SUNRAYSIA Garden Club member Alison Whiting believes you need to look no further than plants to see the effects of climate change.
Mrs Whiting, 82, has built up a wonderful garden from scratch at her Merbein property since she and husband Max, 92, moved in nearly three years ago.
“There wasn’t a garden when we came here,” she said this week.
“It was really just lawn and a couple of trees. It was quite bare.
“We had a big garden where we came from, out at Cowanna Avenue, and I transplanted a lot of it at this location to make it more of a forest.”
The retired nurse, who worked around the world after starting out at Mildura Base Hospital, has planted trees, dahlias, Easter daisies and irises at her property.
However, it’s the 60-odd roses that are the standout feature.
Asked how many flushes of roses she usually gets a year, she said: “That depends on how quick you are at dead-heading them, but usually it’s five or six.
“I have about 60 roses now – but I used to have about 260,” she added with a laugh.
Mrs Whiting, however, says the relatively cool summer in Sunraysia had caused a mildew problem in her garden.
“It’s usually on the vines but we’ve had a strange summer. We’ve almost flipped the months because summer was more like autumn this year,” she said.
“And now, with autumn under way, we usually get hot weather but it’s still quite mild.
“There’s definitely been a change in the weather. And this is reflected in plants. They react quickly to the weather.
“You can usually forget about picking roses in high summer because it’s way too hot up here – but you can now get roses you can pick over summer.
“Plants reflect weather conditions. They are very good at that.”
Mrs Whiting said she came from a family of farmers and gardeners.
“My mother was a keen gardener where they had a great property about three miles out of Merbein. I think I got the gardening bug from her,” she said.
“The garden is very important to me. It’s a great way of forgetting about your cares and woes.
“I spend a lot of time each week tending to the garden. In fact, it’s about the first thing I do in the morning: to go around and see what I can pick.
“I find it very relaxing and I’m still quite strong so I can spend a fair bit of time gardening.
“It’s my happy place.”
Getting lawns ready to shine
There is nothing better than a lush, green lawn.
Autumn is an ideal time to assist the lawn to recover from the hot and dry Sunraysia summer and to prepare it for the wetter and cooler months.
It’s a great time to fertilise the lawn. Ideally, use a lower nitrogen-content fertiliser than what you use in spring and summer.
A more evenly balanced nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertiliser will help repair damaged areas by promoting new growth.
It will also promote new root growth before soil temperatures drop, giving lawns a head-start for next spring.
Remove fallen leaves and debris from the lawn regularly as these will deprive the lawn of light, causing it to die off and create brown patches.
– Emma Marks is the owner of Mildura Garden Supplies, Ontario Avenue
