Why Jess's Garden


As I think about it now, I chose the name because I garden to create a space that I want to share with my family.
This blog has now evovled to be a discussion about how I'm attempting to create a personal and physical home for my family.
Creating a garden is a key part of that process, but it is not the only part, so I feel the different parts of this blog are all congruent to the same goal.

Wednesday 29 November 2006

Sunday 26 November 2006

Layout of the garden


I'll try and describe what I have to work with. Above is a very simple picture of our block. It is not to scale. The Black rectangle, with the square coming off at the top is our house. (that square is our sunken master bedroom) The black square at the bottom/side is my mother's Dawdy house. The pink lines are the fences.
The 2 green triangles are two small fully paved and walled courtyards, both with gates to the front. One (on the right of pic) is a triangle courtyard off our master bedroom, with full glass windows and sliding doors for nearly the whole length of the wall. The other courtyard (left in pic) is the entrance to the front door.
At the front of the house is a large nature strip lawn with several mature trees and a small cottage garden style garden that was there when we moved in.
There is a large garage/shed in the backyard and a carport on the left side of the picture next to the house. The backyard was a mixture of beautiful lawn and concrete when we moved in with a hills hoist clothes line. By 6 months I had killed the lawn through neglect and I'm still trying to resolve that problem.
The final point of interest is the blue in the corner between the house and flat which is a deep when designed fully filtered fish pond which was there when we moved in.
Lots of background info on the yard, and I'll start to explain what we have done since we moved in next time.

The Beginning

Well the question is why have I given in and started a Blog. I am learning to garden and I've tried keep a journal, I've tried a photo journal. These worked well, but now I'm trying this. 18 months ago DH, myself and my mother brought a 4 bedroom house with a granny flat (better known as the Dawdy house). My mum is a keen gardener and has slowly been trying to convert me, though I had begun before she started. The last few years in our old house I was going tomatoes in pots.
After 12 months of gardening I'm now fully engaged and beginning to plan a whole house/garden outline. Over the next few posts I'll show and explain what I have done in the last few months and then I'll beginning showing where to now.