Week 3 May 2001: We hope all Mothers had a happy day last Sunday.
Received a letter and phone call from the ABC. We are semi-finalists in their Gardener of the Year competition. A film crew is coming to Yallaroo at the end of the month. The editor of the local newspaper is also coming. This event will be one of life’s rich experiences.
We collected some flowers from our Grevillea lanigera for a University student. He is comparing the flowers from this species with the flowers from Grevillea rhizomatosa. This is a rare species from Gibraltar Range National Park, east of Glen Innes. It has suckering growth habit plus horticultural potential. We will be writing an item on rare New England Grevilleas in the future.
Our heat mats have arrived and have been installed on our propagating bench. Pots of seeds and cuttings have been placed on the bench. The pads are running at a temperature of about 20 degrees centigrade. Will have more information as hopefully cuttings strike and seeds germinate.
We are always adding books to our horticultural library and two more books arrived this week. Volume 17A of the Flora of Australia series is a scientific treatment of the Grevillea genus. The book covers all the species known at present but does not cover hybrids. It is a technical book but contains a wealth of information about this horticulturally important genus. The other book is Volume 3 of Flowers of the South Coast and Ranges of New South Wales by Betty and Don Wood. This is a beautiful series of books with excellent photos. This is the final book in the series. Many of the species illustrated occur in other areas of eastern Australia and could be used as a field guide for native plant identification.
Spent some time weeding our Pole Garden. This is our newest garden and grasses and weeds are beginning to germinate. This happens with most of our new gardens. After 12 months or so our plants shade the ground so efficiently that weeds are choked out.
Bought more plants this week. Just as well this is our only financial vice. Picked up some Grevillea oldei from a local nursery. This is another rare species and comes from a small area on the Central Coast of NSW. It is a small plant with red flowers. This will be a new addition to our Grevillea collection. We now have over 120 varieties.
Visited some friend’s garden, east of Armidale. They are growing an interesting collection of native plants including a number of Banksias and some beautiful Crowea Festivals. This is a hybrid of Crowea exalata and probably Crowea saligna and has large pink five-petalled flowers.
Experimenting with close-up photos of flowers using our new digital camera. In due course the results of these experiments will appear in our Plant section.
On the wildlife front: There are plenty of tadpoles in one of our ponds. Also a large flock of Red- browed Finches have take up residence near the house and are feeding on maturing grass seeds.