Have you ever seen those computer-controlled fountain displays? Jets of multicoloured water, sometimes illuminated at night, maybe with a musical accompaniment, erupting and dissipating, children running, squealing and laughing through those summer jets. Colour and form constantly changing. That’s what we want to create in our new garden – a riotous, seasonally-changing palette of colours.
We left an unending, tropical greenery in Darwin. We now want a new style of garden, an unending cornucopia of reds, blues, yellow, purples and pink daubs – a seasonal variety ever changing across our new, cool climate homestead.
Our ground is heavy clay below a thin veneer of ‘dirt’. We will bring in a rotary hoe and spread lots of gypsum, before topping with truckloads of premium topsoil.
There will be scallops of low, mounded soil embankments forming the front boundary. There might be a modest lily pond, with a little solar pump moving water and providing an aural tinkle near the front door.
The dining table is heaving with butcher’s paper. Ideas, drawings, circles and arrows; plant lists categorized by form, colour and size. We’ve hit all the local nurseries as our project takes form.
It is agreed that the front garden needs to achieve continuous colour. Winter-flowering daffodils, then springtime yellow Japanese, and blue Dutch iris spiking upwards through the spent daffs. I wonder about orange Californian Poppies taking things into summer and autumn. These could be interspersed with wild, red Iranian poppies. There will still be space for bird-attracting Wallaby and Kangaroo grasses. Their height will provide interest as they drift in the breeze!
We agree to sacrifice a section in the front for three small grassy spaces. These pockets will have an edging of red, orange, and mauve native ground covers, Running Postman, dichondra, a little purple geranium, and some yellow Everlasting buttons, all providing an abundance of colourful splodges throughout spring and early summer. They will eventually move up and over the mounds.
Trellises along the eastern side of the house will provide support for screens of white and blue Hardenbergia. While usually seen as a ground cover, we are hoping they will trellis and provide some spring wind protection. We will erect a two-metre-wide frame on the western side of the house that will carry a Wisteria vine. It’ll provide mid-spring, massed blue flower clusters, forming a dense green awning against the summer’s hot afternoon sun. Autumn pruning will enable valuable winter sunshine to penetrate and warm the house.
The backyard is going to be mostly dedicated to food production, albeit space is being set aside for a cubbyhouse and secret passages planned for small, future adventurers. Miniature varieties of European and Japanese plums, grafted apple and pear varieties, a Tahitian lime, Meyer lemon, and a cumquat. Space is being allocated for espaliered quince and cherry trees, but we both agree to forego apricot, peach and nectarines, acknowledging tiresome diseases!
We’ll build four self-watering wicking beds for seasonal vegetable production. A little garden shed will be partially screened by the installation of three large water tanks, one reticulated back into the kitchen, two to supplement our generally sparse gardening needs. All beds will be seasonally mulched heavily.
Marigold announces her pregnancy as we start to plant out the garden. Gaia, our Earth Mother, bestows her imprimatur!