State of the Garden
Jan. 19th, 2009 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elissandeOne of the things that we're trying to do this year is to get the back garden into some kind of shape. It was neglected for a few years due to other priorities. The main lawn was still mowed as I paid someone for that, but the raised section was let go to nature (in this case, nature appears to have been jasmine) and the back fence deteriorated to falling-down-ness and stuff was piled up around it and things grew through that (the lawn man just avoided it). I'll see if I can find some pictures and post them.
So we've been working on the garden these last couple of months. On our free weekends, that is. We got the back fence replaced before Christmas. As this involved clearing a metre around it, we managed to fill a whole skip with vegetation. It also allowed us to clear things a bit more and set up the 'fairy grotto' for the NYE party.
Aside from that, we've been spending a lot of effort on the raised section of the garden. It's a section about 4.5m wide and over 12m long. It will end up with the herb garden, the vege garden and a section of ornamental garden with a water feature. We've got a way to go but there has been some progress. The section that is to be the herb garden was my herb garden some years ago. It's about 3m square and is a knot garden insofar as there are paved paths that form a square knot pattern - very narrow paths as they are only one paver wide. The pavers divide the area into 10 separate beds. The herb garden is now cleared and herbs are growing - thyme, parsley, coriander, dill (though that's gone to seed), basil, oregano, catnip, lemon balm, sage, chives, rue and sorrel. Lavender and tansy were rescued from the depredations of the jasmine. Also put in some alpine strawberry. All these are doing very nicely.
Along the fenceline (not the new one) we planted some Australian native plants. They were relatively advanced and I know that sometimes that can lead to transplant problems in native trees/shrubs, but they have all survived and are showing new growth. I was concerned about one which had only about a dozen green leaves when it was planted, but it's recently started to put out new shoots, so I'm delighted with the 100% success rate - so far.
There's still a lot to do. Each of the garden beds is going to be sieved. I tried this on one of the beds and it made such a difference to the workability of the soil and to the level of weeds coming up that I've decided that, hard yakka though it is, it will be worth it in the long run. Consequently, I'm a bit sore today as I spent a few hours with mattock, shovel and sieve yesterday, but I'm sure it's good for me really...
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Date: 2009-01-19 03:49 am (UTC)The rest of the garden sounds like it is going well. We know how long these things take, we too are in the process of taking control of the garden... The vegie garden is done, just the rest down the back of the slab... very hard work indeed!
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Date: 2009-01-20 12:52 am (UTC)I've been reading about your garden and thought it interesting that we're both doing similar things at the moment.
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Date: 2009-01-20 03:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-20 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-19 12:52 pm (UTC)