A Garden Update

There have been lots of bits and bobs going on in the last couple of months that I haven’t had a chance to blog about.  One of those things is the garden.  Autumn is one of the best times to get things done.  Mick really enjoys spending time gardening, now that he doesn’t have to go to work.

Firstly, at the beginning of April, our street trees started change to their autumn colours.  They have grown so much in the seven years we have been here.  They tend to lose their leaves very early in the season.

I bought a Jacobean Lily bulb a while ago, as Mum always had one growing in her garden.  It was just popped into a pot and forgotten about. I was delighted to see it in full bloom.  They are rather striking.

As most of the back garden is settling in for winter, the climbing rose provided a cheerful pop of colour.

A couple of years ago, Mick removed some overgrown shrubs from one section of the garden and since then one lonely strawberry plant has spread and spread until the whole area has been covered.  This provided loads of strawberries, but looks rather unruly.  We knew that something had to be done to both tidy it up and make the area more productive, either as a flower bed, or for veges.

Mick has put his thinking cap on and come up with a plan.  Firstly, to lay it out with sticks to see what it may look like.  There are two dwarf plum trees there and Chinese star jasmine to grow up the frames at the back.  The dahlias add a pop of colour in the autumn, but are now sadly, all finished once the frosts started.

In the corner there are two fiejoas.  They will screen the tank and provide lovely flowers for the small birds to visit.  Oh, and maybe some fruit.

Once he had the plan in place he used his metal working skills to fabricate some garden edges.  It’s handy having a tradie for a husband.

Then a trip to get some pine bark for the paths and it is all done.  It looks so different to what was there before.  We have elected to retain the brick garden edging that was already there, despite it being curved.  We will continue to grow strawberries under the bird bath and both fruit trees.  There are now onions planted under the mesh to the left and broad bean seed under the mesh at the right.  We have birds that love to either dig up or nip off new plants, so hopefully the mesh frames will protect them.  Ongoing, we should now be able to grow some corn and other larger crops that we haven’t been able to grow in our raised garden beds.  We’re really pleased with how it looks.  Mick has done a terrific job.

And here has a wider view of the back half of the back yard.  The raised garden beds and house are to the left of here.  The raspberry hedge is both sides of the arch.  After Mick lifted the matted plants last winter, they did not fruit this year.  We look forward to a crop once again next autumn.

While he was going and making garden edgings, he also made an edging for around the crab apple on our side lawn.  As it is a low spreading tree, it is always a pain to get the mower underneath.  Now it will be much simpler and still looks tidy.  There may be a garden planted underneath, but not just yet.

I always like to take a photo of the yard when we get our first frost.  This year that wasn’t until 6 May, which is rather late.  We won’t complain. As you can see, the vege beds are pretty empty.  There are just a few onions and we have planted some beetroot.  The spinach is the only productive plant at the moment.

Once we returned from our latest jaunt to Lake Cargelligo, Mick was itching to do even more in the garden.  The garden along the back fence, that you can see in the above photo is also looking rather untidy and straggly.  

We have already removed an overgrown grevillea and the remaining shrubs are splitting, due to the heavy rain last year.  We have been waiting for them to finish flowering before removing them.

Here is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.  We were pleased to notice that there were actually new shoots growing from the base of the two shrubs on the right, a pittosporum and a red bottle brush.  Mick had already cut some of the apricot bottle brush back and it was already shooting, so the decision was not to totally remove the plants, but give them a really sever cut back and see what happens.

I didn’t get a photo, but there was a huge pile of prunings.  By chopping them small and borrowing green bins from two of our neighbours, he was able to get them all collected without having to make a trip to the tip.

It looks rather bare right now, but hopefully, in spring they will start to take off. 

In the meantime, I picked the remaining bottle brush flowers and we enjoyed them inside for a few days.

I’ll finish off with just a couple more photos.

Our Japanese wind flowers have been putting of a show and this was just before they were all frosted.

The first sign of the new season has already appeared.  Mick planted some mixed daffodils under the raspberries last year.  I was surprised to see this one already blooming, while most haven’t even appeared or are just sticking their first shoots out of the ground.

I hope you enjoyed your little walk around the garden.