Friday, March 30, 2012

Friday Flowers {garden evolution}

No flowers in the garden this week. Yesterday I posted a photo of my nearly complete flower garden on Facebook. My friends loved it. I've realised that I haven't really been documenting the garden progress here on my blog. I think it's wanting it to be finished before I show it off. The in-between stages are not so  pretty, but I've decided to show you how far we've come. I'm about to put in an order for some spring bulbs and roses, so come spring that garden is going to look spectacular.
To give you some idea of the lie of the land before we started playing around with it, this was taken in January 2009. The orchard was smaller then, only 16 trees, so if you can imagine the orchard extending up to the fence at the right of this picture, my garden is sitting in front of that. The house site wasn't even there at this stage.

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I always knew I wanted a flower picking garden. Rob was busy planning his vegetable garden which was going to sit below my flower garden between the orchard and the laundry hut. But I drew a plan of what I think of as my garden, some of the plants I chose may have changed (not sure what I was thinking about with the privet hedge), but the structure stayed the same. Whilst the plot only gently sloped, ideally I wanted my garden flat. After the driveway was put in, all the extra top soil got dumped over the future garden site. This was excellent, except it was following the slope of the land. Some of the positives of taking so long to build was that we'd been through a few winters. So we knew where the water drained through the block. Our garden was in one of the natural drains that led to the dam. So in winter it got quite boggy.
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So in late 2009, after finding out we couldn't build the hut that year, we took our heavy hearts to the block, and we started digging. We dug down about a metre at the top end and moved it to the bottom to build it up. We left drains open underneath the 3 paths, and one along the back of the top bed. Sure we could have got a mini-excavator in and it would have happened in a day. But we were watching every dollar, and hard work never hurt anyone did it? There was something therapeutic about the digging and moving. We were at least doing something for our home.
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Rob working hard, by now we had extended the orchard. The 5 week holiday we had booked that Christmas, thinking we'd be helping with the hut build, we spent digging. We'd take a radio, tea and lunch and spend the whole day there. You can see digging is very fashionable work. Maybe you're getting the scope of how much soil we moved?
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Things slowed down for a little while but in spring 2010 we finally finished off those drains, the ag pipe draining through my garden and Rob's. We laid them in bluemetal, and then finally covered up those drains.
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By now the hut had started, creating yet more top soil, again we thought the hut would be nearly finished so Rob had booked some long service leave to help out. Sadly the hut was only at the framing stage! Besides I'd burdened him with a 4 month old puppy which probably wouldn't have helped. He still headed to the hut, but spent his time moving the new soil into his garden. I would come down and do inspections.
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Rob borrowed a rotovator and tilled the soil in both gardens. It did look neat, of course the pasture grass grew back, and will continue to do so until we mulch. This year for my birthday Rob gave me some timber to create the flower beds. We inherited some pavers for the paths, so he set to work making those beds.
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This is where we're at as of last week. We need to finish off 2 beds, plant my bulbs and roses, mulch all of it and lay some gravel on the edges of the pavers.
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I can't wait for spring, and to show you flowers every Friday from here. Now we can concentrate on Rob's garden. Then I think we both deserve a holiday that doesn't involve digging (particularly Rob)!
Thank you Rob, my garden is perfect.

12 comments:

Little Nan said...

My goodness, you guys have done a heap of work! It is looking great and a little inspiring for me to get into my own little garden! Off to the Melbourne Flower and Garden Show tomorrow to get some spring bulbs to plant!
I want to thankyou Hazel for your ever so kind words a couple of days ago, they were wonderful! Ta!
Hope you have a lovely weekend! Love Kelly xxx

G said...
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Sarah B said...

Wow, what a massive achievement! It's fantastic, what a great amount of space. I look forward to seeing what roses you choose :)

Mel @ Coal Valley View said...

Wow, that is amazing! You guys have been working hard!! I love the design. Bet thou are now glad you put the hard years in when you did as now you are up to the fun part. I also haven't posted about our garden as there is not much to see yet but it's actually great seeing progress shots like this . Thanks for sharing. And yes, you DO deserve a holiday, although a break at your lovely hut without doing any work would classify I a holiday wouldn't it?! Mel xx

Allana said...

Wow! What a huge job but it's looking amazing! :)

ally said...

That's massive...and its going to be so awesome
Vita-Sackville-West eat your heart out!!!
(I have some seeds for your garden if you send me your addy!)

Anonymous said...

it looks amazing. what a mammoth effort. all that digging! a beautiful spot you do live.

Katrina said...

It looks so beautiful! You must be so pleased that alllll that effort is certainly paying off now :)

Hope you have a wonderful week!
Katrina

carol : @perennial said...

Wow - love the progress shots. Very beautiful and the fruit of such labour! I put a "flower friday" post on my blog very week in spring. It's so satisfying. Can't wait to see yours.
Carol

Mothers Day Cake said...

Grate Job ! Your work is really very nice And interesting...Thanks for sharing this news.

Florist In mumbai said...

Really this blog is full of nature content and picture. Thanks for sharing.

Send Flowers To Mumbai said...

Nice job! Please keep it up.

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