When we bought the land in 1973 it was half an acre of natural bush; lots of jarrah and marri trees, some banksias, kangaroo paws
donkey orchids, kennediia, blackboys, hardenburgia and other Western Australian wildflowers and plants.
We built the house and lost some bits and pieces in the building and the driveway, and needing a place for the washing line and the shed etc. We put a little patch of lawn out the back and when my dad came to visit from Sydney, he entertained himself putting in our first vegetable garden.
Since then we have had 4 kids, (and 2 foster kids), a couple of dogs, 6 cats, about 120 guinea pigs and dozens of chooks.
We have extended the house twice, once in 1980 when the twins were born, and again in 1990 when we just needed more space for the growing family. We also extended the shed to provide a covered place for our little aluminium dingy and a studio for me. The studio has since been used as "my room" by all three daughters.
In the meantime, the garden grew rather haphazardly as I experimented with different plants and themes, and as we got around to adding to our outdoor living areas with pergolas and patios.
In 1994 we put in the pool

and had hundreds of tons of dirt from the hole dumped all over the backyard. What looked like a disaster then became first a challenge to landscape and make useful and attractive, and has resulted in the garden of today.

This is it, from the back looking across to the vegie patch, the herbs (on the higher level) past the clothes line (it has to be somewhere!). The green fence is the poolyard fence.

25 years later, the two older girls have moved out into places of their own, the twins are 18 and both working full time, as Greg and I do, so the garden suffers a little neglect, but I have come to see this as a good thing as it makes it easy to identify those plants which demand too much time and attention, as well as those that thrive on minimal care and even no care at all. This has given me the opportunity to use my findings in that area to develop a garden that looks good, smells great, and is useful and productive.
It may sound a bit clever or technical, but it's really just trial and error. If this plant dies or fails to thrive, replace it with one that is doing well under the same conditions. Simple really.
I don't have a lot of time to spend gardening, more's the pity, so I take the easy way when I can get out there and do something. Our vegetable garden is the 'no-dig' variety, built UP on the existing ground. Once a year I build up the old bed with new lucerne hay and straw and away we go again. It is so easy and definitely NOT labour intensive!

This view is looking from the herb patch across the lawn to the lemon tree and the back of the back garden where the compost bins are hidden and lots of plants have a lot of growing to do.

At this particular time (spring, heading for summer),the cherry tomatoes, broccoli, onions, zucchini, supersweet corn, sugar snap peas, capsicum and cucumber are all thriving, flowering and fruiting. The fruit trees are full and I am expecting a bumper crop of apricots, plums and nectarines.
In the herb garden, which is alongside the vegie patch, I have rosemary, perennial basil, chives, oregano, marjoram, lemon balm, lemon grass, lavender, parsley, thyme, lemon thyme, curry plant, rhubarb and celery, corriander and feverfew.
Around the rest of the garden we have a mandarine tree, a Eureka lemon (bending under the weight of the current crop), an orange, two Bunbury plum trees, two feijoas, a nectarine and two apricot trees, and tubs of strawberries. We also have mint gone wild and a little clump of catgrass for Minnie and Vashti.

One of my hobbies is combining cottage crafts with my garden and what I grow. I also like old fashioned herbal remedies and recipes, so if you have a collection (large or small) of either remedies or recipes using plants from a typical suburban garden, I'd love to hear from you and exchange ideas with you.

You can me!

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