May Monthly Meeting 2017

On May 2^nd the Willow Glen Garden club ventured into the ACT for an excursion to Canberra’s National Arboretum which is home to 94 separate forests containing over 48,000 trees including extensive collections of rare and endangered species from around the globe.

Everywhere you look art has been imprinted into the landscape, lit timber panels and glass etchings tell stories of plant evolution as they frame the entrance walk into the award winning ‘Village Centre’, Once inside the centre, you are immediately struck by the beautiful “Tree Ring” floor feature which has been skilfully crafted using mostly native hardwoods.

The Arboretum also houses many unique sculptural artworks such as the “Armillary Sphere Sundial” located on ‘Dairy Farmers Hill’ and ‘Nest III’ which is a stunning sculpture of a wedge tail eagle on its nest. the children’s playground is an artwork all of it’s own!

Pleased to escape the morning’s icy chill we congregated inside the architecturally outstanding ‘Village Centre’ lobby. While we waited for everyone to arrive we explored ‘The Curatoreum’ which is the Arboretum’s charming little gift shop and spoke enviously of Warren and Judy who were unable to join us this month as they were off gallivanting in warmer climates.

 Joy’s birthday the previous day seemed like the perfect excuse for coffee and cake so our rather small group quickly made our way to the café for an extended morning tea and catch up. With our president away, the lovely Irene stepped in to chair the meeting and ensure that we at least briefly discussed our gardens before heading off to explore the bonsai exhibit!  

What has been best described as “living artworks” The National Bonsai and Penjing Collection showcases around 80 specimens both exotic and native, each perfectly manicured tree or miniature forest of trees has taken many decades to create, some were over 60 years old which we were told was still fairly young for a Bonsai, with the oldest known worldwide having been handed down the generations for over 800years. 

We were lucky enough to see several of the tiny trees displaying magnificent autumn colours and we felt as though we were giants peering into tiny worlds as we wandered among the display; I half expected to see fairies darting about the little branches!

We then had a walk through ‘The Canberra Discovery Garden’ which is all about teaching sustainability, they have planted vertically and traditionally with several edible plants and vegetables within eye catching water efficient raised garden beds. The pansies and marigolds dancing among the aubergine and tomato’s also demonstrated companion planting beautifully as I noticed bee’s busy gathering pollen despite the cool overcast morning.

The National Arboretum is free to visit (although parking costs do apply) and makes for a lovely day out for the whole family, with plenty of picnic spots and the children’s acorn themed playground is amazing!  The ‘Sprout Café’ inside the Village Centre has great coffee and fabulous cakes. The Arboretum also offers the fine dining ‘Conservatory Restaurant’ with delicious and beautifully presented culinary delights that will tickle any taste buds, the portion sizes are generous and desserts are incredible; I highly recommend the chocolate sorbet with sour cherries, mmm!

There are always public events and free guided forest walks running and you can find out the latest happenings via their website www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au . 

As always we welcome new members and please feel free to check out our blog www.whispersfromwillowglen.blogspot.com  or find us on Facebook!

Our next meeting is at John & Caroline’s place on Tuesday 6^th June at 10am for more information you can e-mail us at willowglengardenclub@gmail.com

April Monthly Meeting

Jackie & Doug greeted us with a nice warm fire on a cold & wet April day – thank you for such comfort before our hurried walks around your beautiful gardens in between showers of rain.

Our beautiful hosts, Jackie & Doug

Doug has made afirepit from old machinery, surrounded by garden seats, one of which is completely covered with thick lichen. Such a rustic garden corner and their garden of cosmos & roses is stunning.

Irene & Lloyd said they’ve had no zucchinis, squash or marrow due to flocks of birds attacking them (the veggies that is, not themselves). They have now netted their veggie garden from rosellas and the climbing beans are growing well. Jude &Wazza have produced some large pumpkins & huge zucchinis.

Liz-Ann stops to smell the roses

We welcomed Kevin and Margaret from Windellama, who said that their roses are finally beautiful after too much wind & hot sun nearly ruined them. They have had heaps of squash, zucchinis, a proliferation of beans and a bumper crop of figs.
They are hoping for a good crop of lemons with lots of them on the tree.
Katie’s family are still feasting on their crop of giant watermelons (one of which won at Tarago Show).

A bit of rain didn't dampen spirits

Caroline & John have just had to dig 200 large curl grubs out of a small trailer load of damp mulch (they fed them to the neighbour’s chooks) – almost more grubs than mulch. They’ve had heaps of beans, small green capsicums & huge zucchinis, but tomatoes have not been good this season.

