Christmas in the Garden

The garden announces festive cheer

I take a walk around the garden and I can see the colours of Christmas all around - right on cue, as if the plants know exactly when to start their display for the festive season.

The New Zealand Christmas bush is bursting with superb red and white flowers - it truly lives up to its name as the flowers appear like Christmas decorations all over the bush. What a sight! A ready made Australian Christmas tree - a gift from nature.

Red is everywhere in the garden, not only is it my favourite colour, but it's perfect for the festive season and marks the beginning of summer. I've placed three pots of bright red geraniums below the stairwell so when I go into the garage and garden they are the first to greet me with their bright and happy colour.

The berries are also out like little red beacons in the greenery. Although there are only a few plants at present, they still produce enough berries for a daily taste of raspberries, red currents and strawberries. My favourites are the tiny alpine strawberries. They are so flavoursome, the taste is so strong and resembles sherbet lollies rather than the traditional large strawberry. I will definitely need to plant many more berry bushes next year as it has been wonderful each day to wonder into the garden and pick the fruit straight from the bush. The regular strawberries are the only ones not to have produced as expected. Many are eaten by bugs before they fully ripen so now I pick the strawberries just before that point and finish to ripen them on the kitchen bench. I will need to find out what to do about that. Anyone has any suggestions?

The satisfaction is that you can go from that.....

To this.... a scrumptious summer berry tart!

The rainbow silver beet is also showing off its colours for the festive season.

It's quite amazing to see that the initial plantings are doing so well. I guess plants aren't that dissimilar to people: they need food, water, care and attention to hopefully lead a healthy life.

That said, the only red not to appear in the garden this summer, to my great disappointment, is that of cherries. The two cherry trees have been attacked by cherry slug. A disaster, as cherries are also a favourite of mine. Early in the season I sprayed the cherries to no avail, the slugs returned. I have waged war on the little buggers and although have fought numerous fortnightly battles with Eco-sprays, there are still a few eating away at the tips of the branches. Albeit slowly, I am gradually defeating the slugs as one tree is now clear of any pests. However, this year the loss has been heavy and there are no cherries even though the trees flowered quite prolifically. Any helpful advice on how to deal with cherry slugs is welcomed.

Oh well, means this year I will have to find a local grower and visit a cherry farm to get my cherries.

About the Block - Creating a Garden

Transforming the block at Gordon into a garden

Last post I showed you the block as it was in the beginning - a few ornamental trees, some shrubs and the ground completely covered by wood chips to which I added a few vases of potted colour here and there to please the eye.

The property was originally developed in 1992 by a local architect David Hamilton for himself and his family. It was one of the first properties built on the hill, Amber Ridge, in Gordon and he sure got the best pick of the bunch when it comes to the view.

The architect, after a couple of years, decided to relocate with his family to Queensland, a much warmer climate and subsequently sold the property to a university professor who lived alone. The professor unfortunately suffered from a terrible disability; polio had returned to haunt his later years and therefore he was not able to inject the required energy into further transforming the land. I suppose that is one of the reasons why only a few feature trees were planted and all the yard was covered with bark in order to reduce maintenance and suppress the weeds. Completely understandable. To be honest, I don't know how he managed. As I mentioned previously, you have to be pretty fit to live here -there are lots of stairs, steps and slopes both inside and outside the house. However I must say, the property looked very neat and tidy.


Potted colour around the house to make the garden a little more cheerful

Matthew and I bought the property in 2010 and moved in towards the end of that year. The property overall was in need of considerable repair and maintenance. Since then, we have slowly been transforming the land and trying to turn the block into a garden. Truth be said, the block, as it was previously, was much easier to maintain. As I added borders, paths and plants so the upkeep increased - watering and weeding. On many occasions, the garden has gone out of control!

I was not sure I was doing the right thing changing the garden, particularly as many of my first plantings were unsuccessful. I tried to plants herbs I could use in cooking like rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, mint and tarragon. Only the rosemary survived. It didn't take long for the plants to wither and die. After watering, I started to check the soil and realised that the water was being absorbed by the wood chips and was not reaching deep into the soil to the roots of the plants. The soil beneath was dry as ever, even after considerable watering. Not that there was much soil anyway. The soil was mainly powdery wood from previously broken down bark or bright orange and brown clay.


