Home Garden.
This is our second home. Perks of country living. Before this one, I didn’t particularly care what we got. I just wanted Charles to “please buy me a garden!" Our previous quarter-acre block was sloped and terraced. I wanted flat. And I was determined to go bigger; upscale the chickens, fruit trees, vegetable patch, garden beds, hedges and roses I had become hooked on already. By this stage we also had two little girls and a dog who needed to run around.
I had been through this home a few years ago, when a friend was looking. It was only around the corner from our home at the time. It was a tiny house on half an acre, but I admired the lush garden with "grandparent garden" borders and established trees. Better yet, it backed onto a huge bush-like park, was even closer to our friends and provided a solution for our never-ending but always-welcome visiting Sydney family.
By the time it was ours, the drought had taken hold. We moved in in March 2019. The garden was showing signs of stress after a few years of neglect and now, no rain. As stressful and heartbreaking as it was starting a new garden in drought, it gave our days focus and our block a blank canvas. Some trees were too far gone; we hired a mulcher and took trip after trip to the tip. Other trees we held onto and watered like mad in the hope we could salvage them.
2019 - Before the Rain
Before: The Real Estate Photo. I ripped off the fly screen veranda nearly as quickly as we removed those trees.
Before: The green oasis of the Real Estate listing was dwindling by time we were able to get stuck into the garden.
Early 2019: We got a smaller house. I got the garden, he got the pool.
Early 2019: Putting a pool in straight away meant quick decisions about the layout of things. A vegetable patch on the high, north facing side was placed opposite the pool. We used sleepers and rocks from the garden to make edges and retain soil and water.
Early 2019: Salvage railway sleepers were brought in to define garden areas. The boys walk across the dust lawn.
Early 2019: Bringing in whatever organic matter we could get our hands on. Mulch to blanket the soil and bring it back to life.
Early 2019: We also had to contend with a huge Claret Ash, so garden beds were placed underneath its branches.
Early 2019: Lawn was never a short term option. Here we prepared for Deco Granite, a neat but permeable solution.
Early 2019: Laying Deco Granite. Early on we laid weed mat underneath the gravel.
Early 2019: The roller was the best way to compact, especially when we couldn't water it down.
Early 2019: Looking back at the house over the "lawn". The flat is to the right.
2019: The Gardener; always with an apprentice or two.
Early 2019: My repurposed pig farrowing shed turned chook coop.
Early 2019: The chook run and the park behind. The park has been a good indication for us an our neighbours, we watch it change colour between us depending on rainfall.
Early 2019: Besides the fact there was no water, there were no taps beyond the house. Putting in tanks, pumps and taps ourselves was a game changer. This one served the veg patch.
Early 2019: From the street. A new front water tank. This one also collects the trickle from the Evaporative Air Conditioner.
Mid 2019: A new child-safe front fence and old gate.
2019: The cubby house, and "Colette's Garden"
Mid 2019: In my desperation for green, I laid astro-turf in the play area.
Mid 2019: The girls now had a second hand cubby house, swingset and a sandpit.
Mid 2019: The treehouse and slide in a struggling Jacaranda.
Mid 2019: We waited so long to see if this gorgeous tree would come back. It did not.
2019: Looking back to the house.
Mid 2019: Collecting the eggs; I remember a storm brewing but they never hit.
2019: Front Garden starting small.
2019: The front garden was layered with horse manure and sugar cane mulch. There was no such thing as lucerne as mulch during the drought. I was able to get a huge load of sugar can mulch from another gardening who chartered a semi-trailer full down from Queensland!
2019: Bare.
2019: Capital Pears planted along the driveway.
2019: Snow Pears, Mutabilis Hedge and Capital Pears.
Late 2019: Bushfires.
Mid 2019: Chickens and Veg. Our daily thing.
2019: Paving and fences helped define areas.
2019: Veg were planted close to the house.
2019: Gray water reality. A hose from the washing mashine, a small tank and this Ryobi pump saved us.
Late 2019: This was one of the hottest days I can remember. I let the chickens out thinking they might die if they didn't get a chance to find their own shade.
Late 2019: We mulched and rain-danced, and rain-danced on mulch.
Late 2019: Storms hit. This tree was struck by lightening and caught fire in the park.
Late 2019: Storms were hit and miss.
Late 2019: Green peeking through.
Late 2019: We needed to buy a rain guage.
End 2019: This is where we left it. We went to the beach, watched the bushfires devastate, and prayed thanks that we would have a garden to come home to.
Home Garden After.
Our home garden consists of the Front Garden including the verge and driveway, the immediate backgarden, lawn and borders, pool, play area and rose garden. Paths of brick and gravel link the buildings of the House, Flat and Shed. This has created various garden areas with different needs for our family, and conditions for the planting. As uses and conditions have changed, so has the design and plantings.
March 2022: The other side of the house. As ever, under construction. We are replacing nealy all the alluminium windows with old relcaimed timber windows. The various sidings are being replaced with Weatherboards.
