From the Ground Up

Our new property is a full acre. When I stop to think about that I think I must be nuts taking on a garden that size. Yet the majority of it is laid out in the easiest way to maintain: large trees that don’t require work and grass a mowing guy takes care of.

The rest is far from ideal: a difficult-to-access weed infested embankment. 20% of the property will require 95% of the time, energy and money to fix and maintain.

I’ve entertained plenty of ideas about what I’d like to do here: native gardens to attract birds, productive vege beds, pergolas covered in grape vines and more fruit trees. But the gap between what I have and what I dream of is pretty wide, and I need to consider what I can physically do now and as I get older.

I’ve been struggling to tame what we have. Having gone away for a while, I can see that the philosophy of dividing work into smaller, manageable tasks isn’t working. Too much of the work required has to be done everywhere at the same time, to keep the costs down and prevent weeds spreading.

I’m now taking a step back and looking at the garden from a different viewpoint and asking myself: what do I want to achieve here?

1) a garden with no structural issues
2) a garden we can easily maintain
3) an attractive and usable outdoor spaces
4) a productive garden

So I’m setting my sights on numbers 1 and 2 for now. Drainage, soil, weeding, mulching. That’s more than enough to keep us busy for quite a while.

5 thoughts on “From the Ground Up

  1. Going back a post – what grasses are you planting? I planted a heap of different grasses in my new garden 10 years ago and am now removing most of them even though some of them are beautiful to look at. I’m keeping Poa labillardieri. Coming out are the ones with no dormancy – Austrodanthonia spp, Dichelachne, Dicanthium sericeum, Microlaena – Dicanthium isn’t too bad, but the others do spread. Also coming out are Themedia and Austrostipa spp. – they have a dormancy so don’t spread aggressively, but those seeds are not friendly. My only regret is that I might now have fewer butterflies, since the grasses are the food plant of many species.

    • There is one part of the garden where I’d like the grasses to spread. Particularly up the neighbour’s slope, which has no topsoil or plants – not even weeds – just the exposed roots of the enormous row of cyprus. I’m hoping that by establishing soil-holding grasses along on my part of the embankment, soil will build up behind them and the grasses will gradually spread up the slope over several years and provide some protection from erosion.

      Otherwise I was going to plant lomandra, dietes, dianella and maybe poa. Do they have unfriendly seeds?

      • Poa has tiny round seeds, so no probs with them burying themselves in cats or clothing, and they have a dormancy period so it doesn’t go rampant. Dietes is not Australian – were you intending to Go Native? It can self-seed, too. Dianella and lomandra aren’t a problem. Dianella has fleshy blue berries of dubious edibility (some species are safe, some aren’t); lomandra has hard shiny round seeds in spiky bracts. I have one dianella with blue-grey leaves, very tough, and pale blue flowers – interested? I could give you a root. Lomandra are dioecious, and unless you buy from somewhere like La Trobe Uni WIldlife Reserve you will usually find only male plants (commercial growers keep the females for breeding). I bought L. hystrix (I think – I don’t think it’s longifolia) from La Trobe many years ago and one turned out to be female. I do get occasional seedlings, but only in soggier spots. I have some spare if you’d like them. It’s the big strappy-leaved one you see planted on traffic islands etc.

        • I’ll not say ‘no’ to free plants! However, I’m not ready to plant quite yet. I will be needing several hundred seedlings when the time comes to plant out the beds.

          I had assumed Dietes is Aussie – I have it established out the front and intend to divide and use some of it in the back – which isn’t and can’t be 100% native, since I’m not allowed to remove anything with a trunk more than 10cm in diameter.

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