The average suburban garden has a patch of lawn on its verge. It has to be mowed, fertilised and watered regularly. Or it it looks like the other average suburban verges, a mess of unattractive, overgrown weeds that make a neighbourhood look shabby.
I learnt a lot about verge gardening from the team at Beyond Gardens. They're a group of passionate horticulturists in Perth who hold free seminars around Western Australia about sustainable gardening and food gardening. I was lucky enough late last year to have them transform my ugly verge. Sadly, when we moved house, I had to leave the verge as well, just as the grevilleas and kangaroo paws were taking off, even now I drive past just to see them all flowering and looking lovely. Anyway, I learnt enough from the team and I'm going to transform my new verge! I have native soil mix concentrate ready to go, picked up some tube stock and some kangaroo paws at the recent friends of Kings Park plant sale and I have an idea for a kind of rock 'installation' made out of some beautiful blue stone lying around my yard. (There's a nice story behind these stones, I'll have to relate later, when I can get the facts from my neighbour). Anyway, today I had a big load of pine bark mulch delivered.
I know I should have got woodchips, but the reason I got pine bark was because it holds its colour, instead of going grey like the woodchip. While the grey can be nice in many situations, I wanted the darker colour to contrast with my 'rocks'. I hope the guys at Beyond Gardens aren't shaking their heads at this! Here's Nat attending MY boot camp. I told him, if I have to go to his boot camp three days a week, he can come to mine on the weekends! I think he'll agree gardening is a pretty good workout!
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