entry gates towards the garden proper. Silver birch trees stood regally beside us, their winter skeletons appearing almost like sculptures against their metallic background. Masses of spring bulbs planted below were beginning to push their way up through the mulch and toward the warm rays of winter sunshine.

The garden has been designed tastefully and with full complement to the surrounding environment. Plantings which include an array of roses, deciduous trees, hedging plants and hardy salvias were carefully chosen to accommodate our rather testing cold climate conditions.

Heading up a garden path swathed in seaside daisies, we admired the healthy looking mixed fruit orchard and newly developed flower beds before our gazes were drawn to the grand finale- a beautiful view of undulating green slopes rolling down toward a little island in the large dam below. Breath taking.

Our next meeting will be a get together / working bee at St Barts Church in Windellama on Tuesday July 2nd, we plan to clean up a bit around the grave stones and generally weed and tidy the gardens. Please bring a chair and a plate to share and if you have some small weeding tools they would be useful too.