transformation

Good news!  I sold the three huge ficus on ebay for $50, and better still, they came and dug them out for me!  I'm so happy!  Here's what the spot looked like before.

And here's what it looks like now.

I still can't quite get my head around the difference, it's so much space opened up!  You can see down the driveway more clearly now which isn't necessarily a good thing since when the gate is open it's open to the laneway.  But the yucca are staying because they provide some welcome screening.  I hope those hedges grow in where the ficus has shaded them out.

Now I just need to think about what to put there!  I'm considering some tree peonies - apparently they're very slow-growing but take surprisingly well to dry summers.  I just have to make sure they wouldn't get too much hot afternoon sun.  But I don't want to grow anything too big, no point in taking out one huge plant only to replace it with another.

I'm also deciding whether to put a "pond in a pot" in that area.  All you need is a large pot with the hole filled in and you can have waterlillies, water plants and even a few goldfish.  Yes, I know, I used to have a goldfish pond and I filled it in.  But I didn't like where it was, it felt like wastes space.  But a small one in this area ... I'll have to think about it.

two big projects

I'm toying with the idea of a few big projects for this year.  The first is this corner of the front garden.  What you see there is a little cumquat tree and behind it, two ficus trees pruned into circles.  There's actually a third tree to the right if you can believe it, shoved between the second tree and the hedge.  Behind them are two 3-metre-tall elephant yuccas.

I'm getting frustrated by the ficus trees.  They're so tall we can't clip the tops anymore, even with the ladder.  The path there on the left is pretty narrow but the ficus keeps growing out into the path.  I have to clip them 2 or 3 times a year just to keep them under control.  And they're so thick that no light or rain gets to the ground beneath them, making that whole area a dark, dead zone.

So I'm considering cutting down all three ficus trees and replacing them with a smaller, more open and deciduous tree.  I'll keep the elephant yuccas, they don't really fit the style but they're so tall and stunning I don't have the heart to kill them.  And I'll keep the cumquat tree.  But I'm thinking something like a crepe myrtle, or of similar size and shape, would really open up that bed.  The tree would be on the south side of the yucca, which is why deciduous would be better, when it's in winter shade it'd be dormant.   I'd be able to plant underneath it, and you'd actually see the plants! 

In any case, it's best to plant deciduous trees in the winter when they're dormant, so that's a project for next year.  But I'm open to suggestions for what to plant!

The other project is for the side beds.  Remember how I filled in this half with pebbles?  Well I'm now thinking that all those pebbles are wasted space.  All I need is a path to walk along, I don't need 30cm of blank pebbles!  So I'm thinking of pushing back the pebbles and moving the bed forward, all the way along the house.  On the right side, I'll extend it at the back half but probably not the front half whilst I wait for the creeping fig to cover that ugly fence.

I made some extremely gimpy "drawings" of what this might look like.  For the nearer left-hand bed, I'm thinking I might move the hellebore forward and plant something with some height behind it.  Or I might plant something short in front of the hellebore.  Something a bit lush and shade-loving, since this corridor doesn't get much sun.

And out the back half, I'll plant something more sun-loving on the left.  I'm thinking I'll replace the liriope with more miniature yellow day lilies, to get a nice purple-yellow combination when the lavender is blooming.  But I still have to have a think about what else I'd plant along the front. 

On the right I'll need something more temporary.  At the moment the back-right half gets a fair bit of sun so it can take things like marigolds and sun-lovers, but the near-right half is more shady.  So I might stick to annuals or cheap perennials in the short term.  In the long term, in maybe 5 years my vitex (in the raise bed to the right) should start to spread some shade across that whole area.  Then I'llbe able to transform that whole right-hand side to a more shady-woody zone.

This project I think I'll start sooner rather than later.  Moving pebbles is hard work so I'd rather do it in the cooler spring.  And if I move the hellebores, they're more dormant in summer. 

Just when you think your garden is "done" ... heh.

autumn in the garden

Well it's definitely getting on into autumn.  We had another few days of sunny warmth with chilly nights, but as of yesterday it turned back to cold and rainy.  There aren't too many trees in Melbourne that put on an autumn show, and they tend to get a bit brown and burnt over the summer which dampens the autumn colours even further.  For example my little Japanese maple hardly has any green leaves under all the dead, burned leaves so I don't know if I'll see any colour from it this year.  But I did take a photo of the grape vine along one fence as it's now in that lovely in-between stage with shades of green, burgundy, yellow and flame.  And it should get even more stunning before the leaves fall.

I also swapped over my porch flowers, the salvia and alyssum were looking pretty tired.  As promised, Mari, I wanted to grow pansies but after looking at what they had I decided on violas instead.  In the garden shop they had big pots of both pansies and violas and the smaller violas looked a bit nicer when they were covered with flowers.  I'm really happy with the colours and I hope they put on a good show!

I also bought creeping fig to plant along the fence, but it's so cold and windy today that they'll have to wait.  Same with the onion seedlings I was going to plant out, until I heard there's hail in the forecast and decided against it.

Edit: OK I got up the courage to plant the creeping fig.  Turns out that narrow side yard is a WIND TUNNEL.  Oh my lord it was freezing.  I'm pretty sure I set a personal record for fastest planting.  No pampering, not even any watering, just into the ground (it's going to rain this week anyway).  They don't look like much at the moment but in a few years, hopefully they'll cover the wall.