Our first ‘Kat’s Garden Club’ event for 2025 was a rip-roaring success thanks to our enthusiastic guests and their wonderful selection of house plants, and let’s not forget the absolutely perfect weather too!
After a very busy summer taking the Bay Botanics market stall to community events throughout the region, we thought it would be great timing for Kat to help all our wonderful indoor plant owners get their struggling, root bound or “bursting-at-the-seams” plants safely into some healthy new homes for the year.
It’s a dirty job and we love dirt!
One of the best things about getting this dirty job done with Kat at Kereru Gardens, is that you don’t need to worry about the mess!
Kat had enough gardening stations set up for everyone with a mini wheelbarrow for dumping the old dirt and trimmings plus as much pre-mixed compost as we needed to easily fill each of our pots. She also had peat and stones and any other ingredient you could wish for to make the perfect upgraded home for our precious plants.
Meet & Greet
On arrival, we were each given a Kereru Gardens’ apron to wear plus a pair of loves. There were plenty of gardening pots to use plus display pots if we wanted something a little extra.
Everyone bought in an interesting array of plants from home, and following a few brief introductions, talk quickly turned to who bought what and how much we knew or didn’t know about the re-potting activity we were about to undertake together. A few of us even took a quick dash down to the Bay Botanics shop to pick up a couple more plants to add to our collections.
With soft music playing in the background, supported by the surrounding cicadas who were also enjoying the beautiful, blue-sky afternoon, we all immediately felt at ease and ready to crack into the task at hand.
Learn by Doing
Kat is such a fountain of knowledge when it comes to plants and gardening. Plus, being a natural performer and entertainer (make sure you catch her at an upcoming local theatre production!), she is very easy to listen to and learn from and made the afternoon a lot of fun. We couldn’t believe how quickly the 2hrs passed!
Taking one each of our plants in turn to show as a demonstration, Kat upended each plant and explained what she was seeing and what we would need to do to help this plant recover and keep thriving. We were then left to work on the remainder of our plants ourselves but still had Kat on hand to help and answer more of our questions as we went.
From splitting larger plants into smaller plants of 2-4 pots, to squeezing off unhealthy roots, releasing root bound systems and talking through the best environment for each. We all learnt as much from each other’s plants as we did from working with our own.
Let’s Go Again
Everyone had such a great time that we were all keen to hear when the next re-potting party and meet-up will be held! Not only did we leave with extra happy, healthy indoor plants but
Take a look at the photos and all our newly potted plants here…
