Membership
An invitation to join the
Highlands Garden Society Bowral Inc.
While membership is open all year round it is reviewed four (4) times annually. See link to application form below.
Started in 1976, the Society has its origins among a group of people who wanted to share their love of gardening in a context that was both welcoming and open. It is now one of the largest garden clubs in Australia.
Recent consideration of the activities of the Society indicate that it provides members with:
- A sense of belonging
- Practical help with the practice of gardening
- Recognition as a gardener and a place where people with outstanding interests and skills in gardening can be supported
- A venue to promote gardening throughout the Southern Highlands
As a large and active group and there are many benefits to membership some of which are listed below:
- Eleven (11) issues of our informative 'Highlands Garden Bulletin' mailed to your home each month
- Ten (10) monthly meetings at which we have excellent guest speakers
- Ten (10) monthly meetings with low cost member propagated plants for sale and free seeds
- Nine (9) monthly meetings with free loan access to the latest garden books, DVDs and videos
- Eleven (11) monthly meetings at which a tea and coffee break is provided
- Free entry to Friendship Gardens 8 times each year
- Free access to Garden Workshops held several times during the year
- Free monthly Floral Art Classes
- Discounted entry fee to our very enjoyable Winter Garden Seminar and Lunch held on the third Saturday in July each year
- Free entry to a wonderful Summer Garden Evening in February each year
- Our own Annual Camellia and Rose Shows and monthly prize exhibition tables
- Low cost one day and multi-day gardening coach tours – up to 5 tours each year.
The monetary value of these activities alone amounts to some $195 per person per year. The Society's annual fees are $30.00 per year per person.
And of course the joy of membership and the enduring friendship of fellow gardeners – Priceless!
DATE & TIME
PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY
Photos from May Monthly Meeting
Photos from May Friendship Garden
click on photo
Photos from May Floral Art
click on photo
Photos from May Friendship Garden
'The Grange'
click on photo
DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
HGS Monthly Meeting
Date: Friday 21 June
Time: 7.00 pm for 7.30 pm start
Where: Uniting Church, Cnr. Bendooley and Boolwey Streets, Bowral
Speaker: Dr Connie Lord - Egyptian Gardens
Lucky Door Prize for June Meeting: ?
Lucky Door Prize for June Meeting: ?
HGS Friendship Garden
There are NO Friendship Gardens in June, July or AugustHGS Winter Seminar
Date: Saturday 20 July
Time: 9.45 am - 2.15 pm
Where: Uniting Church Hall, Corner of Boolwey and Bendooley Streets, Bowral
Cost: $25.00 per person, including morning tea and lunch
More Information: click here
GCA Convention
The 2013 GCA Convention will take place from Sunday September 15 in Ballarat, Victoria.
For more details or download, click here or contact Graeme Whisker
The Winter Solstice is upon us as I write – I am always happy when it arrives, because although there is still frosty weather ahead, it only takes a couple of weeks before the days become noticeably longer, and everything starts to think about new life.
The current bouts of prolonged rainfall have provided an opportunity we haven’t been accustomed to recently, to identify boggy or poorly drained patches in the garden. There are several ways to attack this problem: you can dig some drainage channels to take the water away to where you want it, and bury some agricultural drainage pipe in the channel. I have had only limited success doing this – when most of the garden is basalt soil on a slope, water runs from higher ground for up to a week after the rain stops. Digging trenches across the slope and filling with gravel can help, or you can give up and build up planted areas or develop a bog garden in that spot, and plant species such as some of the Iris, that are happy with wet feet.
As described in the June issue, feed emerging bulbs as they appear, with complete fertiliser or bulb food, and give Spring flowering annuals a boost as well. Remember to check the ‘recipe’ on the label of fertilizers. The three main ingredients are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K). Fertilisers that have a greater percentage of Nitrogen are good for producing foliage, while a slightly higher percentage of Potassium will promote more flowering and fruiting. When you have a plant producing lots of foliage and no fruit or flowers, it is often because it needs more Potassium and less Nitrogen. The fertilisers labelled ‘complete’ usually include trace elements as well. On the whole, the specialist rose foods are very good for most flowering plants and vegetables, especially when combined with good compost, and some mulch. Just be a bit careful using any poultry manure based product around acid loving plants such as Rhododendrons, Camellias and Daphne – you can apply such fertilisers but don’t dig them in, because these plants like their soil to have a lower Ph i.e. a higher acid content, than roses. We will include an article on compost and fertilisers in a future Bulletin.
If you are getting ready for the Camellia Spectacular, you might like to disbud some of your camellias to encourage larger flowers. The floral art gurus and Camellia specialists carefully remove the masses of buds that some species produce leaving the one bud that is nicely framed by two healthy leaves. It might be worth leaving buds that are in various stages of development, so that you prolong the flowering period – that’s the theory anyway – give it a try.
If you are planting newly acquired barerooted trees or shrubs, or moving a tree or shrub, first dig the hole at least half as big again as the root ball, scarifying the walls of the hole if the ground is hard or impacted, and adding some good old compost to the backfill. Stingy little planting holes in hard or sour ground are a guarantee of the plant failing to thrive. Leave Camellias until they have finished flowering before moving them, although you can plant out a newly purchased plant, or any plant in a container, straight away.
You can prune deciduous trees now if needed, but don’t prune Spring flowering species such as Lilac or May now, or you will cut off flowering wood – do it after flowering, to stimulate new growth through the Summer to carry next year’s flowers. Fallow areas in the vegetable garden could be weeded and enhanced with some blood and bone, and dug over, where tomatoes and cucurbits are to be planted later. Seedlings of lettuce, brassicas, spinach and silverbeet may be planted in small batches, a few weeks apart for continuous cropping.
Happy gardening.
Margaret Stuart
LATEST NEWS
NEW! Gardening Articles
Articles from previous guest speakers at our Monthly Meetings are now available to download in our MEMBERS SECTION.
Login using HGS's username and password.
Berrima Public School Market
The March Friendship Garden was a great success at Berrima Public School Kitchen Garden. To continue to support the school in its efforts to raise funds, there is a School Market on every SECOND Sunday of the month from 9:00am till 2:00pm.
June 2013 Bulletin
The June Bulletin can be downloaded from the members' section.
Login using HGS's username and password.
HGS Constitution
The HGS Constitution can now be downloaded from the website.
Follow HGS on Facebook
