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You wouldn't read about it. We moved into our new home a month ago, armed with boxes of gardening magazines full of ideas to filch, loot and pilfer, err - I mean adapt! Oh the satisfaction of sinking my spade into the soggy soil. But oh, the stupidity of leaving the spade still stuck in the ground. One week later, rotten stinking burglars took advantage of my gardening spirit and used my spade to smash in the back door. Then, to add insult to injury, they stole our camera, complete with 'before' shots of the new garden. So I apologise again for the lack of photographs this month.
In four weeks I've painted the fence black, bought two trailer-loads of river stones, lugged them about the section to create a modernist, minimalist rock garden, built a stainless steel two-bed potager (I intended to make four raised beds out of metal, but the engineering considerations proved somewhat tedious. So two will have to do!), painted pots in grape and mint green, made a potting table and sprayed the entire section with copious amounts of Roundup, to kill the weeds. The kikuyu grass is dying but it's going to take something closer to Agent Orange to exterminate the onion weed, couch grass, invasive ginger and clumps of canna, wandering Jew and dock. Unfortunately, because I want to get stuck into the planting as soon as possible, I can't use chemicals. I will have to dig them out instead. The first plants are already in - ten passionfruit vines for fruit, flowers and a glossy green cover along the boundary fences. Amongst the stones outside the garage I've also planted a mature Karaka tree (instant height), the intense blue grass Festuca glauca, a trio of Scleranthus biflorus (a New Zealand native mound-forming moss, which Grant and I know affectionately as the 'pat-me-plant'). For textural interest, three Hebe topiaria will be pruned into balls and soft, fleshy echeverias can creep into the gaps. The potager is also planted. I really want an immaculate vegetable garden but I'm also realistic. I will, as always, plant far too many vegetables for any normal couple to eat (let alone Grant and I - we're disciples of the takeaway generation). Because the drainage is so lousy, the two 1.4 metre square beds are raised by about 40 centimetres. Dad kindly Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article The new garden: Getting Stuck In! in New Zealand Gardens is owned by . Permission to republish The new garden: Getting Stuck In! in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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