Peter H said his main garden problem is that all of the many clumps of sparaxis bulbs in the backyard grass at home in the Blue Mountains have been dug out and eaten by what we believe are bandicoots – hard to believe our (very) old house is classified as being in a “wildlife corridor” between the highway at the front & the railway line at the back with a road between it and the bush.

Jack the horse

These pesky little critters have had to scurry across the road & the railway line to feast on the treasures in our backyard, leaving large holes and husks of bulbs everywhere. (Then to top it off, the very night we returned home a possum crashed through a skylight and we spent the rest of the night trying to get him out of the house!)

Now to Jackie & Doug – last month it was the Olympic athlete kangaroo jumping over their 6’ high fence and this month it’s Jack the Killer Horse. Jack was seen (from a distance) to kill a rabbit that was eating his feed – by holding it up in his mouth and shaking it up & down wildly. Jack put the now dead rabbit down when ordered to but then picked it up & repeated the shaking. Now as much as this does not sound too good, at least it was a faster death than baiting.

Jackie & Doug also have problems with magpies destroying their lawn – the maggies are creating large holes digging it up searching for curl grubs.

Hmmm....

In another garden area Doug has made a firepit from old machinery (see photo) and put some garden benches around it – one completely covered in fuzzy lichen – very rustic. They have had lots of tomatoes with more green good sized ones still hanging in there under cover of the shadehouse.

Ni &Alan had a good crop of apples – they picked them before the birds realized, haha. Shirley said wombats are enjoying her grass and stripping her roses – she’s now put them in the greenhouse to recover. Even the tops of her not very tall ballerina apple have been eaten.

Peter S said that following their “world-wide success at the Tarago Show” with their tomatoes, they are now left with lots of odd shaped tomatoes, but they still taste OK. He’s had to dig out some trees to make way for their utilities room, which is essential towards the completion of their house. Irene suggested moving planting locations for tomatoes each year or change the soil in pots, to ensure tomato problems do not continue in the same location.

Some of us had been to the funeral of Tarago’s Marianne Ronayne the previous day and we remember her fondly. Caroline had dug out irises & salvias for us to share and Irene brought us ‘evergrowing’ onions & hollyhock bulbs. Thank you for your generosity and for sending us back out into the cold wet weather to plant them.

Our next meeting will be Tuesday 2 nd May at the National Arboretum in Canberra, Forest Drive off Tuggeranong Parkway, Weston (parking fees apply). We will meet there at 10am for morning tea before exploring and maybe bring a picnic lunch or buy lunch at the café. Our garden club is all about friendships and everyone is welcome to join us whenever you can.

March Monthly Meeting - Kentgrove

What a lovely day for our Garden Club meeting and what an incredible location. Peter Styles had arranged for us to tour the gardens of Kentgrove on the outskirts of Goulburn, owned by his friend Doug Rawlinson.

Kentgrove was built around 1840 – it was originally established as an orchard (up to 30,000 fruit trees) with an amazing history and Doug has certainly done a huge amount of work to revitalise the property since he bought it 10 years ago.

We entered the outer cannery building first and what a surprise – Doug has transformed this 200 sq metre part of the old building (whilst appearing semi-unrestored) into a landscaped temperate rainforest room with ponds, raised walkways and rainforest plants.

The effect is absolutely breathtaking but it is more than that because it supports birds, relaxation and contemplation. We had our morning tea meeting in the actual old cannery (Kentgrove even sold their Argyle jam to England in the 1880s) with our usual runaround of members’ gardens & shenanigans.

We welcomed 2 new members, Merri (who is into biodiversity, bush & animals) and Dave (after 6 years of mulch & water his soil is still very hard, both from Lake Bathurst, and we also welcomed back Vicki, an original member who carries 25 watering cans a day to keep her tomatoes going! What dedication.

Meeting Time!

 Joy asked do you need to tickle runner beans with a feather when flowering? No, no need for sex. Peter & Maria had bumper crops of tomatoes and fruit, Peter & Liz-Ann’s olive trees are currently looking good and Jackie & Doug watched a big kangaroo jump over the 6’high fence into their home paddock.

Irene & Lloyd’s granddaughter had been recently married at Harper’s Mansion in Berrima, a National Trust property, and they recommend we should visit it's gardens, maze and ancient roses.

Lots of members have lost most of their fruit & vegetable crops due to birds – parrots & cockies particularly. Pick your tomatoes green before the birds get them – they will still ripen indoors.

