Melbourne's Gardening Expo 2007

Gardening Expo
October 5-7, 2007
Caulfield Racecourse, Caulfield
Open Daily 9.30am - 5pm
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Adults: $16
Aged and Disability Pensioners and Senior Card holders: $13
Family: $38
Children 5-16yrs: $6



Wasn't really interested in going since it wasn't cheap, until mum saw the ads on the papers - she was excited bout the talks and interactive Q&A sessions to get feedback on her garden. Anyway, the show was great - the area of the expo was really big, outdoors and two indoor levels in the race course (aka Monash's exam venue). I'll let the pictures do the talking:


entrance of the racecourse


picked up a program booklet for aud1 (with program timetable and some gardening tips)

it was cold and sunny and windy and rainy (winter, summer, autumn, spring in a day) - pity the mermaid wearing so little =p


special kids activities so the mums can go for the talks (no not me =p):


Some of the talks:

Peter Cundall on 'Organic Growing is Survival' - he just received an Organic Gardener Awards (something like that) =p. A very enthusiast and dedicated gardener.

The Fruit Salad Tree Company on 'Grafting Fruit Trees' - very interesting talk with live demonstrations on how to graft trees.


We've got an apple tree at home with 3 grafts, therefore will produce 3 different types of apples when it start fruiting =D. But the fruit salad tree company's trees are even better - they've 3-8 grafts on single tree, for example, a tree that can produce white and yellow peaches, white and yellow nectarines, apricots, plums, peachcots; or 2 types of oranges (winter and summer fruiting types so you can have one that fruits for the whole year), mandarin, lemon, lime, grapefruit, tangelo, pomelo, multi-apples and multi-nashi(pears). It costs aud22 per graft - if you are interested ask me for details and care requirements =p.


live grafting demonstration


multi-fruits tree/fruit salads tree


mushroom cooking demonstration


bbq mushroom for the visitors! yummmm

special native australia garden's talk by Jane Edmanson



she was explaining how to prune the native plants - even if the plant is small, prunning about 1/3 back is necessary - just like how you prune your fruit trees, roses, lavendar etc.


Sophie Thomson on 'Mediterranean Gardening' - very informative talk! Do you know that putting plants indoor can filter the air? And the main filter is not the plant, but the soil! So the soil actually helps cleaning up the polluted indoor air (yes with carpet, modern stuff indoor) - but no, just putting soil indoor doesn't help, you'll need healthy plant with healthy soil =)

There're more talks but we simply couldn't make it to all of them (some are held in parallel) - we learnt a lot, especially on 'mulching' - seriously, this word has never appeared in my dictionary =p. Mulching is absolutely essential for almost every plants - to protect the root from the strong sun in the summer. It's basically covering the surface of the soil with compose and you can make your own compose with vege leftovers and sugarcane compose. So start mulching your garden if you haven't done so!

Oh, and if you ask questions during the Q&A, you get free gift, like:

parsley (yay!)

and... opss.. I should start posting some flowers =p

lovely western Australia native plant




bell flower

more natives




Umm.. I really don't know the names...






very geli leaves:







piggy piggy $$ come


daffodil


natives


the common plant I have back in KL


and the Australians love it!










Mum loves this Emu Bush - I called it purple snow














really nice purple flowers









They've got organic veges too:



corns





Indoor exhibitions:



funny guys


queuing up for mushroom salads


this lady from the mushroom cooking talk offered to take pic of us


and gave us some mushrooms =p really interesting lady!


lunch - beef burger for aud7.50 - quite delicious but bringing own sandwich will be cheaper =p

Last but not least - a Vertical garden solution for people with limited space!





another type

it's 5pm soon...



leaving the show



having early dinner in Derby Thai, Caufield



Thai Salad aud7


Chicken Pad Thai aud9


Red Curry Roast Duck aud10

Rating: 3.5/5 - the curry duck is really good; Pad thai is a bit too oily and the salad is bit too westernised.

In short, good show - will come again next year!