A world record deserves a few thank yous!

Here's a little more follow up on the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.

Firstly thanks to Lyn Noonan, Thelma di Donna and Elsie Carter for there help collecting baskets on the Saturday and Sunday before the show opened.  I forgot these lady's last week, my apologies. Also thanks to the unknown Samaritan who picked up 14 baskets at the last minute that had been missed by our carrier in Shepparton.

    
Bentleigh Garden Club                         Gerda van der Peet

A world record winning competition.  Yes, with 221 baskets on display (I counted them all twice-to check, not to double up) The Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria's Great Victorian Hanging Basket Competition is officially the world's biggest and from the pictures above, the quality is not bad either.  Bentleigh Garden Club (winner Affiliate Clubs section) and Gerda van der Peet (winner Members section) are both multiple winners now and risk being put in the Hall of fame to give others a chance if they win too many more.  I am please to say that we have other competitors who have entered many times and won prizes for the first time this year.
    
Brighton Floral Art society                         Julie Adams
(Best use of Colour)                                   (Best Waterwise Basket)

I also note that as we get more experienced and the quality improves it is getting harder to win a prize as a first timer.

Congratulations and thank you to everybody who entered and a special cheer for the prize winners, you can see a full list of prizes and winners here.

Grubs in my Cabbage? Cauli? Broccoli? Not any more!

I would like to offer a little credit where it is due.  Our sales rep Di was getting increasingly frustrated at seeing moth eaten (literally) brassica (Cabbage, Cauliflower, Broccoli) vegetables wherever she went so she did something about it.

Di went out and bought some 2 litre pressure sprayers...
  Just like this one, nothing fancy.  We supplied her with a small quantity of Dipel (Bacillus thuringiensis, Bt) in a plastic screw top container and instructions to mix 1 teaspoon of Dipel in 2l of water.  Oh and some kitchen measuring spoons.  Di started doing a quick spray on the vegies at garden centres where she called weekly and presto the grub problem disappeared.

I feel like I bang on about Dipel.  The product has been around for years and I think some people regard it with some suspicion because of it's 'Eco' tag.  There has also been some controversy around Bt's because big chemical companies have been breeding the bacteria into some hybrid crops.  But this product is safe, naturally prevents insects developing resistance to its effectiveness and it works better than anything else on grubs.

I have a few quick tips.
1.  Keep it refrigerated.  Bt's are living organisms and they will last longer in the fridge.  Just make sure the packet is sealed and clearly marked.
2.  Use it regularly.  Usually I prefer to monitor pests and spray as required.  Grubs are a little different.  Once the grub season arrives (January-May) particularly the warmest period, the life cycle of a Cabbage Moth is less than a week and they can fly in from anywhere.  The Bt works when the caterpillar eats some some foliage that you have smothered with Dipel, the bacteria becomes active in the caterpillar's gut and kills it from the inside out.  Dipel has to be applied weekly to keep it fresh and to catch each new generation of grubs.
3. Try to get the Dipel spray on the underside of the plant's foliage.  You know where the grubs hide, so take a little extra care to spray under the foliage.
4.  Remember Dipel is only effective on grubs.  All sorts of grubs yes, but it won't do anything to protect your plants from Aphids or Thrips.
5.  Dipel is safe, but treat it with respect.  I prefer our staff to use protective equipment whenever they handle chemicals, it's just good policy.  I am constantly amazed at the contempt familiarity breeds with some common garden chemicals, particularly snail bait.  Please wear gloves, shoes and at least a dust mask when using these products.

Thanks Di.  Good job, well done!

Big Arse Gardens bust out at the worlds Biggest Hanging Basket Competition

Wow, what a fortnight!  My baby girl turned 16, went to the Ball, introduced me to the boy friend! and now has her learner driver's permit.  At least we haven't been on the open road yet. I needed to get that information out first because the rest of my time has been spent at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show.

