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Grass gardens
"ant" wrote in message
Farm1 wrote: but then she ends up with a stunning garden as only Poms seem to be able to achieve (sigh). If you are a keen gardener then I'd recommend buying it but if you are only looking for ideas then I would recommend borrowing it through al library even if you ahve to shel out the $3.50 for the interlibrary loan fee. Sounds like a nice book, even just to read. but sounds like it'd be useful. I'll ferret it out. My mother is a horticulturalist and very successful nursery owner, but she's always been into English style gardens and just doesn't understand my hydrophobic soil, the wind, the dryness. she put a bloody fernery under my eastern deck for goddsake. Tattered struggling things they are. Then she planted a camellia next to it. Words fail me. LOL. Take heart. I started in this place with some very rotten dirt and the hydophobic soil too. It took me a long time of using manure and mulch but each year things do get better. I now have worms and instead of being a pale calf sht yellow colour I now have soem areas of rich brown soil. I found a neighbour who has horses and no garden. I now get ute loads of manure and spread it fresh and then mulch over the poop. I don't have time to age it and I find that it doesn't seem to make any difference to the ornamental plants. For the veg, I just spread it on the beds at the beginning of winter anf fallow them with leaf or lucerns straw mucl on top - come spring it's lovely. BTW, not all English style plants are a failure in our area - it just means choosing the right ones. Tell your mother to give you some Euphorbia s - they do reasonably well in rotten soilb ut do brilliantly in better soil. I buy 2 English gardenign mags - "Garedens Illustrated" and "The English Garden" as I find that the ideas are so good int hem for design and mass planting but then I have to choose the local do good plants. There are lovely dry gardens in our area... the sculpture garden down at the National Gallery, for instance, and over at the Botanical Gardens there's a real beauty. Yes they are lovely, especially the sculpture garden. But go for a walk through the ANU at sometime - good ideas there. Also go off to some fo the open gardesn roudn here - lots of good ones round here. Try to get to Michelago if it's ever open. My mother thinks a grass garden is a mass of grass that'll catch fire. I see a grass garden as sort of minature landscape, with paving, rocks placed carefully, gravel, and grasses. A book would help, pictures showing what can be done. I'll check it out. Thanks! Sa'llright. Don't neglect to think about using sawdust - it is great if you can find bulk manure to mix it with. |
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