Gearing up for June Long Weekend . . .

I know it’s been a very long time since I posted here, thank goodness I don’t use this blog to generate income or I’d be insolvent!! Obviously a lot has happened over the time but don’t panic as it’s mostly a photographic essay. Lots of travel the past two years, two weddings and a funeral, a car accident, plus working all over the state for NILS so things have been hectic as always.

Keeping the garden going through a very prolonged dry period has been the biggest challenge. Watering takes two of us five hours using watering cans which though meditative is very time-consuming. At its worst we had to do this twice a week! Fortunately we recently laid a 25mm pipe throughout the garden so we can pump from the new dam and water with hoses, this has meant much more effective watering and done in half the time.

We’ve obviously been busy since my last post but before I bring you up to speed I can tell you that our time lately has been taken up with preparations for the Bay Of Fires Art Trail. This takes place Queen’s Birthday Weekend on June 8-9-10. Banksia Hollow will be open on all three days 9.30am – 4pm Saturday, 10am – 4pm Sunday, 9am – 12noon Monday with an exhibition of some new works by Bryon, the house and garden will be open and there will be plants for sale and some rustic bird baths to tempt you.

We always like to have something new for our regular visitors, and this year is no exception, so we’re looking forward to sharing our home once again and showing off a couple of new features . . .

June isn’t the best time to showcase a garden so you’ll have to wait and see if we can rise to the challenge. Our focus for the next eight weeks is on completing these new works and to be ready to welcome friends, both old and new, to come along and have a chat about gardens, art and off grid living.

But let’s go back a little to when I last posted here . . . and have a look at just a few of the creatures that have been sharing our home.

Bryon had an exhibition at the Khaya Gallery at Fingal and did some lovely floral works and a series of Bay Of Fires paintings. We went on a photo trip prior to the exhibition for Bryon to get some inspiration and this is my favourite shot of Dragon Rock at The Gardens.

We were intending to construct a large buddha to sit in the garden but when we saw this fella in Hobart we thought it might be quicker to get a ready-made one. So he travelled up the Midland Highway on the back of our ute. He was loaded with a forklift but when we arrived home there was a bit of juggling to get him off and onto the plinth we had built. On the way up the highway he caused quite a sensation with people making signs of obeisance, honking their horns and waving to us.

Harvest time at Banksia Hollow is getting better each year, mainly due to gaining more expertise and getting used to the seasons and the critters that we have to contend with. We plant seed each month and then plant those seedlings out the following month. We use the moon calendar to guide our planting which we find actually does increase productivity. And of course good old Peter Cundall’s books and planting guide are a great help.

We had 240 people through the house during the 2018 Art Trail over the Queen’s Birthday Weekend and Bryon had a very successful exhibition selling 27 paintings. Even though the garden was lying fallow at that time of year we still had a lot of interest in the garden and lots of questions about off grid living. As always the bottle walls received quite a bit of attention and I spent most of the weekend explaining how they are constructed!

Then we headed to Townsville to thaw out . . .

We followed up with a Garden Party in December to raise money for the Tasmanian Lymphoedema and Laser Therapy Centre in St Marys. We had a very enjoyable day with lots of gardeners visiting and the garden was flush with flowers. The volunteers served 78 morning teas, we sold plants and ran a raffle all with the help of eleven volunteers. The total fundraising including entry fees came to $2,400.00 which was a great result for a very worthwhile cause.

Our next big project will be Bryon’s studio. It will be a hobbit affair with a gable roof covered in succulents and walls rendered in the form of tree roots with a round door, of course! Bilbo Baggins would be proud. We’ve poured the octagonal slab with some willing helpers and have some construction materials on hand already so can’t wait to get started on construction. It took 60 mixes in our little mixer to complete the slab, all of which had to be barrowed into the garden from outside as we can’t get a cement truck into the garden without demolishing it!

Bryon has had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his creative talents, here are just a few . . . he also completed a few commissions and more murals down in St Helens.

We’ve had quite a few trips away . . . first to Bryon’s old home town Kingston SE, Naracoorte Fossil Caves, Robe, all in South Australia. Then Mt Gambier, and also a visit to Hahndorf. Later that year we did the Great Ocean Road. We visited the Rose Gardens at Werribee and the Big Buddha display at the Victorian Art Gallery, another visit to the Melbourne International Flower Show, and also up to the Glasshouse Mountains and Maleny Botanical Gardens in Queensland.

We had a visit to Wychwood Garden and Nursery in January. Matt and David have it looking good and we found a few great plants in the nursery. This was our second attempt to visit as the first time we were stopped short at Deloraine when we were involved in a three car pile up, rear ended by a young lady in a white Mazda 3.

Anyway, that about brings you up to speed, I’m intending to do a post on the year in flowers and another one on just the roses. But that will have to wait until July or maybe August . . . I’ll leave you with this shot of Bryon and I and a fairy friend of ours.