2020 - Page 4 of 5 - Andrea Whitely Garden Consultant

Last week, we had some work done on our driveway. Our local council put in underground power last year and the light pole which was on the edge of the driveway has been moved to allow for much better access to our property. This has given me a great opportunity to make some changes and start a new project.

We renovated our house about 7 years ago and when we did the builders destroyed the lawn on the verge, which is the space between our property boundary and the road. Technically, homeowners do not own this space but have responsibility for it.

We used to have a well-maintained buffalo lawn in this space, that was reticulated and was constantly being repaired by my husband after damage caused by folks driving over the reticulation sprinkler heads. I really value my husband’s time and was always concerned about watering the lawn that we were never going to be able to use in a practical sense, as this space is mostly used for parking vehicles.

This is why, when it came to moving back into our house after the renovation, I decided to plant purple Agapanthus, yellow Hemerocallis day-lilies and delightfully purple Verbena boneriensis, immediately outside our picket fence and on the other side of the council-owned tree which is a very large and not my favourtite kind of tree, a Queensland Brush Box (Lophostemon confertus), I have been placing woodchips that I top up each year or so with mulch that comes from trimming the Fiddlewood, the Marri and the Jarrah trees in our back garden.

Welcome to week 2 of ‘This Week In The Garden I am…….’

This week we are watering our neighbour’s garden.

Each year our next-door neighbour travels over east to visit his family and each year we look after his garden.

This year the trip for our neighbour has been particularly difficult as he has family in the bushfire affected areas of our country.

We take extra care of his front lawn, water it by hand and with a sprinkler and usually by the time he returns he has green grass out the front where once it was dry and dusty. We are mindful about watering the garden on the allocated watering days and keep an eye on the timer so as not to use excessive water.

We will apply a granular wetting agent for lawns again this week to ensure that the water we apply soaks into the sandy soil and really gets into the roots of the lawn.

We take extra care of his trees in the back garden, we have a bit of a vested interest in these trees, because we planted them, all along the boundary fences. In time, his garden will be a leafy green oasis with some really beautiful trees providing habitat for birds. You see, we ran out of room in our garden and so, in our quest for planting more trees on this planet we started planting trees at our neighbours’ place. It’s a rental property and he has the permission of the owners to plant trees and plants.

Year: 2020

This Week In The Garden, I Am….Making Changes To My Verge

This Week in the Garden, I am…Watering My Neighbours’ Garden