   
As I hope you know we are staging the 10th annual Great Victorian Hanging Basket Competition for the Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria.  We have to do a final count but we believe we have 219 (possibly 222) baskets on display, every one grown by a home gardener.  Can I give a little perspective? That's about 90 more baskets than we displayed last year and we are waiting for confirmation that this is a world record.  Congratulations to The RHSV committee, particularly Don & Jennifer Rickerby who have put hours and hours into this project.  I would also like to acknowledge John DiDonna, who built and painted most of our black towers.  John's son Russell, Rod Noonan and my friend Mac McKillop all volunteered to build the display over five days leading up to the show opening.  It's physically hard work and I'm really grateful for all the help.

You will understand that I'm a little disappointed that we did not get a prize for our display, but I have to admit that some of the finer details that we have put in in the past gave way to volume this time around.  Unfortunately the Flower Show haven't published the basket competition results so I can't congratulate everyone deserving recognition.  I'll make sure I have the details for next week.  I do know that my son Ben won first prize in the children's competition and I promise I only watered his basket once. Ben has entered the competition since the children's section was started about 5 years ago so I'm really pleased for him that he has finally won a prize.

     
We also have plants on display with the Guide Dogs of Victoria garden designed by James Dawson.  The second pic was taken at about 8.30 last night, after the show had closed.

     
And... the winner takes all Tree and Shrub Growers of Victoria "Our Plants Our Planet" series of gardens from aroound the world.  I am especially pleased with our plants being presented in these gardens because annual flowers and vegetables are often ignored by landscapers.  You can see from the pics (if you look closely) that the Guide Dogs display particularly is very modern and the Aussie Garden at the Tree and Shrub Growers is fresh and stylish too.  Who are the Tree & Shrub Growers of Victoria?  T&S is a sub group of the Nursery and Garden Industry of Victoria that specifically represents the industry's growers.  Yes Scotsburn is a member and no we don't grow trees.



Finally our Big Arse Gardens (BAGs).  What a hit!  We can't get over how many enquiries we have had.  Seeing as I threw these boxes out there to get a feel for what people want without much more plan than that, I now have to do some serious homework and find out just how mush these beasties cost us to put together but it certainly seams that there are gardeners who would love to have a ready to go garden, delivered to their door.  We will sit down after the show and collate all the information we have.  We definitely have to put together a few "packages" of planting types and finalize some prices for finished boxes.

Here are some thoughts to date.  We will line the boxes with weed mat (a water permeable membrane, that sounds more professional) but I am struggling with ideas for large saucers to prevent water sluicing over paving.  Drip irrigation and castor wheels will be optional extras and we will almost certainly have to put boxes together on site.  Possibly the most frequently asked question has been about longevity, I'll guarantee 2 years but beyond that there are just too many variables.

By the way the volunteers from the Royal Horticultural Society were nearly driven to distraction with questions about our rustic troughs.  These will be available after the show.  Planted up and delivered (Melbourne Metro) $80.00 each.  If you want to buy one (or more) please give us a call or send an email.  We have credit card facilities but I haven't worked out a shopping cart for our web site yet.

Raised Garden Beds for MIFGS

This will be my last blog post before The Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show. Next Friday I will be measuring out our display.  What are we doing?  Glad you asked.  2010 will be our 10th Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria Great Victorian Hanging Basket Competition.  This year we have something in the order of 230 baskets entered (depending on hail damage, I really hope you didn't get too much damage) and the Royal has applied to the Guinness Book of World Records to have the GVHBC recognized as the world's biggest Hanging Basket competition.  That's competition not biggest hanging basket, I think that record was set at 'Garden Week' back when I was at Burnley so that's a long time ago and has probably been bettered since.

