March Working Bee

This morning (Sunday 20th March) we held our March working bee in the Japanese Garden at Frankston High School, which coincided with the school's Term 1 working bee. The plan was to complete weeding, removal of dead flowers, trimming and pruning the many shrubs, plus removal of leaves, general tidying and watering.

Frankston Mayor Cr Nathan Conroy was invited and joined us along with committee members Sam Warrington, Therese Sakamoto, Anita Cross and Adrian Thomas with daughter Amy. Other committee members were apologies due to travel commitments and Chairperson Julie D'Arcy felt unwell this morning and made the wise decision not to attend!

Morning tea scones were kindly delivered by Frankston High principal Andrew Batchelor and Senior Campus principal and FSFA committee member Helen Wilson, and Therese volunteered to do the coffee run. After our delicious morning tea, which included Japanese sweets offered by Amy, we had a group photo before Mayor Conroy left to attend another function.

Another couple of hours work had the garden in tip-top condition with the final clean up, emptying bins and watering to finish the morning's work. We were then invited to join the other morning's workers for a bbq and drink provided by the school.

The assistance provided during the morning is greatly appreciated and the garden is in great nick at the moment - thanks to everyone for your great work this morning!

Japanese Garden Update - December 2021

 Gaining access to the Japanese Garden at this time of the year is always a challenge due to the Year 12 and 11 examinations during November. The recent weather has promoted lots of growth - particularly the bamboo which can shoot up anywhere throughout the garden!

The bamboo can pop up anywhere throughout the garden!

Saturday afternoon was a chance to cut and poison the unwanted bamboo, remove the dead rhododendron flowers and clean and tidy the fallen leaves.

During one of my breaks I ventured outside the garden to inspect one of the nearby gums that had lost a substantial section during the recent storms and spotted a family of tawny frogmouths - a parent and two chicks!

On Sunday I was joined by David and Anita Cross, Julie and Fiona D'Arcy and Adrian Thomas who assisted with deadheading the MANY flowers on the azalea shrubs. Adrian and I finished the task by fertilizing the garden with dynamic lifter and spreading the 10 bags of organic compost before the final watering was completed.

A huge thank you to Anita, David, Julie, Fiona and Adrian for their help and apologies for the short notice and to those who had already made Sunday morning plans.

Julie, Adrian, Fiona, Anita, David and Simon

The garden is now well prepared for the coming warmer months and as I write this article the follow up rain I ordered has arrived to further soak our lovely garden!

Adrian will be pleased to provide a garden update report at our December committee meeting tomorrow night (Tuesday 7th December).

The sun even came out just as I was about to take some "after" pictures of our morning's efforts.

Japanese Garden Update - September 2021

On a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon it was a pleasure to spend some time in the Japanese Garden at Frankston High School. The very first cherry blossoms have recently flowered with the full bloom expected in the coming weeks.

It was a pleasant surprise to find the garden in a reasonably tidy condition with mostly dead camellia flowers and the usual gum leaves from the surrounding trees within the school grounds requiring removal.

Many of the azalea bushes have sprouted new growth as well as their brightly coloured flowers which will need removing in the coming weeks once they die off.

The mondo grass we planted earlier this year continues to thrive and hopefully will create a greater coverage in the barer areas of the garden.

Our Hanami Party is scheduled for Sunday 17th October however, the current lockdown and restrictions would suggest that this will not be possible and another of our planned events will need to be cancelled!

We will schedule another mini working bee to undertake these tasks once restrictions are eased and groups can meet in the garden once again.

The garden walls were repainted a number of years ago in a lighter colour, and some areas will require some attention in the near future.