March 2022: Front of House portion. We relocated a timber shed from a friend, and have just recetly re-worked the driveway with limestone and steel edging. The shed doors are old barn doors from the Gunnedah Abatoir. Capital Pears along the drive have sky-rocketed, as have the two Snow Pears which give us privacy most of the year.
2022: A veranda conversion is on our 2022 job list, and these salvaged windows have got us kick-started. Our odd looking front veranda is to be converted into a gorgeous Queenslander style sunroom and entryway, giving us much needed street appeal and some more inside space.
2022: The Mutabilis Rose hedge. I discovered this online and decided it will make a fast growing privacy hedge from the front. Well it is a monster as well! It could easier grow as wide as it is tall. It does not like to be pruned, but as we don't have much space, and I love a good hack, I am experimenting with keeping it tall and skinny. I have also just planted a Viburnum Odoratissimum hedge in front of it which may well replace it one day.
2022: A close up of the Mutabilis Rose hedge.
2022: Behind the rose hedge and under the Snow Pears is a little hidden cottage garden wonderland. (Wonderland's can still be full of weeds.)
2022: Looking at the back of the shed from the garden, over a Sarah van Fleet Rugosa Rose, and an arch of Gertrude Jekyl. The Rugosa was rescued from a garden in Armidale after the rose collecting owner past away and the garden and home were set to be demolished. I love how this rose suckers and spreads and I have already propogated some elsewhere in the farden.
2022: Further back view showing the connection of the Flat, Shed and House. The bed in the foreground is only new and still filling out.
2022: Garden beds and gravel paths in front of our renovated guest flat and laundry. The windows are salvaged from a house in East Tamworth, and the veranda was reclaimed from my Mum's renovation nearby. I love how it settles into the garden like it has always been there. My hope for the rest of the home.
2022: A Wisteria growing up a post on the Flat veranda. This was taken from a root cutting of my in-laws Sydney garden - and I am prepared that I might be battling it for decades to come.
2022: We have settled on a central rectangle of lawn. This area was determined by the location of the pool on the right, and the kitchen garden on the left side (which is now a rose garden!) The lawn is edged in bricks and lined with 6 Manchurian Pear trees. Sadly we lost one Pear to blight in its second year. We hope it's replacement can catch up soon. I am much more aware of the tell-tale browning of the leaves and act quickly when I see blight on my other onamental pears.
2022: I wanted these beds to feel like a double perenial border. This side softens the pool. I just love the combination here of Eryngium, Purple Fountain Grass, Iris and Agastache.
2022: The other side of the lawn. Under this Manchurian are Salvia's, Sedum, Iris, and Daisys. The fence behind is clad in reclaimed corrugated iron from a Hay shed brought down in a storm. We much prefer this look to Colourbond!
2022: It makes for a bucolic scene, but any chook-owning garden knows these moments can only be fleeting and often lead to garden-destruction. Everynow and then I let out my little herd - normally just before dusk so there isn't long before they head back to bed, and the garden is saved by the bell.
2022: Gates and arches add so much to a garden's structure. Looking from the new rose garden across the lawn to the pool. The rose on this arch is a Cecile Bruner, rescued from the Armidale garden. It is an absolute bully and takes some muscle to keep it tame. The gate here was also rescued from the same garden, and the arch from our girl's preschool.
2022: Verbena, Sedum, Valerian and Guara, all thrive in the garden and most do the work of spreading seed for me.
2022: Another section of border, looking through to the kid's cubby and swingset. A seed-grown apple from a friend in the sunlight.
2022: More borders, and our photogenic Finn.
2022: Another view from the pool, and our gorgeous girl Poppy enjoying a snip of shade from trees we planted. No better feeling. The larger tree in the centre belongs to next door.
2022: The borrowed landscape of the established trees behind us.
2022: Our lovely new pool and glass fence, looking north towards the hills and a few lovely neighbourhood trees. The Viburnum Odoratissimum hedge was actaully rescued from Facebook Marketplace! A new extension meant the owner needed to rehome it. It transplanted well and should cover the fence soon.
2022: The lush garden I dreamed of but never imagined my girls would have when we were in the depths of drought.
2022: Kitchen window veiw, and exactly why we chose to convert our back deck into a kitchen. The Pergola here is gradualy being covered by a white Wisteria, and the pergola is actually our old carport! Poppy seeds were a gift from a gardener friend and delight us every year when they pop up.
2022: I will happily forgive them setting seed in the gravel when this is the show they provide.
2022: Accumulated fences and gates are invaluable for looks, garden structure and directing the flow of hungry chickens and speedy puppies. I love our little glimpses of hillside, reminding me that I am in a rural area.
2022: Irises are workhorses in our garden, I love them for their foliage as much as their blooms. I have been so excited to see these yellow ones pop up, passed on from other gardeners. Penstamons are also great additions to the garden and easy to propagate by cuttings. The veranda and deck off the Flat has given us a perfect area for meals outside.
2022: The positioning of our block on the back of a gorgeous rolling grassy park. The blue slide was re-directed over the fence during lockdowns so the kids could easily escape the garden and explore.