Another common problem is water repellant soils; despite all the rain, it’s not sinking in.  Wazza’s tip was a few drops of environment friendly dishwashing liquid (no phosphates or nasties) in a bucket of water splashed over gardens.

He also said Elephant garlic (Russian garlic) is a cross between leek and garlic and that with any garlic, pick long stalks and hang (not short) – don’t break garlic cloves apart – only break apart when you are planting (March to June) to avoid fungus & mould. For bigger cloves, compost the soil and cut flower heads off the garlic when they appear.

Doug, Kentgrove’s owner, talked to us about the property’s history and entertained us with interesting (true) stories from days past, including arsenic and lace, and explained about the work he has put into the house, the buildings and the gardens from when he bought it in a dead and desolate state, due to years of drought.


Then we wandered outside through the Victorian Kitchen Gardens (on the old tennis court) with its hops arbour. Doug is all about sustainability and climate changing gardening and has even set aside a wooded conservation area of 14 acres in perpetuity.

Your group can visit Kentgrove (small entry fee applies) by appointment, ph 4822 1133 and Doug happily accepts bus tours – Kentgrove, 67 Gorman Road, Goulburn 2580.

Liz-Ann

February Meeting 2017 The National Botanic Gardens

On Tuesday the 7^th of February, The Willow Glen Gardeners headed across the border into Canberra for a field trip to The Australian National Botanic Gardens. The overcast day brought a welcome reprieve from the recent heatwave and made for perfect conditions to stroll around some of the unique 35 hectare gardens.

Everyone gathered in the visitor’s centre to collect maps while they patiently waited for the late comers to finally arrive (sorry guys, traffic was terrible.) Of course the first and most important thing on the agenda was finding a place to have morning tea! The onsite café “Floresco in The Gardens” did not disappoint offering a variety of yummy meals, cakes and very good coffee. They even had tables large enough to fit the entire gang! 

The Botanic Garden Showcases a wide variety of native plants (over 6000 species) from all over Australia and offers guided tours as well as a variety of self-guided walking trails. There are themed garden zones such as the “Red Centre Garden” “Rainforest” and “Sydney Region Flora”. The gardens are open 7 days and entry is free but there is a cost of $3.20 per hour for parking.

We had our usual meeting over lattes and slices discussing our gardens. Weeds are of course a ‘forever’ issue, we discovered the group has an abundance of apples and Warren shared a great tip about putting paper bags over bunches of grapes to help them ripen more evenly, just be sure to cut the bottom corner to allow for drainage.

We headed off for our walk and couldn’t help but admire the large and beautifully made sculpture of a ‘Thorny Devil’ lizard residing in the ‘Red Centre Garden’; he made for a great photo opportunity sitting there surrounded by red sand and desert plant life with Black Mountain and the tower a stunning contrasting backdrop. 

An abundance of real wildlife also makes the gardens their home. We took turns spotting and photographing the well camouflaged water dragons that congregated around the rock garden waterfall. Eastern Spine Bills drank nectar from tiny flowering orchids, Fairy Wrens darted amongst the banksias and even a random ginger coloured rabbit was spotted hopping about the Eucalypt lawn.

We stopped for a quick chat to a member of their hard working staff who was in the process of mowing the vast eucalypt lawn - with a push style Lawn mower. She assured us that they did in fact usually use a ride on but it was out for repairs and she was just glad that it wasn’t 40C that day!

Slowly we made our way back out to the car park through the beautiful winding stone paths and boardwalks of the Rainforest Gully, the towering tree ferns above us creating a cool, leafy contrast to some of the dry harsh landscapes you find in other parts of the garden. 

We said our goodbyes and I drove away that day feeling very peaceful, Australia really is a very beautiful country with such amazing and diverse native flora; I am lucky to live here!

We're Back!

Hi Everyone, I would like to apologise profusely for the two year hiatus and thought it was about time we resurrected the old blog again for 2017!

If you have any pictures from our meetings, tips, stories, ideas or thoughts you would like to share on here, please email them through to me at willowglengardenclub@gmail.com.

Cheers, Katie

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and I would like to say a big thank you to all of the wonderful people who have contributed to the club throughout the last year from hosting our meetings to baking cakes and offering advice, we are lucky to have you all!

It is with sadness that at the end of 2013 we had to say goodbye to our friend Victoria, she was a big part of our little group and will be forever in our hearts.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy, Healthy New Year and let us raise our spades to a 2014 full of rainfall and flowers!

K