Tales From the Box

Review of Imperial Gardens Complex – Terrey Hills

weatherhead — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:52:15 +0000

One of my favourite nursery trips is to the Imperial Garden’s complex in Terrey Hills – which is located about 45 minutes north on Sydney. The complex contains The Buddha Belly restaurant, Imperial Gardens Bonsai, Imperial Gardens Landscape Design, Mr Bamboo Nursery, Gazebo Direct and Hidden Orient.

I remember treking up to Imperial Gardens bonsai in 1999 as Ken Lamb (Managing director of Imperial Gardens Landscape) was constructing the Balinese pavillions that became Buddha Belly/Imperial Gardens Landscape/Hidden Orient. I usually return once a year and am struck by how authentically the gardens and constructions have aged. The whole area was mostly a dumping area 15 years ago and now feels like a landscape that has been their for 100 years.

The Buddha Belly is a cafe/resurant that is opened for breaky/lunch and dinner and sits perfectly in the manicured Japanese gardens surrounding. These gardens feature a mixture of stone pavers and walk ways, a large pond with path winding around nestle around large trees and towering Balinese pavilions. It is a great place to have a wander and covet wonderful stone pieces and secluded spaces of the landscape.

Imperial Gardens Bonsai has a large array of quality bonsai stock – both trained bonsai (i.e. ones ready for you to take home and display) and plant stock (nice plants that are waiting to be shaped into a ‘bonsai’). They have a large array of Fig bonsai and pots that is worth checking out.

I love Bamboo – but it is so damned expensive. I would love to say that Mr Bamboo has really cheap bamboo for you to buy however I can’t. I can say that their is a real variety in the size and number of Bamboo specimens on display. Definitely worth a look if you are confused about the differences between all of the bamboo cultivars but try Bunnings for cheap bamboo.

Gazebo Direct is a new addition to this complex. It was still under construction in June 2009 when i visited. It features Balinese huts – both open air and ‘closed’ types. Their huts dot the entire site but they have a walk through area just adjacent ot the bonsai nursery where you can walkthru a selction of their pavillions which are nested between water features and landscaped plantings.

Imperial Gardens is definitely worth a visit and wander around – you can also visit Palmland which is next door to this complex – and I will bring you my review of that nursery later in the week.

Review of Flower Power – Warriewood

weatherhead — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:57:10 +0000

We live in the Lower Blue Mountains. That means we travel. Lots. So we are thus used to and experienced in trekking all over to find useful places to source things around our home. I am bringing you some of my favourite and not so favourite garden nurseries from around Sydney.

Thus we traversed the lengthy and expensive toll roads of Sydney’s north to this subtropical seaside suburb of the Northern Beaches. I had previously ran past this on a Metrogaine in 2008 and thought that i should come back. Nearly 18 months later we return on a strikingly humid day too.

What impressed about this nursery is the varied amount of stock on offer and the low prices across their range. I usually steer away from all Flower Power nurseries due their almost default position of doubling the prices relative to what one would reasonable expect from a large chain. Warriewood Flower Power gladly has steered away from this with a generous selection of plants on sale and non sale plants still reasonably priced given their size and health.

Anyway the top 5 reasons that you should go to this nursery are:

Tropical style plant stock – good varied ferns, palms, large leafy under storey types.
Homewares and outdoor/indoor accessories – most nurseries attempt to have some indoor pots /general nice knick knacks but mostly fail. Not only is the indoor accessories area massive- the homewares are really nicely choosen , stylish and contemporay
Native varieties – plenty of choice of varieties and sizes. Different cultivars too – I counted 11 different Lillipilly’s.
On sale items – i picked up two 200mm pot banksias for $9.99 each from $19.99 – both over 1metre high. They had 200mm pots of Liriope for $3.25 down from $9.99
Lots to see – as nurseries go it is quite spacious, has lots of different areas (natives, formal gardens, tropical/indoor, aquatic, fish, landscape, indoors, mature trees etc)

A January backyard wander

weatherhead — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:26:02 +0000

Photos can only show you so much – so here is a bit of a wander around the backyard (albeit shaky….) looking at what we have done in the garden over the past few years.

New “Tales” to tell…

joweatherhead — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 08:30:02 +0000

Hello all! You might be wondering why I am suddenly contributing to this blog. Well, put simply, it was time for a little feminine influence and flavour. My loyal and hard-working husband has been, so far, the sole contributor to this blog (it really is his baby). This has made perfect sense – not only did he create this little record of our house and it’s growth over the years, but he has also been the one doing most of the physical and creative labour on the actual house itself. Until now.

The time has come, my friends, to show you what the female half of this partnership has been doing (namely interiors, planning, organising, decorating and “supervising” a lot of the outdoor stuff). So we thought it was about time that I added the odd post here and there for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing. You can expect the same pictures, explanations and whimsical meanderings that you have come to enjoy so far (we hope), just from a slightly more girly point of view (mind you, I’m not that girly – you won’t find any frills here).

