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A Little Bit of Garden Design

© John Bottomley

I noticed in an old gardening diary the other day, the writer had mentioned 'the European garden model which still dominates Australia's suburban landscape'. Now I can't say much about other parts of Australia, but there are still a few gardens in the area where I live that reminds one of the Europe. I have tried to make the garden a little more Australian - we really need to do so here as the weather tends to be very hot in summer. I am sure I have mentioned this before, but if I haven't, I have now. Some very kind person who read my last article suggested I plant catmint and/or gazanias in the area where there is a gravelly type of soil - this I will do. The area I am thinking about gets a lot of summer sun during the day, and I have collected a few plant names, which I am going to introduce to the area after I have planned and built the drive that surrounds the flower beds. The plants concerned are Cape Tulip, Lion's Ear, Clivia, Proteas, and Nerine. Some of these are South African in origin and survive this climate quite well. The drive is beginning to take shape and I will be spending the best part of the next two weeks filling in the holes in the driveway, placing down the border kerbs, and planning the positions of the trees and the bushes. They tell me that planning before you plant is the key to a successful garden. I planned the drive to be a circular one where visitors can enter and exit without blocking up the main entranceway to the house. That being so, I didn't see any need for it to be just a plain drive. I thought the drive should be a place to show off some of the more colourful plants that we can grow quite well here. There will be some low-level shrubbery in the foreground, we already have enough large trees, and I hope they will eventually cover most of the ground. I must confess, even mulching the whole of the driveway area has made quite a difference to the look and the feel of the place. A shrub for May, they tell us, is Templetonia retusa, that grows to about 1 metre (3.3 feet) and has deep red pea shaped flowers. Looks as though this might fit in well on the drive. The common name for this is "Cockies' Tongues". Referring to my copy of the "Perth Plants for Your Garden", I notice the plant is described as a very attractive many-branched shrub which can grow to as high as 4 metres (13.2 feet) in the sheltered coastal positions. The 1 metre (3.3 feet) refers to when the plant is exposed to wind, that is where it will be positioned in my garden. It flowers from April to September.

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