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Romaine Undery's Garden Down Under

© Carol Wallace

Hello! my name is Romaine and I would like to share the development of our Garden at St Georges Basin in New South Wales, Australia. It all began in 1988 when the garden was merely a rectangular block of land with nothing more than grass growing and a half built house. With much more effort it had, what Peter and I used to call "Potential." There was however, a multitude of wonderful native birds surrounding it, announcing their presence with a chorus of chattering and screeching.

Usually "noise" is the last thing that would inspire anyone to start gardening. However, for me this was certainly the case. You see, my husband's Father Jack, is a member of our household and loves to talk..with great volume. I'm a reasonably polite person and will usually listen to those who wish to speak.. but sometimes the length and volume of these conversations would get the better of me and I would have to venture outside for a little peace and quiet...A breath of fresh air. It was during this point and a visit to friend's house that got the "Gardening Bug" in me growing. My friend was about to move to Canberra to live and had some interesting pot plants she was unable to care for. As a friendly gesture and as a memento, I half-heartedly volunteered to keep them growing. After all, it couldn't be that difficult a task and surely gardening was just a matter of putting plants in the ground, giving them some water and watching them grow. Surely nothing to it.

My first garden consisted of these pot plants and were quite an odd mixture of greenery. I planted them all in unimproved clay soil situated in the full sun. I can still clearly remember the "green things" from these pots I planted and remember wondering when and if they were ever going to grow. There was one strawberry plant, a small banana tree, an erigeron plant, an amusing elephant ear, also in the collection was a begonia, some scraggly peppermint and an arum lily. Unfortunately, the banana tree soon died and so I replaced it with a Thuja conifer from our first family Christmas together, which then also died. Perhaps it needed more water when it nestled in the pot, all covered in pretty tinsel!...I do recall other unfortunate fatalities before I realised that I should water more often, mulch the garden sometimes and dig up and improve my clay

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