2008 Ginger Flower Festival Yandina

Visited the Ginger Factory at Yandina today for the 2008 Ginger Flower Festival. When we pulled up at around 11:30 the carpark was full as will both sides of the street and centre strip. I can't imagine what it is going to be like over the (long) weekend! There were quite a few people there but it wasn't uncomfortably crowded. It was quite easy to move around and see everything.

There was a number of talks where you could hear about cooking, health benefits, and growing gingers, though I didn't attend any of these. I stuck my head into a cooking session but it was overflowing.

Aside from the talks the festival is a great opportunity to view the fantastic sub-tropical gardens that make up the grounds of the Ginger Factory and at this time of the year most of the gingers and heliconias are in bloom.

The festival also features a nursery selling a large selection of gingers and heliconias, with a smattering of palms. A lot of the plants where in flower and if they weren't cut flowers were arranged so you see what they looked like. I picked up a Heliconia Caribea, Ice Rose Ginger (Etlingera elatior) and Red Tower Ginger (Costus Comosus). (this was quite restrained compared to some others at the checkout)

Here are some pictures from the gardens:

Chocolate Beehive Ginger

Red Torch Ginger
Heliconias

Roma Street Parklands

Dropped into the Roma Street Parklands last Saturday (19/1). The gardens are a real inspiration with the Spectacle Garden with it's palms, gingers, heliconicas and bromeliads all putting on a fantastic summer display.

Beehive Ginger (Zingiber Spectabile)

Bromeliads

Passionfruit

Two weekends ago (5 Jan), in between the rain, I planted a Big Boppa and a Panama Red passionfruit along the bottom fence in the back garden. Both are going well and climbing along the wire I ran along the fence. The only issue is that it's complicated the mowing along the fence.