Gardening

Who will ever forget the image of the Allora Golf Course voluntary groundsman Hethe Ramus mowing the first fairway by hand back in March 2022 ... Those days will be a distant memory for Hethe with the Golf Club today taking delivery of a brand new Kubota Baroness Gang Mower ...

The Zack Lockes Flock will be hosting a Big Blue Picnic as a mental health month activity next month in the grounds of St Mark’s Church Warwick. The Big Blue Picnic is a fundraiser for Beyond Blue and will incorporate the official opening of St Mark’s Blue Garden.

On the front of this week’s On Our Selection News is part of the prize-winning garden of Narelle Hurse at 4 Cashmore Street, Wyreema, which took out the award for Regional Small Space garden and second prize for the Front Garden.

Entering the Carnival of Flowers garden competition for the first time, Nobby couple Peter and Amanda Roberts have surprised themselves with several awards for their footpath garden entry.

Spring is the time of year when all gardeners get excited as their gardens come to life after the period of hibernation during Winter. Another reason for gardeners to get excited this Spring is the chance to visit outstanding gardens at Greenmount and Vale View.

In November last year, Kerry Ochtman said to his boss Pat Harley – “That’d be a good place for a nursery.” ... Kerry is thrilled that the new Harley Mitre 10 Garden Centre has loads of room for compost, potting soil, pots, weed control, garden screens and of course – plants.

Henle Gardens is a lavender farm and garden business that resides on a stunning 17 acres just on the outskirts of Maldon, and its blossoming life sprung from a brush with death. Just three years ago, farm founder Joshua Ruff peered beyond the veil of mortality and returned with some hard-to-come-by wisdom.

A celebration took place over the weekend as the enthusiastic gardener enjoyed viewing a beautiful exhibit of orchids from around the world in Kerang for the 22nd Victorian Country Orchid Clubs Challenge. Ten displays with an average of 50 plants made their way to the Kerang Basketball Stadium, supported by the sharing of gardening knowledge and commercial stalls.  

The original ‘Australian Garden’ exhibit, created by Designer Phillip Johnson, Horticulturalist Wes Fleming and the Trailfinders Team, was the first Australian entry to win Gold and Best in Show at the London Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show in 2013.

Fifty pairs of helping hands restored the McCormacks’ prize winning garden at Swan Bay. In 2018, Jenny and Jim McCormack won the North Coast Champion Garden. In 2022, that garden was under water with only the tops of the tallest trees poking out of the floodwaters.

Shirley Gordon is well known in the nursery and gardening trade. For many years she held her own as a popular female business owner on Wycheproof’s Broadway streetscape ... On Wednesday morning in the sunshine, Shirley was at home preparing buckets of flowers and greenery to create bespoke bunches of blooms for Mother’s Day.

Two community gardens could soon be available to residents on the Copper Coast. The proposed garden lots at Pol green Park, Moonta, and Hughes Street, Wallaroo, are set to be guided by community consultation.

An exciting new horticulture course at TAFE NSW Narrandera has seen bumper enrolments. The Certificate II in Horticulture, offered for the first time at Narrandera this year, comes as the gardening services industry is booming with many people emerging from Covid lockdowns with a greener thumb!

After smashing records last year with attendance figures increasing an astonishing 28 per cent to 364,775 and generating $22.61 million in direct and incremental spending in Queensland, the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers will this year bloom across all of September, with Toowoomba Region Mayor Paul Antonio launching the 2023 program at long-time Exhibition Garden host, Val Peachey’s garden.

In eight short months an overgrown small acreage block on Breydon Road Hodgson Vale has been transformed into a lush Thai market garden brimming with all the ingredients for authentic Thai cooking ... Chilli Kanon now supplies seven Toowoomba outlets and restaurants with her delicious hand made curry pastes, oils and jams and is a regular at the Cobb & Co Farmer’s Markets ...

We’re often reminded to ‘stop and smell the roses’ and it’s something Sheryl Shaylor makes sure she does every single day. Sheryl is undoubtedly a bit of an expert on roses as she’s had more than forty years experience nurturing and admiring Heritage roses.

The Newstead Community Garden began in 2009   and has evolved into a peaceful and joyful venture for keen and eager gardeners ... The garden produces fruit and vegetables, which are used by the members, and the excess is dried, used for chutneys, fed to the chooks and/or donated to community groups.

Three years after being established, a thriving native garden at SA Water’s Kadina Depot is demonstrating the success of growing water efficient, locally-sourced plants, with the idea easily able to be replicated in Yorke Peninsula backyards ... SA Water’s Vegetation Services Specialist Shaun Kennedy said he’s thrilled to see the garden continuing to flourish and attract an interesting array of birds and insects, including native bees, which are taking advantage of newly-installed ‘bee hotels’.

Healthy Loddon Campaspe has partnered with Grow It Local to encourage and educate residents across the region about healthy eating, cooking and growing local food. To celebrate the partnership, Grow It Local, Healthy Loddon Campaspe and Central Goldfields Shire Council have launched the Autumn 2023 edition of the Grow It Local Seed Service – a patch-to-plate adventure that makes free heirloom seeds and instructional content available to local residents.

When Ray Smith took it upon himself to grow flowers to beautify the dining room at the Uniting Caroona Yamba aged care home, he never imagined he’d be dealing with a ‘mutant’ Marigold. But in an extraordinary ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ esq case, that is exactly what happened, when a single Marigold plant grew to more than four times the size of the seedlings with which it was planted.

Chris Oldfield. A bright red rose named Fields of Fromelle is one of Hynam hybridist George Thomson’s most famous roses. It is the first and only Australian bred rose ever to be planted in France.