Romaine's
Garden 
Romaine's
Garden 
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This is a north facing garden, often highlighted with the morning sun and includes twenty one Viburnum tinus plants which were a wonderful Mother's day gift from my family in 1994. These have now joined to form a strong, clipped one metre front hedge. If left to nature however, these autumn - winter flowering, evergreen plants could eventually reach as much as five metres in height. Anyway, unless I was unfortunate enough to lose my trusty green secateurs which would be a disaster, this probably won't happen.
Four years earlier I had planted an evergreen alder and an evergreen Chinese liquidambar. These two features planted about ten metres apart were to become a starting point for the new front garden. The viburnum hedge formed the straight edged boundary on the north side, while the south side consisted of curves made by placing a hose along the ground, pouring sand on the hose and then digging this edge. (I also removed the hose before my spading efforts chopped it to pieces.) This is my favourite method of defining a new garden as I can easily move the hose all over the lawn before I eventually make up my mind.
I found that starting a new garden on a budget was actually an achievable task. However, this did require me to have some patience. Many of my plants have come from cuttings received from family and friends, from school fetes, market stalls and seed packets. Once I even stopped at someone's house and asked the person if I could have a piece of her aurora daisy which was coloured a lovely lemon yellow. I had been driving past for more than a week admiring it. She was a friendly lady who was flattered that I liked her garden and happily gave me some of her plant. Actually, I had the same request of a beautiful pink geranium from someone else unknown to me. As a rule of thumb though and as a thank you, I always try to return the favour by giving these kind people plants from my own garden for their collections.
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Patience is a virtue when it comes to gardening as nothing seems to grow overnight, (unless you happen to be Jack planting a beanstalk of course.) Some quick fillers I have found to be useful and inexpensive are daisies, gazanias, pig face, erigeron and agapanthus. As these grew they were also easily divided and in turn shared among fellow gardeners.
This four year old garden is now densely planted and is one of the walls of the Secret Garden. I have attempted to create a series of foliage contrasts in a cottage style by adding such plants as : a Cecile Brunner rose, buddleia, shasta daisy, peppermint geranium (which is a favourite from my Grandmother), a luculia, escallonia, sasanqua camellias, purple wisteria, white gaura, jasmine, daisies, perennial ageratum, purple cat mint, scabiosa, sages, French lavender, hollyhocks, and lastly not forgetting the forget-me-nots.
In the February of 1999 a group of women with a keen passion for gardening began meeting regularly each fortnight.
From 9.30 until 12.30 we would visit a members house and help her accomplish tasks within her own garden. These were often tasks which were put off due to the scale of the task or simply the time constraints placed upon us by daily routines. Our ever increasing "gardening wish lists" would include such things as weeding, pruning, moving soil, potting and moving plants and also various projects such as painting fences, building ponds, chook houses, cubby houses, stepping stones and archways .
With the wonderful help and enthusiasm of the group our motivation became irreversible and the daunting tasks of one person became a quick and enjoyable job for the group.
As you wander down this page you will see the many accomplishments of the "Garden Angels"...and I thank each and every one of them.......