The Party is Over. Free at Last

During the last week we have had the National Tour of Heritage Roses in Australia visit us on Tuesday, and an Open Garden through the Australian Open Garden Scheme on Saturday and Sunday. Firstly let me say thankyou to Margaret and Laurie Jeays, James Simpson, Martin Leonard, Isobel and Gary Tynan, our son John Simpson and everyone else who helped us with the physical work of preparation for these events.
Picture: Brunfelsia latifolia & wishing well.

Kyleigh and I have worked hard for at least a year introducing new plants, supporting our large inventory of plants with fertilizing , pruning and pest control and building new structures.
The roses were pruned late July and brought forth beautifully for the Tuesday event.
A wonderful range of old fashioned roses, grown from cutting, was available prepared and beautifully labelled by Kate Stock. Apart from helping to prepare the lunch for the Rose conference delegates, members of the Hunchy Community Association prepared a fantastic selection of plants for sale, and of course many were sold
Just as we leave these unseasonally cool,wet spring conditions behind I noted today that flower buds are ready to burst on Tibouchina 'Noelene', Rhodomyrtus tomentosa and on the Amaryllis and Lilium longifolium.
Ornamental Salvias such as S.guaranitica, S.uliginosa, S. megalophyllum and Brillantasia are coming into flower to augment the colourful Salvia miniata, Salvia splendens (many types) and ever present Salvia coccinea.
It's time for us to have a rest and enjoy it
Michael Simpson

A week of Open Garden and Visitors ahead

Image Abutilon hybrid (double pink)
Why does anyone open their garden to friends and strangers? The answer is not that straight forward. In our case it has been; because we were asked to, or because an organization we belonged to was fundraising, or to support other gardeners in a garden festival. This coming week we are open on Tuesday to the National Tour of Heritage Roses in Australia because we were happy to open our garden and especially the rose gardens for people of a similar interest.
They won't be at our garden for very long, and after providing them with lunch, we hope that they remember a favourite rose or at least a well made sandwich.
When we build gardens, we create not a snapshot 'picture' but a whole story written in the form, colour, scale and even scent of an artificial landscape. Most people love to visit other peoples homes and gardens to see how things are and perhaps make comparisons. However, without realising it , while walking around, hands behind the back and a critical eye garden visitors will be reading the story of a garden.
Some of us visit gardens to discover new and interesting species, but we all will leave with a sense of the place and it's story. Larger, established and complicated and even run down gardens will always give the visitor a more interesting story than a newly built , perhaps contrived and overmanaged garden.
Hopefully the story our garden tells to visitors is one of a cherished family space, full of variety and robust colour as a nod to the Victorian era and style. More art than science and more luck than good management.
Michael Simpson

show time is nearly upon us

Open Garden looms on saturday 9th and Sunday 10th October. This follows on from the visit on 5Th October of the National tour of Heritage Roses in Australia.
With only two and a bit weeks to go until our big week of open gardens the conditions couldn't be more favourable. As the working week approaches rain is forecast and all Kyleigh's hard work, mulching, pruning, fertilizing and infill planting has produced a spectacular show. Our usually dry, drab and dusty September conditions do not apply in 2010.
New plantings Roses: Mrs BR Cant x2, Carabella x1 well grown from cutting
Pink flowering Pieris japonica
Erysum bicolor x2 different colour hybrids
Vibernum megacephalum x2
From Talgai homestead thanks to Patrick, white Viola odorata, Lilium, Dahlia,
California poppies and Bulbine from
Pink hippeastrum
Cream Clivea miniata
We have a great many cuttings plants in pots including old fashioned roses and many interesting perennials and shrubs.
Flowering at the moment is most things but interestingly
Clemetis "Andromeda"
Tabebueia (yellow)
Gardenia florida
Centradenia, Bauhinea corymbosa, Euryops (or Gamalepis daisy),
Some Camellias still
Buddleja "Wattlebird"
Many Grevilleas
Echium candicans
Pelargoniums etc. etc.
We have members of the Hunchy Community Organization who have prepred plants for sale including a fabulous range of hard to get plants and old fashioned roses.
With any weather this open garden promises to be special
Michael Simpson

