Garden

I thought it would be nice to do a garden update since we've been living here for 1.5 years and have spent most of our time/money on our garden.  When we moved in (see the photos here) the garden looked quite lush but unfortunately, most of our privacy plants were actually weed species. It's really hard to remove plants, especially screening plants but we have a long-term goal of removing all the invasive species and replacing them with plants we love including a good mix of natives and insect loving flowers!

On our invasive species list are, African Tulip Trees, Asparagus Fern, Cats Claw, Ochna, Cadagi (the giant and beautiful tree in our backyard - it's staying!), Singapore Daisy + Mother of millions (almost have those two under control!), camphor laurel, bamboo, umbrella tree, yellow allamanda and the usual weeds like bindis and Cobblers pegs (+ many more!).  

You can tell our garden was previously a rental because the plants that are doing well have invasive like tendencies - very hardy!  Even though the wisteria vine is so beautiful, it's quite invasive in itself and needs a big cut back after it blooms to keep it in its place :P

We managed to salvage this wire green house frame from my grandma's old property it just fit on the ute! 

Before and after! Although it's only marginal growth it's still nice to see plants growing.  That plant in the middle is a native called westringia with small purple flowers! I didn't get a good shot of the plant to the left but it's my pride and joy and I'm certain will be our front garden's show stopper.  It's a weeping tea tree which I had Ben's mum identify for me after seeing it in a neighbour's yard.  Its leaves are so lovely to run your hands through and I love seeing it grow - it's almost as tall as me!

My miscarriage garden - such a cute spot in the yard.  There's a frangipani on the left but it's growing very very slowly mostly because its had to regrow several times.  Those bamboo stakes were placed in because Joopy and her dog friend Shanti kept destroying the plants - they love to run to the front of the yard and peer over the rock wall at people below!

Another before and after above.  This has a bit of a back story!

That backstory involves our ongoing battle with bamboo! Like everything we have the invasive type.  The tenants/owners before us controlled the bamboo by mowing over fresh sprouts without addressing the dense root system which spans 70% of our yard.  One idea was to get in a digger and remove it all.  This would have been great except, we have the craziest neighbours.  I know everyone says that but we literally have a crazy elderly neighbour with a drunk abusive son.  Luckily I've had very little contact (thank you bamboo screen!) but Ben has been sworn at and put under interrogation for not being white.  So we need to keep some of the screen for peace and safety!  After lots of talking our final plan was to hire a trencher (machine with a big chainsaw looking blade on the end) and then fill that trench with cement to create a root barrier, pulling up all the roots on the opposite side. Ben gets full credit for making this project happen!

The trencher which actually comes with it's own story.  We hired it and unfortunately the gentleman dropping it off wasn't confident with how to operate it.  As they were backing it off the ute it rolled on top of Ben.  I only saw the events play out from the corner of my eye and I heard Ben yelling.  As I was running over to help I assumed I'd need to start doing CPR (so scary!) luckily the only thing damaged was our gate and Ben's knee (still not cool) but they did end up giving us the hire for free and Ben's knee is doing okay now!

We roped off where we wanted to have the trench and then we spent a few days cutting down the excessive bamboo

I naively assumed hiring a machine would make the job easy but getting the trencher through our hard pact soil was a big effort!! In some sections, it wouldn't even get through after multiple passes so we had to hand dig.  I can laugh about it now but at the time it was pretty stressful, we worked hard hand digging the trench right up until the cement truck arrived! Super stress!

Now he's got a cruisey job! Had to get a photo, its not every day you have a cement truck outside your house!

You can see after some rain all the fresh bamboo sprouts.  We're letting them sprout up as guides so we know where to start digging.

Digging bamboo roots is really tough!  Our poor soil is compacted from all the dense bamboo root structure but we know we're doing our best.  The long term goal is to have a garden where we can successfully plant other plants knowing they won't have to compete with bamboo roots!

So much bamboo! In this section, my dream is to have a freshwater pool to dip into on hot days.  To be honest I have loads of plans and we have a limited budget :P

Euphorbia! These aren't on the invasive weed list but they are prolific growers and need to be reigned in!

Our cadagi! I'm so sad this is on the invasive weed list :( Once the flowers bloom and drop, the seedpods open which attracts the small Australian native bees who'll collect the resin attached to the seeds. Unfortunately, it's these seeds that cause issues in beehives, from clogging the entrance of the hive to expelling too much resin and causing overheating issues.  We just had the tree bloom so we're going to do our best to cut it back to reduce the number of seedpods!

One of my early projects - 'cadagi cafe'. I dug out some of our hill to make a little eating area.  It took a lot longer than I first imagine but I was pretty proud of myself! Nice to have lunch and not have your plates slide off the table!

Passionfruit! One of my favourite flowers and fruits :)

I'm hopeful the passionfruit vine will eventually cover our entire fence!

You can see the wisteria vine covering our fence at the front.  We planted that spiky yucca the other day (a free find at the tip) and on the far left you can see the red-flowered ochna (weed!) and over on the far right the tall African tulip (also a weed!).  Both will eventually go.

The wisteria only blooms for a few weeks during spring but it's amazing when it does. 
Not only is the colour divine it releases the prettiest scent!

We got the raised garden bed for free via fb market place.  In my other veggie beds, the grubs always got to my spinach before I could, so I'm trying out the net to see how it goes.  The right side planter was from Dad's house and is currently filled to the brim with mint!

I've started drinking iced water with mint and lemon - so refreshing in summer!  I don't have a picture but on our bank outside our yard I've planted a bunch of natives plus a lemon and fig tree!

This flower is called a gaura butterfly plant

The yellow kangaroo paw is as tall as me now! I have two more passionfruit vines over on this corner.  My hope is they'll cover that ugly pool fence that we had to put up to stop Joop from escaping.

One of the good original plants - bird of paradise!

This was an earlier photo but it shows the archway we put in at the front

It's pretty basic but Ben and I were proud of our efforts!

Another original gem of the garden a camellia bush (yay for not being a weed!)

Finally, the last garden bed we've been working on.  We tore out the crumbling cement ramp that was originally there and built a new wooden one.  It was screaming out for a little garden.  Those shaggy plants in the middle are called Casuarina Glauca also known as Cousin it! I'm looking forward to seeing them bush out in the coming years and that entry space transformed :)

A little potted scene beside :) We have two ponytail palms (the guy in the middle) and we're toying with the idea of putting one in the ground :)

I try my best to spend some time, each day in our garden. I get so much joy from watching things grow, seeing the flowers bloom and picking things from the veggie garden to eat. I feel immense gratitude for having this gift in my life :)