Pottering About...

Didn't do much today, my hands are sore, darn blisters! I'll definately be getting some gloves.

I trimmed the Hebe right back, so it's ready to be yanked out. But I think I will need a little help with that little project, it's pretty well established in the ground. Here is the stump -
I've been calling the Hebe 'dead', but it probably wasn't DEAD dead, but it was fairly stuffed. It had gone all 'leggy', meaning the branches had grown long, with very little greenery on them. I think that the weedy grass around the bottom had been sprayed with weedkiller, which wouldn't have helped the Hebe.

However, there must have been a small spark of life left in it, because I noticed some new growth on the ends of some of the branches. I rescued a few cuttings, and I have planted them to see if I can establish a root system on them. If I succeed with that, then I will have new Hebe's without having to buy any at the garden centre!

So, I've planted them with much love into a few containers and fashioned mini hot-houses (out of plastic bags, plastic wire and a soft drink bottle) for them, to keep in moisture and heat while they 'do their thing.' This will probably be a fairly long term project and I'm keen to see where it leads. I know you can propagate woody plants from cuttings using the method I described, so fingers crossed. Here are some pictures -
I once again had the 'help' of my handsome boy, Willy, though he did more hiding than helping today -

The Work Begins....Part Two

Well, gardening is rather tiring and hard work!! Haha. Still, really enjoyable and I have blisters to prove it! I must invest in some gloves.

Let's see, what was on the agenda today -
- Dig side of the house plot. Done.
- Plant cactus. Done!
- Trim dead Hebe plant, so that it can be pulled out of the ground. Done (well, trimmed).
- Start pruning the big trees out the front. Done.

Now for the pictures, they do alot of the talking ;)

My supervisor for part of the day -
Mr Willy, my gorgeous stripey boy loves to keep me company when I'm in the garden. Luckily he was content to watch and snooze today. In the past he's helped me by promptly digging out things as I plant them :)

First things, first. Here is the plot down the side of our house (next to the driveway). It had a few weeds, and previous tenants had added scoria type stones to the top. The iron halfwheel is ours and it will be a lovely addition to the garden once it's established (it may not stay in this garden though).
And here is the plot during the dig -
And here it is once I'd turned all of the soil, and scraped off most of the stones, looking good! -
Right, so here's where I got inspired, and I planted the cactus down the end but it looked lonely
so I added some friends - an aloe vera (left) and a succulent (centre) -
but of course, I couldn't stop there! Here's what it looks like now -
Complete with driftwood. Driftwood is pretty inspiring stuff -
Ok, enough of that. Trimming the Hebe was next, it's dead so I want to dig it out of the ground. I cut it back alot, but it will need one more trim before I get in there and dig it out once and for all. Here are the before and after shots -

After I was done with that, I moved on to one of the larger (but not the largest) trees in the front yard. I trimmed a few of the branches with the saw (free firewood, woohoo). More branches need to come off, but I'd had enough by this stage. Here are the before and after -
I spent 4 hours in the garden today. I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

The Work Begins...

Yesterday, with a little help (ok, a LOT of help) from my mother, I cleared the woodshed of random rubble from previous tenants, and stacked a new load of wood.


Then we went round the side of the garage and cleared knee high weeds from a small plot, about 1.5m by 2.5m (guesstimate measurement, I can't be bothered going out to measure it).
This plot is the site for a planned 'potager' garden. I would like to have pavers of some sort to lead me around little plots which we will fill with vegetables and herbs. I envisage runner beans and sweetpea growing up the trellis at the end.

Today I mowed the lawns and pruned one of our lemon trees. It was a sprawling mess, but now is a little more controlled. It will get another prune in a few weeks, I wanted to leave the fruit growing a little bit longer, I've already harvested more lemons than we can handle from the tree!!

I also started our very own au naturelle compost heap in a corner of the garden. I originally wanted a more controlled environment for it, ie a bin, but I'm impatient and want to start it already!!! So here it is, in it's very humble beginnings -

And it grew a bit when I added some of the lemon prunings -

So, keep watch for over the next few weeks the compost will start to transform before our very eyes. It will be a very well fed heap because we eat a lot of veges.

The First Post....

Well, this is the first post in what I hope will be a regular garden diary, documenting the transformation of our garden from a (virtually) blank canvas into a lush wonderland full of our favourite plants, edible as well as decorative!

Naturally, the regularity will depend on how motivated I am to actually sit down and write about things that I've been doing in the garden. And let's face it, we all need even MORE excuses to spend time online lol *rolls eyes.*

There will be pictures of course, and they will be boring to start off with because the garden is not looking like much at the moment! But that will change over the next few months, finances and time permitting.

Ok, onwards and upwards!!