Best wishes Ryan - Jul 08, 2016

Dear Gardening Friends,
It's been cold and wet but Spring is just around the corner. All this rain will make your garden thrive when the warm weather finally arrives.

I spotted this Orange Trumpet Vine growing on a paling fence yesterday and it just made me realise what a great vine this is. The bright Orange flowers really pop on this boring timber fence. Why would you want to look at palings when you could be looking at these retro orange flowers instead? One plant will cover an entire fence in time.
If your soil is poor, use a bag of IGC Planting compost to get it started. Once established this vine will survive on rainwater only.
I have been watching a Bottle Tree that's growing on the front lawn of a house in Menangle. The cold hasn't bothered it at all.
I think we should plant more of these trees in our gardens. The trunks are so amazing. They certainly do look like bottles.

I have been watching a Bottle Tree that's growing on the front lawn of a house in Menangle. The cold hasn't bothered it at all.
I think we should plant more of these trees in our gardens. The trunks are so amazing. They certainly do look like bottles.

This one in the photo is at least 20 years old.
It's bigger than the one in Menangle. If you plant one of these in the middle of your front lawn your house will become famous in time.
We have some nice plants for under $30.00 in the nursery now.

About 15 years ago we released a tree called "Goodbye Sunshine". It was a marketing flop unfortunately but it should have been a winner because this tree is the perfect size for today's courtyard sized gardens. I spotted this one growing in a garden this week. It has coppery coloured new growth and nice white flowers in spring. It only grows about 3-4 metres high by 3 metres wide. It's evergreen too so it's not a lot of work. Even the tree phobics won't find this one too intimidating. We have a few in the nursery today from just $24.99. Prune the lower branches off as it grows to make it look like this one.

Short and sweet this week. Pig has been having a rant about how much roadside rubbish there is in Macarthur. He even made the paper and then 2UE rang up and they wanted to interview Pig too!!!!
Pig just wants some of us to pick up the papers on our lawns and in our street.

Ryan is leaving today. We will miss his friendship and horticultural knowledge.

He has been a great friend of our club members too. There wasn't much Ryan didn't know and he was always reading books learning more. He has been the editor of our newsletter. You can expect a few more spelling mistakes next week.

Best wishes Ryan!

Happy Gardening
Tim