Over time, within the first crucial year, all this will unfold to you the careful wise watcher.
On reflection. it is easy to offer this advice, but it is so hard now to look back and see all the silly misconceptions we had about gardening in a warmer climate, having come first from a cold climate in New South Wales and a cool even growing climate in Tasmania.
The human mind can just about justify anything it deams fit to justify at the time, but I digress.
Assuming one is familiar with ones climate or one has waited the sensible period of time to equip yourself with the information which will become your template for plantings; what is the first step?
For most of us, the structure of the existing soil with its micro-oranisms needs to be looked at for this is the foundation of plantings to come.
If you know the soil is poor, then depending on your budget, you can import good free draining local loam, remembering that the whole of your garden does not need to be converted overnight into a dream garden. This works well on sandy soils but with clay soils you may need to get in with a rotary hoe and break up the beds, adding sand and well composted organic matter.
Looking at the contours of your palette, for this is what your yard is, the future palette of colour; try not to level out the odd natural contour or land dip; unless this is what you want, for reasons of ease or safety. Contours and dips will be future areas for plantings of woodland type plants, or bulbs which need protection during the peak of summer. During the cooler months, cold loving plants and bulbs will stand their best chance of survival, here in these contours or gullies.
As we are all individuals, the style of your new garden will be that of yours and place will also dictate the style you end up with.
As regular readers know, I started off here, trying to create for want of a better term, an inner urban woodland, which protected my plantings of Alpines and Bulbs. Now, three summers gone I see that the strongest will and desire will not manifest the impossible.
A hot garden needs a canopy of trees and other structures to help lower the temperatures and break up drying winds. This we can cover in part 2.
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