Garden Report: Successful Completion of Gravel Bed Garden Trials

The 'before' shot of the Gravel Bed Garden, before the Backyard Project got underway. A huge expanse of lawn that required care, so much water and it still looked a wreck.

October 2015

Tom at work painstakingly interlocking every rock to edge the boundary of the Gravel Bed Garden.

Sammy, Mat and Laura put in a french drain, laid drain cloth, added a layer of growing medium, and lastly placed the gravel.

April 2016

This garden is not going to be irrigated so I didn't have to wait for the irrigation installation before I could start planting. Early in the spring last year I started by transplanting rosemary bushes from other beds.

I started a trial path with different ground cover herbs to see which ones would be happy in the hot dry conditions.

Over the spring and summer, I planted samples of lots of different plants that fit my spec.

I marked the path out with empty pots which confused a lot of people - is that art?

August 2016

Plants have grown with only the occasional hand watering.

July 2017

The plants are thriving, having survived one hot dry summer and one cold wet winter.

Small Russian sage was planted early spring and by mid-summer had put down enough roots to support lots of flowers that the insects loved to visit.

Over this past spring and summer, I continued to buy and plant ground-cover herbs until the path was completed. Some plants aren't doing as well as others so next spring I may replant with hardier types.

Over the summer I often took my studio tea break sitting out in the Gravel Bed Garden so I kept an eye on how different plants were doing and when they needed help with a hand water.

October 2017

There was a lot of growth over the past summer. 

The 2016 plantings have grown to make the path covered over in some areas. Other plants were pruned after flowering then continued to fill out.

The Corsican mint path plants in the foreground did not cope very well with the very dry summer and may be replaced next spring. The other plants have done so well I will be cut them back a lot next spring.

I have researched plants that fit a spec and made a long list of suitable candidates. After successfully trialling some of these plants over 2 springs and summers, I can now go ahead and complete the plantings as planned. Come spring I will be out visiting my favourite nurseries with plant list in hand.

Backyard Project: Soil Building in the Lower Patio

The construction crews may have left back in May but it was then our real work on the Backyard Project began. One of the first things we did was build soil in the Lower Patio area. A broken down hot tub had been removed and concrete walls built to support new garden beds in this very sunny spot. We have great plans for this spot but first, we need to build the soil.

By build I mean provide the right conditions for soil organisms to do what they do best - make soil.

I began by sifting through all of the remaining soil to remove all of the rocks and construction waste dumped there when the house was built.

Then I laid lots of different wood down, including alder branches high in nitrogen. A lot of household paper and cardboard was also recycled back into soil building.

Keeping in mind the "Brown then Green" rule I alternated thin layers - green garden waste - a woody mulch mix - ash from winter fires...

..more green garden waste...

...with harvested comfrey leaves rich in minerals...

...another layer of much - with a good watering in between each layer.

Fungi mushrooming was an excellent sign. It meant the mycorrhizal fungi are actively building up networks and making food available for future plants. 

A large number of roly-polies and woodlice/slaters was evidence they were happy with the conditions and working hard to break down the wood making the nutrients available to other soil organisms. 

We kept going with the layers until the contained beds were 3/4 full.

The soil probe scientifically registered the happy conditions with temperatures in the active zone.

Sammy dropped off a load of very good quality topsoil. The more soil building activity going on the more the level in the beds dropped down. Over the summer months, Ron has been keeping the soil level topped up. It has been a dry summer and I have been watering the bed to keep the soil organisms alive and busy. 

In the fall the irrigation will be installed then finally I can add the plants. I have a number of the plants bedded down in other gardens patiently waiting for their new home.

Garden Report: The First Flowers in May

At the end of May, the first flowers bloomed in the garden.

I had planted lupines around every tree because they are one of the best-known plants for working together with rhizobia who fix nitrogen from the air and make it available to nearby plants.

Chives were also an early flower.

The comfrey plants were already getting large so it was time to cut them back.

The cut leaves quickly wilt and decay providing valuable minerals to the soil.

With so many new beds I haven't been able to plant very many of them yet the bees are visiting looking for food. It was for the bees and other nectar seeking insects that I left a lot of comfrey plants to flower.

The bees love comfrey flowers and were too busy to stop for a quick photo op.

Next spring I plan to have a greater variety of flowers to attract a greater variety of insects.

Backyard Project: Gravel from a Quarry for the Paths

We are at the stage in the Backyard Project where we need gravel to make the paths. It is a stage I am more than ready for. With the construction in its last stages, I want things tidied up. I know having the paths in place will make a big difference to the look of the place.

While using my 3 different length sticks I have gone around marking out the edges of the paths.

