Back courtyard

This is another courtyard I have to tackle in my gardening efforts. As you can see it is beyond ugly. There was previously a pseudo-retaining wall in place. I say pseudo because it was falling down and not doing much retaining.




Now I'm left with the remnants - a massive pile of soil I need to remove in order to reclaim the garden bed.

Once I manage to get a skip bin in, remove the sand and actually get the garden bed in a decent state, I'm not quite sure what to do with this one. As you can probably tell from the picture this is effectively a service area at the back of my house with the (currently out of use) clothes line.

I'm thinking a low maintenance hedging plant of some variety. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Miss Lola

This post has absolutely no relevance to my blog whatsoever, but after *misskitty* spyed a hint of Lola in an earlier picture, I thought I'd post a full picture. Lola is my family's gorgeous pet Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, she's about 8 months old now and is very popular with the neighbourhood kids. If anyone is considering the breed I can highly recommend them. This is the second Cavi my family has had (and we love them so much my Mum is considering getting a second). They are gorgeous, gentle dogs and are great with kids. They aren't the brainiest breed out there, but definitely trainable. They love company, so probably aren't suitable if you aren't home a lot.

So by popular request, here is a picture of the gorgeous and totally pampered Lola , snoozing on my brother's bed. There's a few more pictures on my flickr account if anyone is keen - just click on the picture to access flickr.

Before and Afters - the Kitchen

Ahh yes the kitchen. I'm sure I've posted a few progress shots along the way, but I don't recall if I ever provided full on gory before shots. Looking at them now I have to admit I don't remember it being that bad.

Before:

Here it is in all it's cream and brown glory.

You'll see in the after shots I chose to lose the pantry to open up the space.



During:


Carcass of the kitchen cupboards being installed.






After:

Is it my ideal kitchen, no... if I had the opportunity to do things again, would I change anything... maybe, but hindsight is a bitch. At the end of the day, I do love it. Even if I still dream about having extra money in my budget to install stone bench tops in as opposed to laminate. I think I made the right decision for my house and the market when (if ever) I sell.

Garden inspiration

If I had unlimited funds to revamp my garden... and

If I lived in Sydney....

I would be using Secret Gardens of Sydney to design my courtyards.

I happened to stumble across their website while looking for garden inspiration and let me assure you, it was love at first sight. Here are some examples of their work which make me want to cry (because they are so very beautiful). One day Kristen... one day...

All images and garden designs via Secret Gardens of Sydney.

I love my Mum

I love my Mum... we had one of those typical mother / daughter moments over the weekend as I'm sure every single person experiences from time to time.

She popped over to visit me with a bunch of gorgeous flowers and take-away coffee from my favourite local coffee shop in hand. I'm not sure if it was a peace offering or just because she's wonderful.

In any case, I think she's the best Mum ever.

Front courtyard - plans and ideas

OK so despite my (rather whiny) previous post, I do have some ideas... at least about one of the spaces I'm working with.

I was walking around my parents' neighbourhood recently and fell in love with the garden of a house around the block. It's gorgeous, modern and has that whole architectural feel. I got chatting to the neighbour and (as it turns out) the house is architect designed and the garden was landscaped by a well-renowned landscaper (just my luck right?). I took a couple of sneaky photos with my iphone, so you'll have to excuse the quality:

I think the massive row of mother in law's tongue looks amazing... with the gorgeous giant mondo grass in front *sigh*. I'm not sure what the tress are, but I adore the row of moses in the cradle around it.

Acting on inspiration, after calling about a zillion nurseries I managed to track down some mother in law's tongue (although only about 1/3 of what I need). (On that note, if anyone in Perth has some in their garden which is getting overgrown, I'd be happy to take it off your hands).

This is the gorgeous plant I'm talking about if anyone is unsure:


With this in mind, I've somewhat devised a plan for my front courtyard and would love it if anyone has any input. Here is a little sketch I've drawn up myself (using paint - it's totally not to scale, but I'm sure it will provide a general idea until I upload some photos):

Here's a picture of the courtyard to give you a better idea of things:

Basically I have an L-shaped garden bed. I plan on running a couple of rows of mother in law's tongue along the back of each wall (green dots). Then I was thinking of having a row of mondo grass, or possibly moses in the cradle in front.

Where I'm running into problems is where the stars are depicted in the corners of the flower bed. I think I need to do something different there to break up the space. I was considering having 3 identical pots with a feature plant in each (and possibly cover the soil with stones).

The courtyard itself is particularly shady, so any plants that require full sun won't be suitable. Does anyone have suggestions?

Gardening...

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in forever. I am officially a bad blogger. But if I still have any readers left out there I would love some assistance with my garden.

Gardening... where do I start?

I hate gardening. I hate my garden. I shouldn't really say things like this, but it's how I'm feeling about the damn thing at the moment.

But for some minor tweaks, my house is all but finished internally. I have furniture which sits perfectly in each room, I have pictures on the walls, I have a coffee table complete with coffee table books... what more can a girl ask for? I'll tell you what - a nice garden!

I know these things don't happen overnight, but why does gardening have to be so dirty? I know I'm sounding like a big wuss of a girl here... but come on... You literally get dirt underneath your finger nails!

My "garden" is currently non-existent but comprises of 3 separate courtyard spaces which are all essentially empty garden beds. I previously had a bougainvillea which was spiralling out of control and some natives which weren't doing too well - so I've gotten as far as ripping them out. But now I face the unfortunately dilemma of trying to establish a whole new garden from scratch. I'll be sure to post some pictures later of what I'm dealing with.

Does anyone out there have some links/ sites/ blogs I can go for garden inspiration?

I know what types of plants I like, but picking out what goes together is a whole other story. The whole outside of my house is a (gross) creamy coloured brick, there is brick paving throughout the courtyards in the same colour. I can't do much about the walls (being a strata property) and I can't really afford to change the pavers at this stage. So for the time being, it's all about the plants.

I was chatting to a friend and according to him I like "architectural plants which serve no purpose other than looking good". I'm not sure I'll argue with him there... I like strappy grasses, whether they be red or green, variegated or not:

I like mondo grass, especially as a border plant:

Image source.

I love yuccas, agave, succulents and other architectural looking plants:

As far as trees go, I don't mind the odd "old-fashioned" plant like little gem magnolias, flowering plums/pears and camellias.

So how does a girl bring all these ideas together?