DIY Garden Revamp Plans

Hi all! I am back!

Just for an update.  We have moved into our new property in March 2014. Took us a few months to settle down.  It's a two-storey house and this did get us some getting used to. Little S tumbled down the stairs a few times but he got the hang of getting up and down pretty fast!

Spring is finally here! In winter, the garden was not inviting and I merely kept up the maintenance. Can't wait for warmer and longer days!

This new garden was not at all what I had wished for.  To be honest, I was absolutely devastated.  This house was definitely a good buy in terms of location and price.  The garden is far from my dream one.  There is plenty of work to do if that dream was to come true.

Firstly, there are several medium and tall trees.  I am sure the roots are well established down below for anything else to grow. And the back garden, where most available land is, is mostly shaded due to the trees' canopy.

Secondly, the land is slope and has 'terraces'. There are plenty of rocks to deal with.  We have a creek at the back and the area is sprawled with overgrowth of creeping weeds.

Our plan is to remove much of the medium-sized trees to allow more sunshine. I doubt we will have permission to remove the large trees, but I do not plan to do that anyway.  I like the kookaburra's visits on the tall gum tree and we are getting rainbow lorikeets coming on our neighbour's eucalyptus tree.  I am sure my two boys will enjoy bird-watching. I would like to retain a bit of the towering greenery.

Okay. Here's my deck. I love it that it is right out of the kitchen. And here's some proposed plan :

I bought a passionfruit vine - Panama Black, which is most suitable for our Melbournian climate. I prefer the Panama Red but unfortunately it may not be that frost-hardy. It's strange that the garden centre is selling the red since it is more of a tropical vine!  My boys love passionfruit.  So do I. And they cost quite a bit to buy. I love the look of a climbing fruit vine too. I am thinking of planting it in the soil below the deck and allowing it to climb up built trellises up to the deck.

You can see the canopy of the medium-sized trees  and tall trees beyond. The spotted-neck pigeons frequent these trees but I really need to allow more sunshine by removing them.

The is the patch right below/beside the deck. I shall name it Patch Deck.  I removed most of the weeds in winter and covered the ground with weed mat.  Not sure what I will plant just yet but definitely something edible. I am planning to plant the passionfruit vine here where the compost bin stands temporarily, build trellises and let it climb up the deck.

I have also just put my culinary lemongrass into the ground.  There's sunshine at that spot and being able to grow really tall, it would be ideal to put the lemongrass there.

Two trees and a shrub most likely will be removed, plus all those groundcovers. I found some hellebores and rosemary growing in the same area and I would like to keep them.

Making Way for Pittosporum Golden Sheens

A cool morning with weather forecast for showers and possible thunderstorm but none happened. Hubby, myself, Samuel and our church-mate Robert went over to our new property to get some work done after our church service. We have ordered our 24 pots of Pittosporum Golden Sheen and we planned to plant them in two weeks' time, so we needed to make way for them.

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Work done : 1. Cleared all existing mulching and weed mats and all the roses and small bushes. 2. Chopped down the oleander shrub (which was huge) and camelia with a chain saw.

Mulching, roses, shrubs and weed mats cleared.

Oleander sawn down to stump.

I was very pleased to spot a huge arum lily flower (above) along the fence. If not for the flower, I would have pulled all the 'unknown plants' up!!! I realised that they are all arum lillies growing...one of my favourite flowers which I had used for my wedding.

Another lot of arum lily plants which I have to either remove or replant them as they are in the way of the Pittosporum Golden Sheen.

Camelia sawn down as well.

1. All the branches of the oleander stacked up at another two stretches of mulching, waiting to be slowly cleared.
   

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   Now we have to just wait for the professional we have hired to poison the stump and dig them up and of course, to dig holes and plant the pittosporum hedge. How exciting to see my hedge up! It will be a very different scenery.

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   Follow up work that we have to do soon :

   1. Raking up the fallen plum leaves. 2. Weeding the growing dandelions and lamb's tongue (as usual sprouting up everywhere) 3. Figuring out how to remove a few existing calla lillies and replant them somewhere else as they are growing on the area where the pittosporum golden sheens are to be planted. 4. Chopping and gathering useful straight stems from the oleander for use as stakes. 5. Pruning the large plum tree (paying a professional to do that).