'Is the squlch truck coming?' said my grandson, because he's two, and he can say cute things. He means 'mulch truck', and it's a delight to watch him watch the squlch truck arrive - twice, as we got two lots of 3 metres delivered, one for the front garden and one for the back.
You might have remembered me talking last week about birdscaping and digging a new bed out the front.
The bed on the right hand side is full of natives and attracts tons of birds. It also makes the house sit nicely in a bush landscape rather than just a house on an empty block. When we first arrived here, there were just a few tiny trees and that was it. Now it looks like a bush block and we're proud of it.
So I finally planted a few things - firstly, right out the front as a bit of a screen I planted this Red Dawn banksia. They go well in drought and the birds love them.
The weather has been perfect - not a drop of wind, and sunny skies, so it feels great to be out in the garden. With Jamie at work, I have to keep myself busy, so it's good to have the garden when there's no surf.
I didn't have much luck finding tons of plants for the front garden, but I did find two ground cover grevilleas which spread to about a metre and a half and about 30 cm high, with small yellow flowers. Annoyingly, I have to put some chicken wire around the smaller plants as the rabbits like to nibble the young flowers. Soon we'll be putting in a rabbit proof fence which should keep the worst of them at bay.
I also bought this banksia which will have gold and black flowers - the shape is great and it should be easy to prune to less than 2m x 2 m which will be plenty big enough for this bed.
With Ned's arrival, we had to get the tools out and shovel some mulch. He wasn't very good at it, I must say. Two year olds are not precision gardeners and more dirt ended up in the mulch than mulch in the dirt.
Still, it was good fun. He was quite insistant we got up from relaxing on the front deck every now and then to do another wheelbarrow full of mulch.
'Grandpa squlch?'
'Grandma squlch?'
He is a hard task master that's for sure. Still, by the end of the day we got it done, so now it's a matter of hunting for a few more plants and waiting for it all to grow. You bet I'll be writing about progress for upcoming #gardenjournal posts, right?
With Love,
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Now that's an Aussie bushland right there! Sounds like your becoming well established.
I have just moved to the heart of the Mallee and we are fortunate to have 2 sides of the fence surrounded by open bushland! We are not quite ready for the Landcaping. We are still in reno mode and fixing up the house!
Great to see you investing the time with the little fella and he's loving it! These are the life skills I learnt at a young age (basic crop growing and agriculture) and spent many years in the city longing to be back where some of my fondest memories formed with my Grandfather.
I remember your post about moving out there. That's great you have bushland close by. I suggset you plant a few favourites on days you don't want to reno as they'll be growing whilst you fix the house up. And do make sure you put in a bird bath - can't recommend it highly enough, you'll get all kinds of birds coming down to feast and it's better than Netflix!
My husband isn't my son's biological father, and when they were pregnant, I think he felt a little sad about that, and a little unsure about his role. I said look, that boy will have memories of you, just as you have great memories of your Uncle Alan, who wasn't related to you by blood. He sat with that and now he's totally smitten, and jsut can't stop talking about how great it is to be a grandparent, that he loves being called Grandpa, and so on. It's rather lovely. I think he's embraced it more than he embraced being a Dad - he was a good stepfather, but he came along when my son was six, so I think he never fully embraced it.
Now he's 'Grandpa fix it'.
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You have a garden and a large area for gardening, it must be very enjoyable.
He's so cute in the last photo! I love that he likes to be out there doing stuff. Two is such a lovely age.
Oh he's just divine. I'm not meant to share him online but I do wish I could show you some other cute photos. He's just gorgeous.
I agree, children shouldn't be shown online. But my granddaughter is already on, so I do put up a few of her.
It's hard not to, when we are so proud of them!
You remind me about flowers! Oh, I need that to avoid pets. I think I am late now :(
Flowers are important too! Bees and birds are essential for gardens!
The plants you chose for the garden seem like a nice choice to attract birds and make everything look more natural and wild at the same time kinda balance, I dont have any land or backyard since I live on an appartment but would be nice to do the same thing iif I had a garden 😁 so it doesnt look boring. That banksia plant would be perfect for me since it hardly ever rains in the summer and I always forget to water everything 😅