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

November Monthly Meeting

* Hi everyone, I am still having some technical difficulties with uploading photos, hopefully this will be sorted out soon! Thanks for your patience, K.

November Willow Glen Gardeners’ meeting was Melbourne Cup Day and was hosted by Ross and Joy at their beautiful home on Run-O-Waters Drive, Goulburn.   Ross and Joy have done an impressive amount of work  since the Garden Club last met at their place and it was looking beautiful, particularly Joy’s rose garden and the water feature.  Many thanks to Ross and Joy for an enjoyable day. 

Everyone was into the spirit of the day with their Crazy Hats, which you will see from the photos.  Liz-Anne won the hat competition with her koala confection and no-one topped  Tom’s bowler.  

It was very pleasant sitting on the verandah eating delicious food, some people drinking some nice wine and admiring the view of garden and into the distance.

December  will be the Christmas Meeting to be held at David and Pauline R’s,  on Tuesday 3^rd December, starting at 11am. David and Pauline have very kindly offered to do a sausage sizzle and you are welcome to bring anything else for a barbeque.  Also please bring something for dessert and a plant to be swapped amongst each other  as Christmas presents.

by Marjorie

Bon Voyage Victoria!!

* Hi everyone, we are having some technical difficulties uploading photographs at the moment, but this will be rectified as soon  as possible. Thanks for your patience! K

We had a good turn up of Willow Glen Gardeners to farewell Victoria M.   Victoria is leaving us to return to her family in England and she will be missed.  We had a great morning tea with a spectacular display of home made goodies and all said our goodbyes.  Josh and Jessica G made and decorated a coffee cake with the words 'Farewell Victoria' on it. 

We all had a good time and Irene T presented Victoria with a bunch of flowers and a tea towel with Australian designs.

Denise J took a number of photos and we had a group photo to mark the occasion.

Many thanks to Lloyd T for organising the Hall for our get together.

Judy

August 2013 Meet Up & Working Bee

We met on a very cold and windy day at Pam's place for a working bee in her garden. We had a good turn up and after a short meeting we were pruning protea bushes, digging the vege garden and weeding around the steps.

We were all rugged up against the sleet, but the sun was trying to shine. Pam had the house nice and warm and we came in for a cuppa and something to eat to sustain us against the weather.

The garden is very large and although we didn't get to put everything right, we made a dent in it and I'm sure Pam was pleased with the effort and overall achievement. I know there were quite a lot of barrow loads of weeds and pruning cuttings stacked up at the end.

Many thanks to all the workers who attended on a very gusty day. 

By Judy 

Our next Garden Club is at Riversdale on 3^rd September. 1 Maud Street, Goulburn. Morning tea is available at Riversdale @ $5 – Devonshire Teas, 1 scone tea or coffee, or Cake or slice, tea or coffee $6.

Tours also available – Garden tour $4, House tour $4. Meet you there.

 

July Monthly Meeting

On a foggy and cool morning a group of workers from Windellama Garden Club and Willow Glen Garden Club joined forces for a clean up of the gardens at St Bartholomew's, Windellama.

We had a good turn up of members and set up the urn and goodies for morning tea, then set to work.  Pam Williams had her trusty whipper snipper and Lloyd had his extendable little chain saw to lop off the dead branches of trees.   Everyone was busy cleaning out the weeds and dead shrubs.  

Warren led a meeting at morning tea and were reminded of the Windellama Garden Club cake auction on 3rd August at Windellama Hall.  Proceeds to Can Assist, Goulburn.  We then got back to work and set up a fire to burn the dead wood and blackberry bushes etc.   Kevin Moffet stayed to ensure all the rubbish was burnt and left in a safe state.

We all had a good time working together and decided to make it an annual event.  Both garden clubs to meet each July at the Church yards to ensure all is kept in order

By Judy