At a very late stage in life, I finally have stewardship of a garden. What joy!
I’ve always lived in flats in cities, and, at best, only ever had a small balcony on which to grow things, so, as you can imagine, I’m over the moon and looking forward to getting going. Anyone else a keen horticulturist?
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Whats the climate in your area like ? And what do you want to grow ?
What’s the soil quality?
Well don’t ask me for advice. Some people have green fingers, mine are more like agent orange. I have a robot lawnmower to look after my mostly yellow lawn. Everything else just withers and dies, apart from dandelions which grow through the cracks in the patio. I’ve tried carefully cultivating flowers with carefully selected soil and fertiliser, but those fuckers just think, “Concrete. Hell, yeah!”
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I’m in a coastal town just south of Sydney. No idea about the soil, but there are a lot of nice native plants that grow very well around here. The previous owners were keen gardeners, so it’s pretty nicely set up. There are magnolias, azaleas, grevillias and I’ve planted hibiscus and bougainvillea.
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I’ve just started to have a proper bash at it after years of fucking around and wasting money. The soil here is crap , clay underneath and practically nothing but the hardiest plants and bushes survive.
I’ve been growing stuff mainly in pots and planters but have decided to bite the bullet and build some raised flower beds to get stuff down for next year. Quite apart from the brutal summers we also have to contend with very wet springs and the plagues of slugs and snails that they bring.
I’ve been promising her that it’ll be really nice next year for about the last five years. Hopefully next year it will be.
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Do you get frost PR?
Barely. It might drop upto a couple of degrees below , but never for more than a couple of days at a time.
Azalea, magnolia and bougainvillea can survive light frosts.
Every azalea I’ve ever had hasn’t made it to the next year. 
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@Iftikhar is your man if go down the path of growing Aubergines
:0)
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Frosts must be a bit more than light I guess.
Yes. Although I have a very atypical mediterranean garden blessed with some large trees like elm and jacaranda, and planted out with walks and beds of salvias, bougainvilleas, cercis, roses and lavenders and clivias and camelias.
Key steps:
- Ascertain your macro and micro climate (especially aspects) re sun, wind and natural moisture;
- Map the garden;
- Enrich your soil;
- Experiment starting with plants designed for your climate and go from there.
Gardens usually have tricky and easy spots and if you treat it like building a football squad and recognise that its an everychanging thing (don’t over water your plants just like young players shouldn’t be paid too much too early) and have fun. Remember the aim is to enjoy (all the) season(s), not qualify for ̶e̶u̶r̶o̶p̶e̶ the Chelsea Flower show.
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And how big is the garden ? Asking if it’s big enough to have a tree.
Yeah, got a couple of trees.
Probably about 250/300 m2.
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Gardening is something I enjoy. Probably got that from my mum who went and built a full 1 hectare Japanese garden ( Impossible to maintain btw).
My big trees when living in the UK were about 5 variety of Cercis, greengage trees and a number of natives like beech, birch, hornbeam. Probably too many trees for a smallish property.
Now I’m in SE Queensland where anything evergreen grows in an instant, I’ve made somewhat an edible garden: pineapple (all from discarded crowns, which provide a good sized fruit after about 9 month), banana trees which are prolific (blue Java), macadamia, ginger, galangal ginger, Aus native ginger, tumeric, finger lime, limes, lemons, mandarin, orange, olive (tropic tolerant), riberry, nectarines, golden Malay dwarf coconut, avocado, then the non-edible, non-natives like poinciana, cassia (rainbow shower), and jacaranda. Heliconias, frangipanis, canna lillies and hibiscus are some of the few flowering smaller plants I have.
My property was very sun exposed before I started so I have been unable to plant any shade loving plants yet but I’ll start filling that in once those trees are a bit more mature. Probably some small ferns and some clumping palm varieties.
Again I’ve overdone it, particularly knowing how quickly things mature here - but I’ll make a call on what stays later down the road.
It’s such a foreign idea though needing to find the coldest place on the property for some plants to survive: even nectarines which are warm temperate trees need a certain number of chill hours to fruit. I’ve planted my 2 white nectarines in the area that gets the most shade in the mornings so that I can accentuate how much cooler temps they get. They are currently thriving: just under 2 years in the ground they are 4 metres high after pruning, with currently about 100-200 flowers on each tree. I’m probably going to need to fertilizer regularly to turn all that into fruit…
Probably the only annoying thing about plants growing well is also everything else growing well: wait a week after a rain event and there’s a thick blanket of weeds. On top of that, the fucking giant (gigantic) grasshoppers that constantly need killing ( throw them into concrete to stun them then feed to chooks). It’s all a mission but it beats the UK where it takes 10 years for a tree to get 3 metres high only to get knocked down in a storm event.
I’ve spent a bit on plants but I’ve also taken advantage of the fact many tropical plants grow from rhizomes which means they are either cheap or are sometimes discarded on the side of the road because they are so easy to propogate. My ginger was planted from a clump bought from the supermarket for instance.
I won’t say my garden now is as pretty or green as my one in the UK, but it’s certainly thriving!
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All excellent points. I definitely also support the idea of understanding the microclimates within the garden before planting anything, especially if you live in a place of extreme heat, sunlight, or freezing conditions. It can be difficult or impossible depending on the plant’s root sensitivity to transplant to another part of the garden of you’ve made the wrong planting location choice. Transplanting can often end up being more detrimental to a plant’s long term health than leaving it in a poorly situated spot.
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Nah , leaf drop after flowering long before winter and then just not coming back. I think it’s down to infestations. I had one that lasted about three years but since then every one has died on me.
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Brilliant post GK. I’m glad I started the topic now 
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Has anyone tried a garden mapping app?
It is one of the first things I wanted to do.