Here is the engineer pacing out the paths and doing gravel quantities calculations.

We visited the first quarry but they are very short on stock and didn't have what we wanted.

We visited a much bigger quarry with a greater variety of gravel. 

It is all about the size of the rocks, measured as an average: 3/8ths crushed or 1/2" washed etc. There are many different types of gravel to serve different purposes.

This quarry recycles concrete and drywall from construction sites mixing it in with freshly quarried rock to make special mixes for the roading contractors. We found out the roading contractors are very busy this month and this quarry has a contract to have a certain amount of a specific type of gravel for the roading contractors to come and pick up anytime.

Old asphalt crushed and re mixed for reuse.

For me, it was all about the sound the gravel made when I walked on it. I stomped on a lot of different piles.

We found what we were looking for and went to the weigh office to place the order. The deliveries are scheduled for 3 days time. Whoo hoo.

Pattern Language #175 Greenhouse - an essential garden design element

 Excalabor Glass & Aluminium has finally arrived after taking a number of weeks to make aluminium railings and to cut safety glass for the Propagation Room and Roof Top.

Installing the Roof Top railing posts

"...to keep a garden alive, it is almost essential that there be a "workshop" - a kind of halfway house between the garden and the house itself, where seedlings grow, and where, in temperate climates, plants can grow in spite of the cold." Pattern Language, p. 813

Levels and string lines

"Imagine a simple greenhouse, attached to a living room, turned to the winter sun, and filled with shelves of flowers and vegetables. It has an entrance from the house - so you can go into it and use it in the winter without going outdoors. And it has an entrance from the garden - so you can use it as a workshop while you are out in the garden and not have to walk through the house." Pattern Language, p. 813.

 The aluminium frame for the south-facing wall for the Propagation Room. Josh is working on the waterproof lining for the propagation table.

I have followed the guidelines for this pattern in that I can walk from my office (see the glass behind Josh) into the Propagation Room and I can walk from there out to the garden (see the entrance on the left). This is also how I get from my office to the Green Shed - my studio. There will be no door there so it is not going to be the usual hot humid greenhouse. In this seasonal rainforest climate when it rains so often 8 to 9 months of the year mildew and moulds are a problem if there is not enough ventilation hence the open entrance and the east wall of holey metal.

Top and bottom railing in place on the Roof Top.

The room faces south and will catch the low winter sun. The glass will stop the rain and so prevent frost from reaching the plants.

The guys have gone to get the big sheets of glass off the truck.

I will be using the room to grow cuttings until they are ready to transplant out to the garden beds. I  won't have the types of plants in pots that need overwintering in the greenhouse. That involves too much heavy work in the fall.

Glass installed on the west side of the Propagation Room.

"For someone who has not experienced a greenhouse as an extension of the house, it may be hard to recognise how fundamental it becomes. It is a world unto itself, as definite and wonderful as fire or water, and it provides an experience which can hardly be matched by any other pattern." Pattern Langauge, p. 813.

Glass installed on the south side of the Propagation Room.

This is the theory and the plan. We are looking forward to seeing how it works in practice this winter.

Backyard Project: Reworking the Pavers to 'Use What You Have'

A new collection of tools means a new crew has turned up.

The paving crew will make a major change to the feel and look of the place.

Josh took down the propagation table frame so the pavers could work easily in the area.

First, they evened out to soil base, placed and raked an even layer of sand then compact it with this noisy vibrating machine - a compactor or a wacky - depending where you come from.

What a transformation in the propagation area. I was so pleased to have less dirt tracked into my office as I come and go to the studio.

The crew then moved up to the lower patio area to add extra pavers to make the patio a more comfortable size to move around on.

It was the same area Josh and Taylor were working in forming up for the concrete walls but the teams were able to work around each other.

They took pavers out of here and added them there to make cleaner lines and more obvious pathways. All of the edges had to be set with concrete to keep them in place.

This area between the modified path and the gravel bed garden is a bonus garden bed I had not visualised previously. Now I can enjoy planning plantings in yet another garden bed.

The lower patio is enlarged and tidied up. It goes right up to the stone steps leading down to ground level.

The pavers are extended along the side of the house to the new shed area.

All of this paving has been done reusing the original pavers. Josh and Taylor were careful to not break any when lifting them out of the way before they started on the construction. It was one of the first things they did. Taylor stacked them away from all of the action to keep them safe. 

We had looked into getting more pavers but they would have had a different finish to these 13-year-old ones and would  have looked new so we wanted to make the most of every single one we had. 

There are 2 more places left where the pavers will be reworked and we have our fingers crossed there will be enough.

That permaculture principle is at work again - 'Use what you have.'