Starting small

With most of the yard looking, as my better half described, like a "war zone", I decided we should plant the small triangle garden near the kitchen window. Just to have something looking good for the Christmas visitors.

There's one lonely Mt Tamboritha Grevillea in it at the moment.

Waiting to be planted are 2 Grevillea Fireworks, 2 Grevillea Winter Delights, and another Mt Tamboritha. I also grabbed a ground cover Grevillea that might squeeze in there.

It's good old red soil in there, but the drainage doesn't seem to be perfect. I think the reason the Banksia died was more from overwater than underwatering. Whoops.

I spread some gypsum, and am about to give it a bit of a feed with Blood and Bone.

I am pondering spreading some compost and old mower clippings through it as well.

The nursery

If you look beyond the overgrown grass in this picture you can see a disintegrating cardboard box, and in that box is the makings of our garden.

A few wattles and a handful of bottlebrushes.

They probably should have been planted already, but they seem to like the dappled sun they're getting in the makeshift nursery.

Nasty Surprise

We thought clearing out the rubbish from the old garden would be a matter of poisoning the weeds and ripping them out.


But the previous owners left us a surprise.


When we got rid of the weeds we found some stones. Well, not some stones, lots of stones. And underneath the stones, black plastic. And underneath that plastic more stones, and underneath those more stones, more black plastic!


Mulching 1970s style.


So what was supposed to be a weekend job looks like it will be week-neverending job...