What a Difference a Year Makes

It's hard to believe the growth in a year. Our front garden is thriving and is such a source of joy and contentment.



Looking back at January 2011 blog, when planting began, much work has ensured throughout the year with my much loved roses being planted in June. I love David Austin roses and I chose varieties of Evelyn, Graham Thomas, Glamis Castle and Charlotte, creating a colour scheme of cream and old gold. They have all done me proud with gorgeous blooms throughout the year.





I love having fresh flowers inside and yesterday whilst unpacking a box of gorgeous vases from the Savvy group for Rapt Up, and with the roses looking so lovely, it was the perfect opportunity to make an arrangement. I gathered together some Murraya Paniculata leaves and some Glamis Castle blooms. The vase really enhanced the arrangement.

I love this range of vases and the wonderful thing is they look just as gorgeous with or without flowers.



Rapt Up also has had a year of enormous growth and just like my garden is a great source of pride and contentment.
New stock is arriving daily at the moment and I will be sure to make sure you hear of all the wonderful new items as they arrive.

Front Garden Transformation.

With great excitement all the plants arrived in cupboard boxes ready for me to plant.

And then down came the rain. We had 88ml over a 24hr period, I am sure that it wasn't welcome by all, but it was great for my little patch. It made digging very easy, and in fact at one stage I was out in the weather trying to finish putting in all the plants.




The front garden is a very formal garden, and follows the Paul Bangay's style of garden. All the plants have been chosen for their drought tolerance. Even though we are having a lot of rain at the moment, after coming out of a long drought, and Sunraysia is well known for our long hot summers. I think all gardeners now garden more wisely.



All the borders have a hedge of Japanese Box which when fully grown will be kept clipped at 60cm high x 45cm wide. Inside the borders in the corners are Cypress.



The boundaries boarding both neighbours I have planted Murraya Paniculata, which well be kept clipped at 1200 high by 600cm wide. In the raised garden bed I have chosen white convolvulus which will spill over the brick wall and should look lovely with their grey leaf and white flowers.

On the nature strip, where there would usually be lawn, I have chosen a ground cover of Myoporum Parvifolium. It has compact low growth with small white flowers. It will cover the area very effectively in a short amount of time and is water efficient.

It was a huge effort to plant around 300 plants in a few days, but I just took it slowly and some family and friends gave me a helping hand over the weekend. David has gone back to work, he will really notice a difference when he is home next.



The last task was to complete the watering system, which all the plants are on automatic drippers which are set to come on overnight. I haven't applied mulch yet, but I have it and will do that task over the next few days.

All the garden beds still need a lot more planting, and as the weeks go on I will add some more. There are quite a lot of roses to be included but I will wait for the cooler months and buy them bare rooted. This will also give me time to decide what ones to plant. I have lots of favourites but as this is a much smaller garden that my last, I will have to think carefully before I order them.

The Hard Work Begins

David ( long suffering husband) has a week's holiday, so with garden plan in hand, we are standing out the front garden ready to tackle the next job. The first job was to build a retaining wall to form a large garden bed where there was a fall in the land.



Rather than remove the dirt and have a level surface, our garden planner Margot thought it best to work with the lay of the land and have the retaining wall garden. The wall looks great finished and certainly creates a lovely front garden feature. Can't wait to see it filled with plants.

This garden bed will be filled with a Murraya Paniculata hedge bordering the neighbours boundary, 5 ornamental Capital Pears, then roses and Nepeta "Walkers Blue" spilling over the wall. With the retaining wall finished, it was time to start putting in the watering system. When the watering system is finished all the garden will be under drippers, that will come on automatically during the night.





David took 2 days to complete this, but I was finally able to plant the Pear trees. David started to lay out the plan for the rest of the garden and put edges around some garden beds, but his week off has gone quickly.



There is a lot more infrastructure to be done before I can start planting, but the job has started and will continue for weeks to come.