When I posted this picture of my 'garden' last June, I had already started the process of making something out of a pretty sad, nothing.
I started by ddeveloping a track diagonally down across the face of the 'dropoff', so that I could get the wheelbarrow down to the lower level.This is the 'track.....
See...the wheelbarrow goes down the track...
In this photo you can also see (squint!) the little plugs of pigface I stuck in all over the face of the drop off, to see if it would 'take'.
Yes, you really do have to squint.....
I planted these little bushes along the fence line. They apparently grow to 4m high, although they've got a long way to go.....
And I put in a few agapanthus rescued from my neighbour's rubbish pile, just for good measure.
You can just see the pigface starting to 'take off' in the above photo.
Anyway, by the end of the summer the garden was starting to look like this....
And then winter came....with soursobs....
In winter in the Adelaide hills, you can just about forget gardening. These insidious weeds take over everything and in some ways it's a test of the resilience of your other plants. If the soursobs don't choke them, they should be reasonable stayers in your garden.
I engaged a gardener through the winter, to spray the weeds and lay down some mulch, mostly in the front garden as it is a more manageable size. At the end of winter he came and whippersnippered all the knee deep soursobs in the back garden. Unfortunately he also took out two prostrate Jasmine, a Nandina, two Clerodendrums and all my alstroemerias.
Undeterred I decided to start 'terracing' the drop off, with the sleepers left over from the stairway demolition.
And now it is starting to LOOK like a garden.
Meanwhile up the top...
I started to attack the weeds and improve the soil ready for planting.
A friend gave me a few cuttings and I fastidiously sifted the soil to remove as many of the soursob bulbs as I could.
This is what it looks like now...
Sadly the gum leaves are an ever present disadvantage of living in the hills. Sweep them up one day and they're back the next.
By November, this is how my garden was looking....
The top half is starting to look more covered (thank you pigface) and the alstroemerias had recovered and are starting to add some much needed colour. A strange white pipe had emerged through the bank however, the terracing was rough and unfinished and my path was starting to disappear as soil washed downhill every time it rained.
So I've been hard at it this past week, trying to finish the terracing (in a very amateur, girlie fashion. They'll probably end up halfway down the hill after a good rain...) and planting up more succulents.
Path before...
Path after....
Still got a ways to go I'm afraid.... but ooh! I forgot to tell you about the 'art' my sister Smokey Jo gave me for Christmas...
I'm planting little succulents all around it so eventually it will be emerging from a bed of greenery...
The bottom of the garden remains a separate story, dependent as it does upon my getting the retaining walls around the lower shed attended to. That will involve heavy equipment so I am mindful of not planting too far down as it will all be trashed eventually.
A for those little guys along the side fence? Well, they've still got a long way to go....
But let's just remember, 12 months ago.....
And now.
