Garden Week inspiration

Perth's Garden Week is in its 42nd year and runs for another few days. Organisers say the event fell away for a while and there wasn't much interest, but in the past three years they've had more and more exhibitors and now the crowds are coming back.

 

 Here's a peek of what's there:

 

 

 

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At the opening, the mayor of the Town of Cambridge, Simon Withers, spoke about how town planning is responsible, in part, for the amount of green space in the city. He said decreasing block sizes and councils that allow people to build massive houses on them, leaving no space for a lawn or a tree or two have created a 'heat island' in the city.

 

His council has banned synthetic lawn on verges and even stipulates what percentage of the space out the front of a house must be vegetated. He believes residents and councils must demand more green space and gardens in the planning process.

 

Mr Withers seemed very passionate about planting more street trees to create an air conditioning effect in the suburbs. After his talk we had a great conversation about town planning. We discussed the merits of not having walls at the front of your house, so it allows you to interact with your neighbours and bring the community feel back to your neighbourhood. I feel that by having my food garden out the front with no walls, it has allowed me to meet and strike up friendships with all my neighbours. That's something to think about for anyone planning or designing their front gardens. Maybe walling yourself away isn't the best idea. Oh, and go and plant a tree!

Nature strip

 Another job completed, crossed off the list and another set of strangers stopping to ask us about the garden while we were out on the verge raking mulch and planting the natives! Check out our progress:

Originally we planned to have eight of these old stone blocks and I was going to arrange them in a spiral shape, then plant amongst them. We lugged the first three, one at a time, in the wheelbarrow and dumped them on the verge. But when we went back for the remaining ones, which were half buried under a hedge... we realised why someone planted the hedge on top of them. They were enormous! Way too heavy for the two of us to even lever out of the ground! So, we now have three rocks on the verge, but I think they still look attractive, nestled among the red pine bark and surrounded by native plants.

We mixed in soil improver into the planting holes first, as recommended by Beyond Gardens. We planted a mix of Kangaroo Paws, Conostylis, Velleia (I don't know much about this species, I just grabbed a few at the plant sale and it looks quite sweet), Scaevola and for along the verge to spread into a nice mat of green, the Grevillea Gingin Gem.

They will have to be watered through summer this year, but after that, they should start to look after themselves. I think you'll agree it looks much better than a patch of dirt and weeds!

By the way, I'm on Twitter now, so if you want to follow me I'm @PamelaMedlen. Unfortunately, my Twitter account was hacked today and it appears I sent out messages to everyone in my list saying there were nasty rumours being spread about them. So apologies to anyone who got that message. DON'T open it!!!!

Ahhh, technology. At least in the plant world, I'm the one doing the hacking, and I know what to do to stop viruses!