ABOUT

I like to garden. My aim is to establish a garden I can walk around and tweak.  Where garden beds are full of beautifully coloured blooms, lawns are green and soft underfoot, trees are large and shady in summer, leaves that turn to russet and gold in autumn and lots of friable soil.

The harsh reality is that, after escaping suburbia, I now have an Australian country garden that needs work, clay soil that would bend the tines of my garden fork should I attempt to dig and a host of other problems: lack of water being the major one. No significant rainfall over winter or so far this spring means it's not looking good for the hotter months still to come. However, I'm doing my best to summer proof as many trees and shrubs as possible by mulching.

This is the first time I have a garden big enough to indulge my passion for large deciduous trees without the problems they may cause to infrastructure and neighbours. There are some very old and tall red gums dotted about the property, other gum trees and large wattles yet to be identified, grevilleas, callistemons and melaleucas; also a peppercorn straddling the fence, rock roses, lavender (white and purple), a standard rose and various other shrubs. The driveway is bordered by agapanthus.

There is an abundance of prickly acacia (kangaroo thorn), pretty when in flower, but deadly when it needs to be removed. However, it does offer protection to the fairy wrens who build their nests in it.

There is also a small orchard with a variety of fruit trees: apple, pear, loquat, peach, apricot, almond, plum and feijoa. This, too, needs a lot of attention for it to be productive once more.

This garden is certainly a challenge, one that I'm going to enjoy. May be not the digging and weeding, but certainly the planning and planting, which hopefully will result in the garden of my dreams.

This blog will be a visual record of how my garden develops, my mistakes and things I learn along the way.

When I'm not gardening, I'm blogging, knitting, crocheting and reading. Sometimes I do housework and other mundane domestic tasks, but only because they're a part of life's necessities.


Yvonne
A Darn Good Yard