Rosemary survived the tough dry conditions and heat

To make the back garden look bigger we removed the rear wooden fence palings and replaced them with wire mesh. To my eye, it appears as though the property does not finish at the fence but instead continues into the distance. It's as though the nature reserve behind the back garden were farmland forming part of the property. Nonetheless, the removal of the fence resulted in being able to enjoy the views of the bushland and farmland on the hill. We also decided to remove the fences which separated the front and back gardens so as to be able to move freely from the front to the back of the block and enjoy the views all round. Our neighbours also benefited from the new views.




Removal of the wooden fence opened up the view to the nature reserve behind the back garden


As for the front of the block - I created a path with all the rocks I found lying around the block or had been dug up when planting. It goes to show how many rocks there were as I was able to create a path from the front steps of the house, across the front garden and up the south side of the block. There are still many more rocks and stones. I chose to start an initial planting of hardy, drought tolerant plants to create a cool green effect in the front garden. My brother and sister in-law were rennovating their garden at the time and kindly gave me quite a few blue bearded irises. I divided the clumps of irises and spread these throughout the garden beds in a naturalised fashion. The irisies have done well and I was able to get the desired effect. In the next few years the irises should mature and multiply adding to this effect.

I realised that once the initial planting had become established, it has now become easier to plant other varieties of plants, even more delicate ones which require moist conditions. Subsequent plantings have been successful and maintenance less fought with difficulty. The soil has improved somewhat with leaf litter, compost and of course the trusted horse manure.

Finally, I'm on my way to creating a healthier, more fruitful and attractive garden.

About the Block - Gordon

It's been pointed out to me that I haven't explained what the land around the house is like. I've been asked to describe the block of land in order to give a better understanding of what the garden and conditions are like and what I have to deal with to achieve my goal of self-sufficiency.

Well, here goes...

The house was built right in the middle of the parcel of land which measures approx 990sq metres. The block of land is retangular in shape with the front and the back of the block being the narrower sides. There is more garden at the front of the house than there is at the rear.

Below is a rough sketch of the site.

The person who lived in the house previously was a biologist - You'd expect a varied selection of flora but no not in this case - the garden was quite bare. The house was surrounded by only a few trees and by old wooden fencing: 

Two  beautiful ornamental flowering cherry trees, a crepe myrtle and a large tulip tree in the front of the block;


Front of block looking towards the street

Two well established olive trees, a native pine and a young Canadian maple in the back;
  





and a Japanese maple, a pine tree and a robinia along the south side of the house.

 

The entire garden was covered in wood chip mulch only occasionally intrerrupted by a few shrubs (9 in total). Under the mulch there was (a still is) hardly any soil. Most of what is under the wood chip is clay and rock.

The shrubs must have been particularly selected for their ugliness and annoying traits - they are all Australian natives for arid areas, are spikey, have no or minimal small ugly flowers and lose leaves that prohibit growth of any other plant around them due to oils contained in their leaves, a bit like eucalyts. I can understand that these plants may be beneficial during a drought and may attact native wildlife and birds, but they don't. There are so many wonderful native varieties available which explode with colour or have interesting foliage and flowers.


As like many other Australian natives, these shrubs need a considerable amount of water until they become established, you can't move them or they die, too much water and they die, they don't show you any signs if they're sick or diseased, they just die.


I've noticed that birds seem to prefer the nectar of the robinia flowers and of the two shrubs of exception - two beautiful large pink proteas which I have since discovered are not native to Australia but to South Africa.






The best bit to top it all off .... it's all on a slope. Yes, that's right... A steep slope! One you can abseil down. Well, that's exaggerating a bit - but nonetheless, it takes quite an effort to get around the block.

Visitors often reach the front door panting heavily (unless your fit) and on a few occasions pranks have been played on people - The person has been given our address by some (not very nice) friends or acquaintences and these poor persons have turned up to our doorstep sweating and gasping for air to only find out that 'their date or new friend' did not really live here. At least the view would leave them breathless, in a good sense that is.

Not than Matthew and I are fit, far from it, but we must have become accustomed to the steepness. However, after working in the garden for some time, my calf muscles become sore. I must learn to routinely stretch before and after working in the garden.

My initial stage in gardening was simply to make an aesthetic transformation. During the past year, I have been trying to improve the soil and beautify the garden somewhat with bright coloured flowering plants.