We Are Open This Long Weekend!!! - Jan 23, 2025
Dear gardening friends
We are open all this Australia Day long weekend. Sunday and Monday our trading hours are 9-4pm.
If you've been planning a visit this could be your best chance. Zoom zoom, stop procrastinating.
Camden is famous for its Jacaranda trees in November but maybe it should be famous for its Crepe Myrtles in January. Camden Council has started planting them as street trees, and we are starting to see the results now.
If you look beyond this beauty (probably "Tuscarora") you will see the white flowering "Natchez". This is the taller growing white flowering variety, that is perfect for street tree planting.
I drove around the established streets in this beautiful old suburb and you see so many beautiful Crepe Myrtles here, and they are covered in flowers.
Crepe Myrtles flower off new growth so when you get rain in summer they start to grow so quickly and then the flowers soon follow.
Crepe Myrtles come in colours that go beautifully with the older houses in Camden. These older houses are all getting restored, and they are on bigger blocks, so they have room for trees.
That's why house prices in this suburb have boomed. The suburbs with the most trees are always the most expensive suburbs. Isn't that funny.
When you look out the windows of these houses you see trees. This is so good for our mental health.
You hear birds and nature too.
We lost a gardener this week. Don Gregory owned Camden Garden Centre, back in the 80s. It was opposite the Cattle Sales yard in Camden. It would have been right next door to Maccas.
Don would often call in for a chat and a cuppa. He knew the who's who of Camden, and he would tell me all their stories. Sadly I had no idea who the who's who were. Don knew all about the history of Camden. He knew everyone.
He led a very independent life, he still did gardening for old people, who live in Carrington, well into his 80s. Don never thought of himself as old. The oldies he was talking about, were probably younger than him.
He loved Dahlias and grew a great crop until that wet spring came, and they rotted in the ground. He was very sad about that, but he had no trouble growing plants in pots. He loved our potting mix.
He rang me recently about growing Crepe Myrtles from cuttings, he had this dream of growing a "Tuscarora" for a relative. I gave him a pot of River sand and some cuttings from a plant here. He had success, the plants grew.
Don's Crepe Myrtles will live on, his relatives will know that Don grew those trees. I will miss my cuppa with Don, he was a good guy.
This made me smile this morning. These Magnolias were looking fabulous this morning with fresh new growth and no more leaves dropping. These Magnolias have a history in Queen Street Campbelltown.
Half of them got pulled out about 10 years ago, it was a different council. But they started lifting the pavers with their roots, and new security cameras had just been installed, so the trees got removed at night.
Moving forward, and Council staff removed the rubber mat from around the bases. They made boxes and mulched around every tree. The results have been spectacular.
Now when it rains, the trees catch the water with their big leaves, and funnel it down their trunks and into the ground.
The trees get water now, so they don't have to send roots out under the paving looking for it. It's a win for everyone, the trees look beautiful and they provide shade and they look so much healthier now because we aren't torturing them.
If your trees and plants aren't growing, it's usually due to not enough water. Start there.
My mate turned 90 last week. Jimmy started out as a customer, well I was one of his customers. Jimmy and his son started a Worm Farm, in their backyard and they supplied us with worms. This was 20 years ago when my friend Nigel invented the Worm Farm!
I got talking to Jimmy one day and I discovered he loved Trout fishing. No he didn't use Worms, he used Flys. I was a mad fisherman and I'd always wanted to go Fly Fishing so Jimmy took me. It was love at first strike. We ended up fishing in New Zealand and Tasmania, we have so many stories.
Jimmy gave me a call this week, "are you coming for coffee?" He asked. "Yes mate" I replied.
It turns out it wasn't for coffee, Jimmys neighbour had just given him a bottle of port for his birthday, it was from Cyprus, dated 1926. He got me to open it, the fragrance was amazing, the taste unbelievable. Could this be mother's milk?
It was 99 years old, could that be right? I only got one glass, then Jimmy locked it away. Our fishing days are over but we still have the stories.
Jimmy has become a gardener now, he was late to blossom, he loves growing flowers in pots. He's very proud of his garden. Gardeners live longer, did you know that?
Happy gardening
Tim