Our Australian native garden

Since moving house, and ripping out everything that was growing in our yard, I've discovered a new love: gardening. Unlike most [read: all] of my hobbies, gardening forces me to slow down, as you have to be patient to wait for the plants to actually grow. This is a very good thing for me. In fact, I'm finding it very relaxing.

On the converse, if I'm cranky and need to get rid of some frustration, or in need of exercise, I can grab out the maddock and rip into the ground and after a short time I'm no longer frustrated [mostly because I'm so puffed - I'm REALLY unfit!].

Over the last 3 months we've been digging out, planting and mulching the back corner of our yard. The plan is to grow up a tall lilly pilly hedge along the fence to screen next door's enormous shed, and when the other plants grow, it will be a bit like an informal maze, with the paths leading to the paved area Mr E has put in the back corner. We've used Australian natives, put in a dry creek bed [with plans for a small bridge over this for the girls]. Now that it's all mulched, it looks amazing.

And all that is left to do is wait...

Initially we were checking on the plants every single day [mostly to make sure none had died, as we don't know that much about gardening]. Our neighbours would have laughed if they'd heard us "Look, there's a new shoot on this one!" "I think this callistemon is growing!" "One leaf on the lemon myrtle has been chewed by something!".

It has been such fun to plan, execute, and COMPLETE this project. Good for the girls too, who all helped with various tasks. Now we're planning the rest of the garden... it's a very big yard, and we've ripped everything out, so it won't happen overnight. But we'll have a ball doing it. And hopefully by the end of the process we won't have killed too many plants and will be able to call ourselves gardeners!