A visit to see Bryon and Nev’s property over at St. Marys was a great day out and provided the motivation and inspiration to get stuck into making a shade garden area that will be a nice place to chill out and have a drink at the end of the day. They kindly sent me home with a couple of Man Ferns so setting up somewhere to put them placed a degree of urgency on the project.
Being old farmland the property is effectively devoid of trees which makes finding a shady area problematic. My solution was to use a section of the old retail area which was initially a carpark and convert it. The area has 50% shade cloth above and 70% shade cloth around the outside of the ringmesh fencing. My biggest concern was the compacted roadbase which was the original carpark beneath the gravel.
The advantage was its proximity to the building so access would be easy and the area was protected from the strong winds by the 70% shade cloth on the fenceline. This would make it much easier to grow some plants in there and the fencing will provide support for clematis to grow on which will eventually provide privacy from outside. The area is also quite large so it will be good to work on as I can get both the small loader and the excavator in there to do the heavy lifting.
After mulling over a few ideas it was time to get stuck in so it began by removing all the old benches and any plants that were in the area. Once that was done I brought in the loader and the excavator to remove the gravel and weed mat beneath it which exposed the roadbase.
PreparingThe Area
I have decided to attack this in sections to make the task a bit more manageable to work on. The loader and excavator made easy work of removing the gravel and weed mat from the first section. Once that was removed I fitted a ripper blade to the excavator and proceeded to rip through the compacted roadbase to break it up and let some moisture through. It was not practical to remove the roadbase as I do not have any material to replace it. My constraint of having to work pretty much with what I have available has required a fair bit of compromise.
I had several rolls of plastic garden edging available so that was rolled out to begin to define the garden beds. Once the layout of the first section was determined the loader was used to bring in a lot of mulch from the trees I felled and chipped earlier in the year. The mulch has not yet broken down to what I would like so it was applied in a layer around 200-250mm thick. With the sprinklers always keeping the area moist it should continue to break down reasonably well. I will put the plants in discrete mounds of good dirt I have had brought into the property for them to establish themselves in.
Putting in Some Plants & Reticulation
Some 3mm wire rope was run out overhead at set spacing to support some 19mm poly for the sprinkler system. Micro sprays were utilised as I prefer the misting, soaking spray they provide to the plants. Once this was completed it was time to add some plants. I have no particular plan for what to put in as I have a lot of random plants left over from when I wound back the nursery. These are what I will be using to fill in spaces and just add some colour to the area. I will be adding several varieties of Clematis to the fence line as I go to provide a colourful backdrop and some privacy.
There was an old, square concrete pond that had been lying around the back yard for some time so that was cleaned off and setup in the second garden area. A solar pump and sprinkler head was added to keep the water moving and make a bit of noise as that is probably the most relaxing sound to have in the background when sitting out here. Maybe a few fish later? A 20-30mm layer of good soil was added to some of the pathway and grass seed spread over it to begin the process of greening the area up.