So, hello, welcome, thanks for having me, and I hope you find my future posts interesting, informative, or at the very least, pretty. Jo xx

Plant This – Jamie Durie’s new gardening website

weatherhead — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:58:04 +0000

While browsing on the twitter for odd gardening bits and pieces, I stumbled (in the true web sense) on a new site launched by Sebastian Tesoriero and Jamie Durie (of Patio fame) called Plant This.

The site looks like it is setup to a be a bit of an allround australian-focused garden resource guide – in particular a solid database of plants, searchable by soil, position, climate and then refined by size, shape colour, context etc. At the moment the database is quote good – but obviously will be built up with further and varied images. Additionally it offers a bunch of little background items on how-to projects, design aspects and general suggested plant uses. It also offers a somewhat adequare contact list of local garden bursery suppliers – but has sort of missed the boat in my opinion lacking the essential useful nursery infomation from community input (i.e rating, comments etc) and photos. Perhaps that will come later.

Anyway it will be interesting to see how the site grows – I would love to see some more design based videos added – some of the great design segment features on Durie’s “Australia’s Best Backyards” and Brendan Moar’s “Dryspell Gardening” seemed forever lost to TV archives or sporadic Foxtel replays as thearen’t available online or on DVD. Worth a look and I will check checking back for new stuff.

www.plantthis.com.au

Before and After – The northeast native garden

weatherhead — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:55:56 +0000

My aim has been to create gardens around the house (The Box) that are drought tolerant and bird attracting. When we moved here in 2003, there was three privet trees, two paperbark and one Camphor Laurel as well as six Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus Regnans) in the north east garden (pictured above). Due to their enormous size we had afew of these Eucalypts removed in September 2008. The removal of the trees opened up the yard to more sunlight – most notably afternoon sun. To sit under these huge gums, native flowering plants and grasses filled my creative vision.

I started November 2008, digging up this garden – turning the compacted sandy soils over and mixing in some organic matter to aid in water rentention (given the slope). I let the beds settle for a few weeks- regularly applying a mixure of seasol and nitrosol. In December 2008 planed out the garden with native tubestock. My aim was grevillia’s and banksia’s for the fenceline – with the hope that they will grow taller and add some privacy – and grassy/strappy plants along the garden edge and under the trees. These grasses included Swamp Foxtail Grass, Lomandra Longifolia/Tannika, Diannella, Kangaroo Paw and Gyamea Lilies. The grasses have tripled and quadrupled in size but the grevillas and banksias in particular have been a bit slower in growth rate. However with the advent of summer – they are really starting to thicken up.

Addionally I have aimed to divert water onto this garden by positioning the downpipe from a newly installed roof for our deck directed so it flows directly across the lawn and onto this part of the garden. Also I have actively placed logs and dug small zig-zagging troughs down the slope of the garden to slow down water as it passes runs over the garden.

Before and After – The Backyard

weatherhead — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:37:02 +0000

I am trying to implement a new feature on talesfromthebox – a before and after series. Some might feature the simple before and after – while others might show a gentle progression over many years. Anyway at the moment I am madly in the garden – loving all things backyard focused given the onset of the Christmas and New Year rain and subsequent growth. The new addtions to the yard will be a tropical garden in the lower third of the garden – but more on that later. Today – simply a before and after of the backyard – the first picture taken 5 years ago in January 2005 and the second taken today. You will note the rather clearance of many trees, the oncovering of a new more, new garden beds, a moving shed and new tank and a flush, lush green lawn. It has been a busy few years!

The kangaroo paws

weatherhead — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:30:28 +0000

These kangaroo paws were planted as tubes in December last year and in the last few weeks we have been greeted by these five foot high flower stems.

Mid year greenness

weatherhead — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:37:46 +0000

After a months of dry we have hit the wet! The last 2 months has been great for the garden – we have had over 250mms here – and another wet few days on the cards.
The north garden is going along a treat – apart from the silly wallabies who continue to eat anything that isn’t caged away. However i have turned to ‘PossOff’ and it seems to be doing the trick. One very angry wallaby wents nuts and ripped a hole in the ground after nibbling on a possOff’d sprayed-leaf (mmm chilli flavoured).

I have spent some time fixing the edges of the lush thick lawn and everything looks very nice indeed. Hopefully we can get a bit more to get us through the dry of late winter and early spring

Hopefully some of the grevillia’s and callistemons will bush up and match the growth of the native grasses which have gone nuts. Happy to see the bamboo going very well too! Will bring you some more pics of the plants when I get out there next!

Don Burke returns to TV

weatherhead — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:00:44 +0000

Look I am fan of Don Burke. I was overjoyed when he returned to the airwaves on 2UE about 12 months ago – my Saturdays are spent digging and tending my yard listening to the podcasts of Burke’s Backyard.

Now he is back on the telly. You can watch his segments online here at the Burke’s Backyard website.

I would rather more than the 8 minutes that I get on A Current Affair – but frankly 8 minutes is better than the none we have had for the last 5 years. I think it is his wise yet matter-of-fact approach to gardening & landscaping with a honed focus on the Australian environment (thus Australian natives plants and how best to use them) that makes him so engaging to watch and listen to. I know that his production company CTC was behind Backyard Blitz which had the same authentic knowledge of useful garden bits and pieces. So Yay at Don’s return!