Phase Two

I am beginning to see the evolution of our garden here at Brindabella in certain stages or phases. Phase One has now passed – where we established the new boundary, pushing the original fenceline out a bit further to claim some paddock as garden, erecting the new fence, getting a big ol’ bulldozer in to pull out about 20 cypress trees, strategically planting trees here and there to compliment the original garden, and re-taming the established stalwarts of chestnut trees, camellias and rhododendrons. Now, we’re entering Phase Two – slowly but surely moulding and shaping our Earth into what we originally imagined, those ‘one day’ projects which we’d been putting off until we got the bones right are being ticked off the list.

The veggie patch was very much the beginnings of Phase Two and is now complete, planted out with little seedlings of leeks and beets and chard and radish. Our sights turned to the ‘new’ part of our yard, what used to be paddock, this area I have a vision for what it will one day look like – it was time to get the ground work underway! Our little white gate once stood at the front of the house on the original garden fence, although it’s nothing fancy we thought it would be nice to retain it somewhere in the yard, so put it in the new boundary fence. I’d been dreaming of a wisteria or rose climbing over an arbour framing the simple little gate, so while we were on a building roll with the veggie beds (and had the auger to dig holes!) Matt started on a little structure…

It’s still a work in progress as we got a bit distracted doing other parts of Phase Two! Patience, grasshopper. The long expansive wall of the carport has been begging for a garden bed along it. The wall is west facing so I thought I might plant it out with roses or geraniums or other afternoon sun lovers. With the ground falling away though Matt needed to build a little semi-retaining wall of sorts, using rocks from one of the nearby paddocks which has only been cultivated in the past few years (hence lots of rocks!) The soil was very gravelly from the foundations of the carport, luckily we needed some more gravel on our muddy driveway so we dug out a fair bit of it, spread it on the drive and replaced with more of our delicious topsoil.

This area of the garden is a dirty little secret I rarely share on the blog. Exhibit A: the tanks. A necessary evil in a country garden, and don’t mistake me, I am very grateful for our gorgeous rainfall that makes our garden so green and bountiful…but our tanks are less than pretty, and ideally I would like them hidden behind the shed altogether, but as Matt has pointed out time and time again to me, that isn’t something that’s going to happen in a hurry (more of a 10+ year plan!) The thing in the meantime is…do I grow something around them, large shrubs or possibly a climber, which will then inevitably have to go when/if they move? Phases…phases. Sometimes it would be good to do things in the now, but more often than not it’s about foresight and forward planning. We also don’t like how our garden has been ‘divided’ by that wall there. It does make our backyard very protected from the wind but it’s also a pain to walk around! So a path between the tanks and knocking out a section of the fence could be part of Phase Three. Look at me getting ahead of myself as always. Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize…

We also pushed out the yard boundary to possibly…maybe…one day…hopefully, extend our cosy little farmhouse. If we ever were to renovate our little home here on the hill the logical place to go would be out here…

…so, I continue to envisage our future garden, maybe with a chunk of our home in that there space, maybe not. Whatever the case, it’s in the back of my mind as we go through Phase Two, planning, thinking, standing back and tilting our heads and tapping chins ever so thoughtfully. Hmmm… Can you see large swathes of my cottage garden perennial borders along the fence on either side of the arbour? And that tiny fig tree in the tree guard there growing big and gorgeous and having little people climbing it? Me too, me too.

I digress. Another step in Phase Two was digging up some beds in front of the shed, easily done and liberally topped with our (free!) mulch from nearby tree loppers. I do love the look of our funny old green shed, and some big blooming hydrangeas in front would really make me a happy little green thumb. These beds are South facing with not a great deal of sun so it should work fabulously, perhaps underplanted with some shade loving hellebores until the hydies get some guts to them. Thank-you to the Instagrammers who are always ever so helpful!

So Phase Two continues, ebbing and flowing with my Tourettes-like mind with more ideas, wants, needs than time or efforts. It’s so easy to just want everything to be done and dusted now, but I have to remind myself that the reward is exactly in the ‘phases’, the chipping away at it for literally years and years. Journey not the destination and all that.

Has your garden evolved over time like this too?
Had to pull out well established parts as you re-arranged?
Got more plans than time, like me?