I’ve been completing longer walks to different areas in the past few months, and I’ve been very actively compiling a list of plants and trees I’d like in my future home. Seems my green thumb from the herb garden is expanding (rapidly!). Oh and an update on said herb garden – something’s demolished the mint, the thyme and most of the parsley. It’s just started on the sage, and something has taken up residence on the chives. I’m so sad. There’s some sort of small flying insect – like a mini mosquito. The BF says we should spray, but I’m loathed to spray something I might then eat. Big FAIL on this vegie patch 🙁 I’m pretty torn on how these might all work in a garden, but I love the following ‘statement’ trees:
- Magnolia Grandiflora: lucious glossy leaves with a velvety brown underside, complete with large cup like flowers that smell of a light lemon pudding
- Japanese maple: the most daintly shaped leaves in some amazing tones, from lime green to burnt orange to red
- Frangapani: whilst the ultimate in ‘bogan chic’ (you can get decals for you rear windscreen eyeroll), their scent screams summer, and given my mother missed out as having them as her wedding flower, I always feel a strong affinity to them. I’m not sure if I prefer the traditional white with yellow centres, or the pink toned flowers…
Beyond the trees, I love the following
- Pruned hedges: Buxus are great, and work so well as a formal min fence, particularly in all the period terraces around Sydney
- Gardenia: I smell gardenias and it takes me back to boarding school – it’s the smell of Christmas dinners, playing on the last night of term, preparing for exams, and for the end of year. Even though I had one of these in my childhood garden, it still screams ‘school’ to me, and I still love it!
- Succulents: sadly I don’t know the name of the pictured succulent
PS I did try a triptych of these three plants with www.picmonkey.com, but after crashing the computer twice, sadly it’s a no go. I don’t have the patience for those shenanigans
I would LOVE a passionfruit vine – I love the flowers. But I’ll make that another post when I collect a few more photos 😉 And some more flowery plants too.
How about you? What’s in your ‘dream’ garden? My focus in this post is ornamental plants, rather than fruiting and flowering trees or vines (Lois, this post is for you :).
If we're dreaming, I'd like to own enough land to have a forested area (big enough to support some wildlife), plus a clearing for my house and some pretty plants, a bird/butterfly haven, and fruit trees + vegetable gardens. I prefer perennials and plants are native to my area because they require less work (and because sometimes I neglect my plants by accident).
More realistically, I would like to add a second garden bed for food (maybe strawberries) this spring. 🙂
Oh strawberries that are home grown are a delicious treat! My grandmother used to grow them in old concrete laundry troughs!!
If I was dreaming to the same extent, I'd have a mini rainforest, and sculptured English gardens with hedges, and then a huge, well tended (ie tidy) vegetable garden 😀
Frangipani must be one of the most uplifting, beautiful fragrances ever! And yes, I used to wear them in my hair in Sydney, so did other mums from school because the kids would pick them for us 😉 Some of my happiest memories of Sydney are of standing there at night just drinking in the scent of frangipanis, gardenias etc.
Not sure the name of that last one, but we're currently pulling out some of our hedges and replacing them with ornamentals like that (lower maintenance.) Love your plant picks so far!
Aww such sweet memories. Yeah I should know the name of it, but I don't either. I almost negotiated one from a neighbour, but it was deemed too good a pick for me (I was told I could have 'anything'!)
I am starting to plan a new garden which will be constructed slowly over many years – but so far I'm just deciding on the landscaping and the shape of it!
Slowly slowly – there's no hurry!
pretty! I am sorry about your herb garden- I agree with not wanting to spray something I am going to eat. I kill all my houseplants. I have the black thumb of death 🙂
I love seeing pictures of sights around you! Someday I will learn more about Australia-
hey is it common to go to boarding school there? I am making a snap judgement, but you are the second person from Australia I've talked to who went to boarding school..
Thanks Katie – I don't think I have a black thumb, but despite our valiant attempts at watering, something else has killed these herbs 🙁
Alas, boarding school is rather uncommon in Australia. A lot of rural students whose families have money (ie large productive farms in remote areas) choose to send their kids to boarding schools in the city, and a small share (like me) have parents that move overseas. It's expensive enough to have a private education, but add the cost of living on campus and it practically doubles. Parents spend their whole lives saving for their kids high school education costs here, in the case that they aren't wealthy, and want a private school education for their child.
I love gardenias. Reminds me of summer. (Not boarding schools. Never went.) I want a hedge of them across my front yard. My all time favourite flower. Funnily enough I hate artificial gardenia scent.
My ideal garden is a large gorgeous garden that someone else will look after!
Artificial scents tend to be absolutely revolting in my opinion, and the ones I like, I'm loathed to since finding out they are full of nasties.
I think a gardener is the key to all our gardening dreams – for sure! How has taming yours gone lately?
Mmmm! Garden taming is on a bit of break. But will get back into it shortly. I wish I enjoyed it more.
Sorry to hear about the bug issue 🙁 I'm not sure what type of critters you guys deal with down there, so I don't know how useful my suggestion would be, but I'm with you on not using sprays on the food you'd eat. You could try planting a couple garlic bulbs near your herbs? It doesn't work on all bugs, but I know the scent is a deterrent for some of them.
I'm certainly happy to try some garlic (cause I love the stuff!). Meanwhile, I'd have thought the chives/shallots would have been similar enough to prevent the pests, but alas no! *frowny face*
You could try white oil on the bugs – it's worked sometimes for me (but not always): http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s2281115….
My future garden will have to be enormous to fit everything I want 🙂 A lime tree, lemon tree (so I can eat them on everything!), avocado tree, macadamia tree, mango tree, chickens, herbs etc etc!
I looked into that white oil link – all I have left living is my chives, but there\’s no harm in trying it!! I wish I knew what was eating everything – even my poor lemon tree which was regaining strength has been eaten alive now!