10th August 2014 - Front garden tidy up - Part 1.
Spring is around the corner literally and our front yard is an overgrown mess. Something needs to be done now or come September / October we will be in an even worse mess. And a Spring opportunity will be missed.
I have been thinking a lot about landscaping lately. I even have a plan. And lets face it knowing what you want is often the biggest challenge, after being able to pay for it.
There is so much to do, two weekends of gardening have passed and honestly the change has been minimal. We have filled 4 large wheelie bins full of weeds and I'd say there is another 4 bins worth to go.
So this post is a progress post. As you can see our newish lawn has become dormant (and browning off) the new plants have yet to settle in and generally things have looked better. But you have to start somewhere.
29th of April 2014 - Front of house.
I think our backyard is looking good. Sure we need a new back fence and the plantings need to grow some more. But overall I'm quite happy with it and enjoy spending time there. The front is another story:
Admittedly I have been rather slack since having a baby when it comes to gardening the front. But it has been on my mind a lot lately. At the moment its looking rather tired. While there are definitely things I would like to keep, there is alot I would like to remove and start again.
Anyway, I wanted to post up a couple of photos of how it looks today. Gardens are an evolving thing and its interesting to me to look back on how things looked back when.
I plan to put considerable effort into researching the front garden options. More on this soon.
Anyway, I wanted to post up a couple of photos of how it looks today. Gardens are an evolving thing and its interesting to me to look back on how things looked back when.
I plan to put considerable effort into researching the front garden options. More on this soon.
April 2014 - Easter Break
Twas a still and beautiful morning in Melbourne. Cool, crisp and sunny. Autumn weather is pure heaven on earth.
Callistemon 'Eureka' Hedge - Spring 2013
My Callistemon hedge is slowly growing. Actually after only 3 short years it has come a long way, reaching almost 3m in height. This spring the floral display has been outstanding. I will need to give it a hard prune after flowering to thicken it up and encourage hedging, but so far planting this hedge from tiny little seedlings has been extremely rewarding. What will it look like in 3 years from now!
Below is a photo from when it was first planted. Clearly it likes this position!
A few other photos from Spring 2013. We are yet to do any landscaping, it's on a very long list of things still left to do. We will get there eventually.
Summer 2012/2013.....
Thought it about time I did a garden update. As you can see my garden has certainly seen better days. Next doors 'London Plane' Tree has started to drop it's leaves, making for even more mess.I would like to get the entire space cleared and turfed (I imagine growing lawn from seed would be quite difficult?) Anyhow, I'm thinking January probably isn't the best time to do anything in the garden. Perhaps leaving it as is until March when the mercury drops a bit may be a wise thing.
On a positive note:
My Callistemons are going gang busters, my potted Forest Pansys are holding up quite well and my lovely eucalptus petiolaris is going to flower for the first time in a few months :)
Out the front my 'Syzygium Cascades' are looking very pretty. Their multi coloured foliage never fails to delight.
Spring 2012.....
Three days before the renovation started.
Callistemon Eureka flowering for the first time.
The calm before the storm
It's offical, the build is going to start around October the 12th (a mere two weeks away). And while we are super excited at the prospect of what this will bring, I still cannot help but look out at my glorious backyard and grieve at the forth coming mess and disturbance that is about to take place. After removing a few trees to enable the build to happen, the backyard has never looked better. It's green, it's spacious, it's spring time. I really hope we don't ruin things.
A year later.....
12 months on and things have really changed. There was quite a bit of digging things up and moving them around until I found the best spot. A few casualties along the way too I might add. But overall on a sunny day the backyard is a delight. My favourite time is in winter on a sunny late afternoon when the space glows from the descending golden light. I have definitely caught the gardening bug.
First things....
One of the first things we did was to get 6 of the major trees removed, bringing much needed light into the space. Knowing I wanted a predominately native garden, I then got non fertilised top soil delivered on site. From there we proceeded to create some raised garden beds.Fortunately I was able to get the cut down trees turned into mulch (which made me feel a bit better about ruthlessly ending their lives). Removing a lot of the hard rubbish was the next step!
The before shots
Here are a few shots of the before garden. It was a case of too many largish trees planted along the northern boundary throwing the rest of the garden into shade where few things thrived or flowered.
No comments:
Post a Comment