Thanks to Liz Paterson for this pic from our display at MIFGS 2009
As the competition has grown we have had to accept a slightly less prominent role as a sponsor but the Royal and I are really grateful for the support that has come from Debco and this year our new basket supplier Gardman.  Our job is to collect and display the baskets.  We haven't changed the layout of our display for at least 7 years now but hey, if it ain't broke...  What this gives Scotsburn is a platform to display our plants as part of the overall decoration of the show site.  Of course now that we have 200 plus baskets to display the site is now one of the biggest at the show and I'm proud to say it is now represented as a named site on the official Melbourne International Flower and Garden show map (no not the google map, you have to open the pdf. I couldn't provide a direct link, don't know why).  So when you see the Great Victorian Hanging Basket display, site B56, that's us!  Please drop in and say hello, Lisa, Di and I will all be spending time at the display along with an army of volunteers from the Royal.

Now here's a sneak preview.
   

OK so these pics are from my mobile phone and you can't see much beyond a big box with Debco written on it but I promise up close and personal Deb has done a stunning job of planting them.  Now there are two reasons for preparing these boxes and their colleagues.  First is it will make dressing the show display easier on the day, so long as we don't bog the fork lift in the grass.  Second.... because Big Boxes (Raised Garden Beds) will be a new product line from Scotsburn.  "Big Arsed Boxes" according to one nameless member of staff, as much as I like it I don't think it will last as a brand name.   The Flower & Garden Show is our opportunity to put them out in front of the public and see what sort of reaction we get.

 So what do you think? I know you are a keen gardener so this type of "Do-it-for-me" product probably isn't your thing but I'd love your feed back. I expect these boxes to retail for $250.00-$300.00 I haven't finalized our costing yet. I'll do that once we have the Flower Show feedback in.  Will they need drip irrigation?  Would castor wheels be useful?  What cost do these add ons incur?

So I would obviously love your feed back.  So much indeed that I have 5 pairs of MIFGS tickets for the best thoughts and suggestions I receive regarding raised garden beds (BIG Arsed Boxes). Best? The best comment may well be not to do these at all, so please don't hold back.  I really want to know what you think. Please leave a comment below.  The tickets are sitting on my desk, so I will get 5 pairs delivered next week.

And while I'm thinking about show tickets, here's a blatant bribe.  The first 4 people to get 2 friends to subscribe to my Newsletter (follow this link) can have 3 MIFGS tickets each. One for you and one each for your friends. They have to sign up using the sign up form on our web site and I will ask them to confirm who recommended them.  The sign up form is clever... you can only use a given email address once so if you sign your cat up she has to have her own email address.

Hope to see you at the Flower Show.

Francis Rules

Last year I wrote about Aphids on Broccoli and I have discovered one of the interesting things about blogs is that they remain active.  Someone asked a question in relation to this post only last week, "What type of aphids infect broccoli?". Cabbage Aphids! Anyway I went back to the blog post and re-discovered a great tip from John, "leave some Broccoli to flower, this will attract Lady Birds" and Lady Birds just love to suck the guts out of Aphids.

OK so I like the idea but timing becomes an issue, waiting for the current crop to flower leaves my Broccoli exposed to the voracious Aphid.  I was also a little concerned that if Mr Lady Bird (I love Francis from A Bug's Life)

Follow this link to see the image source.
was in fact a carnivore would he really be attracted to flowers?
Well it didn't take much research to find that there are all sorts of plants that attract a whole range of predatory insects. And guess what! they are nearly all plants that we grow regularly.  French Marigold, Basil, Parsley & Coriander, Mint, Chives and Nasturtium.

That's companion planting!  Yes, and I need to do a lot more work on what plants are best suited to growing with other plants.  But just keep this in mind controlling pests with beneficial insects is all about balancing one population to control the other.  There has to be allowance for a small amount of plant damage because the predators need a population of pests to feed on.  And don't take your eyes off your crop for too long, if conditions suit the pest their population can explode beyond the predator's capacity to manage it.  I certainly can't forget the strong (savage) response I had to suggesting that Earwigs are actually beneficial predators, I'm not giving up you know.  I believe that experienced gardeners can develop very robust ecosystems that don't need much support but novices often give up due to failures while they are still learning.

Any way I'd like to develop some crop specific planting guides to help people when they're in a garden centre buying Broccoli or Tomatoes so if you have any suggestions please let me know.