I review these products during tasks I personally carry out within my garden on a regular basis. Using the right product or tool for the job makes the difference of doing it the easy way or the hard way, so I really value a product which can make my life easier.

I am hoping that garden related companies will send me ‘products’ to test and evaluate. However I must stress that I will not be anything but fair and make no promises to these companies other than to tell the truth. Many of the products here are what I have already purchased for my own gardening use and are happy with.
You may ask, what are your qualifications? Well Judy and I opened our garden through the ‘Australia's Open Gardens’ for
10 years. We now open to support a specific charity.
We had our 18th Open Garden in 2019.
We won Gardening Australia’s 2009 ‘Golden Trowel’, have appeared on the ‘Garden Guru’s and ‘Gardening Australia’ twice and on various other television shows. We have given over 200 presentations to garden clubs on Sub tropical gardening and open our garden for bus tours. What is more important is that we have learnt from our gardening mistakes.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Where to buy Tropical Plants in Brisbane


Are you looking for tropical plants in Brisbane and feeling frustrated?
The majority of Garden Centres only stock what I call ‘lowest common denominator plants’ and to get something different even rare can take quite a bit of searching.
Fortunately there is a nursery almost in the centre of Brisbane that’s easy to get to whether you live on the south or north side of Brisbane.
It is called ‘Palms for Brisbane’; don’t let the name fool you as they sell a lot more than palms.
They have Heliconias, Costus, Gingers ect, ect.


It’s run by Greg Smith and his family and they are always most helpful in selection of plants and will even advise on landscaping your property.
In my dealings with Greg I have always been happy with my purchases and he also supports our ‘Open Garden’ by letting us leave our flyers there.
http://ianjudy.blogspot.com.au/

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Best Axe

Let me first say that I am a big fan of Fiskars products, even before I started this website I had tools such as compost fork, tree pruners and secateurs.
The best thing about the Fiskars brand is that they are made in Finland and are good quality not like some of the junk that comes out of China.
I now have an Axe to review, like all other Fiskars products it feels good to handle and is very well balanced which helps when chopping.


The very sharp  blade has a non stick coating and  is rust free.
The  reinforced fiberglass handle is virtually unbreakable but very light which is very good if you are doing a lot of cutting.
I have used it to cut out a tree and it made light work of what could of been a tough job.
This axe comes in four different sizes from chopping size to splitting cutting size.
I was happy to review this product as it is probably the best axe I have ever used.
http://ianjudy.blogspot.com.au/

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Composting made easy

What a great little piece of equipment this 'Compost Mate' is.
I have had one for several years and it is used all the time as I have three large areas where I compost all garden waste.

It works like an over sized corkscrew, just a few turns then lift and your heap gets turned over and air get into the heap and of course accelerates the composting process.
Reln Industries make them and you can purchase them from any large hardware store for about $25 dollars.
They are well made and should last you a lifetime.
We open our garden every November through the 'Open Garden Scheme' and as part of the weekend we run a raffle to help a local charity.
In the nine openings we have had we have raised almost $20,000, all which has gone to charity.
Reln Industries have supported us by providing some nice prizes and we do appreciate their generosity.
They are a good company and we are happy to support them through this blog, plus the product is good.
http://ianjudy.blogspot.com.au/