other gardens and responsibilities

Dendrobium speciousum, 'The Shambles'.
As well as our own garden and the ongoing preparations we are making for our October 9th open garden, we have a responsibility for 3 other gardens. If you start something off you may as well expect to carry on unassisted, so these other places seem largely to have become our sole responsibility.
Firstly, here at home in Montville, a large amount of tropical chick weed, Tradescantia and clutter has been removed yet again by Kyleigh. Our Galtonia, Spanish Bluebells, Clematis and others are emerging but with the Buddleja salvifolia and Buddleja 'Wattlebird' in full flower I fear that spring will be too early for our open garden display. All the roses are coming back strongly with new growth after their late july pruning.
In Brisbane the garden at our daughter and son in laws house is establishing well. As the house is white with blue trim (with a lovely sharp black powder coated wire fence in contrast) we established a garden with lots of blue and grey accents. Plumbago 'Royal Cape', Brunfelsia latifolia, Lavandula stoechas, Agapanthus praecox, Helichrysum italicum, Lantana montevidensis, Clerodendrum ugandens have been augmented with Osteospermum and Argyranthemum daisies on our last visit. Shrubs also include Loropetalum 'China pink' and the showy twining plants Hardenbergia violacea, Bauhinia corymbosa and Solanum jasminoides.
On our last visit the very healthy weeping melaleuca, Callistemons , Cassia javanica, Caesalpinea ferrea, Tibouchinas, Tuckeroo, Syzgium and Frangipanis in the back yard were augmented with Grevillea 'moonlight','superb', 'Sandra Gordon' and 'Pink parfait'. We have been encouraged by the colourful corners which have healthy ferns, cordyllines, Dieffenbachia and Bromeliads. Of all things the Bougainvilleas seem to have really struggled.
Yesterday, at the Montville Uniting Church the 4 year old Lavandula stoechas alternating with tea roses are finally looking quite sparse. We have interplanted Rosemary, Salvia, Dianthus, Pelargonium and Verbena. Everything is looking quite healthy so Kyleigh removed a lot of 'fishbone' fern from under and around a lovely collection of shrubs on the northern side which include Michelia 'Bubbles', Spiraea cantonensis, Grevilleas, Buckinghamia, tetradenia, Centradenia underplanted with Dianellas and Plectranthus amboniensis. We also planted a healthy Callistemon (pink flowering hybrid) and gave up trying to spray for an infestation of bindii weed due to equipment failure.
Then on to the Montville Hall where all of our plantings look very healthy. There is a perennial problem with the two small gardens either side of and inside the Memorial Gates which relates to very poor depleted soil, which often appears to be bone dry. We have thrown in lots of organic material over the last five years but well meaning people also use these gardens as a place to stack the prolific fall of material, spent flowers etc from the adjacent Ficus benjamina. This stuff seems to set like concrete and seems quite hydrophobic. Never the less the old fashioned roses, 'Comptesse de Labarthe', 'Beauty of Glenhurst' and 'Princesse de Sagan' look very good with new growth. The various Salvias, Heliotrope, Goldfussia, Buddleja, Shrub Basil, Reinwardtia indica, Camellia sasanqua, Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis, Pentas lanceolata, Spiraea cantonensis and Centradenia were in good nick. We planted Marigolds, verbena, Hibiscus syriacus and Hardenbergia violacea to brighten things up.
This was all done in the last 4 days and ,as forecast, along came the rain over night to water things in. We are always aware that people only value a garden in development or looking it's best. There is always a danger to these places, that if the custodians drop their guard and the place looks shabby, some obsessively neat committee member will propose 'cleaning it up'. In Queensland terms a 'clean up' means annihilating a beautiful complex garden and concreting the edges in straight lines then mass planting the most drab, soul destroying 'low maintenance' things that the hardware wants to discount and get rid of.
Michael Simpson

returning home, the preparation continues

Grandbaby Leo and Kyleigh with Rosa "Princesse de Sagan" Bougainvilleas Court House Cloncurry
















