About me: After 20 years service in the RAAF and nearly as many address's we were looking forward to putting roots down in one place. We acquired our one acre block in St James Park situated in Birkdale about 20 minutes drive east of brisbane in Expo year 1988 and proceeded to build our dream house.It was a bare block so we started well and truly from scratch. We decided that our garden would be one that would return something back to us and in return we would give it the love and attention it deserves. We have done all the 'hard yakka' ourselves. It is a gardeners Garden buit by sheer hard work and effort, only help being a shovel and wheelbarrow.We started off by planting a wide variety of Tropical fruit trees and basically lots of lawn. It was not until after our eldest Son received severe spinal injury in a Motor Bike accident in 1996 that we really started to put our heart and soul into the Garden.The garden became our rehabilitation. It's been hard work, poor soil and no water other than mains.Our soil is basically solid clay down to at least 80 feet, we know this because we drilled for water in 2003 and found nearly pure salt water at the 80 feet mark.Over the years we have carted in many, many metres of different mulches, the mainstay at the moment is horse manure and sugar cane. I mulch and compost everything.We have a large vegetable garden which reflects three years living in Malaysia, snow peas, kang Kong, coriander ect.We have about 100 fruit trees with about 70 different varietys including Lychee, Longan, Sapodilla, Ice Cream Bean ect. It's a giving Garden and if we can' eat the produce then the Flying Foxes and Cockatoos will.We have left a large area of sweeping lawn as this contrasts to the rest of the garden but that is getting smaller every year.The garden changes every year and is still evolving into a true Sub-Tropical Garden. I try and do at least one major project every year and a few small ones.Our driveway is lined with magnificent 'Pecan Nuts' which offer the house shade from the Western sun and about 150 different 'Day Lilys'.We have a number of different rainforest walks with exotic fruit trees providing the canopy. Under the trees are 'Gingers' many 'Broms' Orchids, costus ect, too many to name.We have just started to collect 'Heliconias' and have 50 varietys so far, we have 32 different Costus and 48 Gingers, still collecting. One of these days we will run out of room.My wife Judy loves 'Broms' and I have just built her a second large shade house, she has 100s of rare Broms . I also have a shade house with Cattleya Orchids.There is hardly a day when we cant go outside and pick something to eat, it is a giving garden.We now have 10 Water Features ranging from a fish pond with waterfall to Balinese pots with fish and plants to individual Lotus ponds around the Garden.We always have a large plant sale when we open our Garden and visitors can be assured of getting some rare plants at cheap prices especially Bromeliads.Our very good friend Kasper Schnyder always comes for the 'Open Garden' weekend and there is nothing he does not know about Tropical Fruit trees.Our Garden is a relaxing and interesting experience and one that is able to relieve the stresses of the working day, it is a Garden that 'pays you back'.We opened our garden throu the 'Open Garden Scheme' for the first time last November 2002 and it was a great sucess with over 600 visitors. We opened again in 2003 with over 700 visitors and in 2004 had close to 900 visitors. We will open every year as it is a fufilling experiance.If you do visit us please make sure to introduce yourself to either Judy or me. The 'Lions Club' provide Teas and Lunch at a very reasonable price.Any interstate or out of Brisbane Gwebbers who would like to visit, just send me an e-mail, would love to show you our Garden. Have a photo site on the net with over 1100 photos on, it's at http://img52.photobucket.com/albums/v160/Ianrobert/Hope you enjoy our Garden.Ian
My zone is:
My zone is:
GardenWeb Member: 2002-12-27