On the first week of August we returned after a fortnight working in Cloncurry, North West Queensland.
The country side around Mt.Isa and Cloncurry is very beautiful with low growing Acacia and Eucalypt woodland interrupted by dramatic ranges and mesas of red rocks and boulder outcrops.
Domestic gardens were lit up by Bougainvillea and Ixora which contrast dramatically to the form and colour of locally endemic plants.
The day we flew out in late July we had a visit from fellow members of Heritage Roses in Australia who came to help up us clean up, prune and prepare all of our old fashioned Tea and China roses for the 5th October. On that day it is the turn of our garden at 'The Shambles' to be visited by the National Tour of Heritage Roses in Australia which has been suitable titled 'Rainforest to Roses'.
We shared some cuttings and struck yet more of our own from the prunings.
In early August the roses are responding already with lots of new growth. Although there is finally some cool (rather than genuinely cold) weather we are pleased that Clematis 'Daniel Deronda' and 'Andromeda' are establishing well. Pieris rhykuensis ? P chinensis is flowering beautifully with chains of pure white bells. Both Gordonia axillaris and Gordonia yunnanensis are in flower as is Camellia japonica 'Blood of China', 'Commander Mullroy' and of course the irrepressible 'Aspasia MacArthur'. Of our investment this year in yet more types of hardy bulbs Spanish Bluebells, Ipheion, Snowflake and various Friesias are up and the silly Friesias are forming buds. I am looking forward to Hippeastrum papilo in summer.
It is my impression that even though we would like to see all the various spring flowering plants hold off our lack of cold weather will see many of our garden favourites will have shot their bolt in September, which has previously been a lean time. Please bring on the cold
Michael

Preparation

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Just when it feels safe to relax after a june Open Garden prepartions for October have to be made.
Firstly, we have congratulated ourselves that two major events are together in one week. The National Tour of Heritage Roses in Australia comes here on 5th October, and our commitment to the Australian Open Garden Scheme is the following weekend the 9th and 10th October.
Apart from the garden itself and the health of plants the considerations are now on marketing and promotion, staffing the gate, catering refreshments for visitors, entertainments, plants for sale and finishing some structural elements: perhaps an arch/lattice structure, a wishing well and a coral fountain! Nothing much really.
We have our own little postcards which are popular and have nearly finished a third gardening book.
Rosa: Cornelia
Most importantly in the garden we have been rescuing some roses and nursing them in large pots where they seem better off until after the Open Garden e.g. Roses Graham Thomas, Camille Pisaro, Mr.Lincoln and a beautiful old rose which looks like Homere. Among other potted roses we are potting bare rooted Camp David, Altissimo, Julias Rose and quite a few others. Cuttings of many perennial plants are being struck especially fast and reliable Salvias, Coleus and pelargoniums.
We have large bags of fertilizer, blood and bone and sulphate of potash to go on. This can wait as we are expecting a visit from members of Heritage Roses in Australia (Qld) on 25th July for a pruning day when we hope to make the reductions which will see Roses at their best for 5th October at 11 30 AM precisely.
Lets Hope
Michael Simpson

Winter Garden, no time to rest

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Picture left: Rosa 'Prosperity'
It's quite cool and rainy today and that is quite a relief in one sense.
During the week we planted bulbs for Hippeastrum papilo, Tigridia, Galtonia candicans and Spekelia formosissimum. There is a bit of a 'bulby' theme to plantings lately and it has been rewarding to see Amaryllis belladonna, Friesia refracta alba, Leucojum aestivum (Snowflake) and Ipheion uniflorum are emerging. Jonquils are in flower.
The rain, thank heavens, has watered them in.
The thing about some bulbous plants here is of course our climate (temperate but not really cold) and the fact that I can't bend over to lift and pamper some bulbs. They have to form drifts and we have to remember where dormant bulbous plants are for them to survive more than a season.
Great little plants such as the wild strawberry, toadflax, catmint and Milfoil are establishing and spreading as are the ever reliable Dianthus of various types.
James helped us move a large box vegetable garden to a prime sunny location and the wheelbarrow vegetable garden full of lettuce and English spinach has been rolled around to join it.
As a nod toward experimentation we have planted two Clematis, Clematis integrifolia x crispa 'Daniel Deronda (purple) and 'Andromeda' (pink).
Now we await a visit from 'Heritage Roses in Australia' when our comrades in old roses are arriving to help with preparation for the National Tour coming here on 5th October.
Michael Simpson