Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Jan 20, 2011 9:52 pm Hello friendly Garden experts! I am in desperate need of help with my garden. We moved into our place (Mornington Peninsula, Vic) 18 months ago and are completely overwhelmed. The previous owners of our house were REAL gardeners - hence the garden was beautiful, very well established, but quite high maintenance. Unfortunately the last owners were in their 80s when they sold the place to us, so fair to say alot of the heavy hard work (eg. pruning massive camellias) hasnt been done for quite some time. We are slowly but surely working our way through, pruning and clearing out the things we dont want (eg, massive oleander, ugly dusty conifers, a rockery straight out of the 70s) - now we need to fill the gaps with lovely looking, low maintenance (read no maintenance!) alternatives. Any recommendations for the following areas would be appreciated. I will include current plants (that are staying) so you get a sense of what will work aesthecally.) Front garden 1 We have - a gorgeous liquid amber, a beautiful japanese maple, a massive bird of paradise and a small blossom tree. We are replacing - a bottle brush, many azaeleas and a huge overgrown hebe. This garden bed is in full morning sun, behind the tress listed above. Ideally would like to form some sort of low screen along here as it runs along our bedroom window, but would like the trees to be the "features" of the front garden. Front garden 2 Huge gum trees to remain Small garden bed in part shade which runs along a fence. Fence is currently part covered in ivy. Another screen type something (perhaps with a flower?) would be good. Back garden 1 We need a screen along about 9m of back fence - this can be seen from our lounge and kitchen window and alfresco. Must be fast growing, and perhaps we could do a feature tree as well? Full afternoon sun, this area is surrounded by camellias and clivias, so something that flowers in spring/summer would be a nice contrast. Other main feature of the back garden (which we will keep) are a silver birch and a beautiful magnolia. Thank you so much for any recommendations - pls no pittosporums or lilly pillys! Re: Help, Gardening Novice! 2Jan 21, 2011 9:52 am I am no gardening expert but some pics might help those who know about these things. Re: Help, Gardening Novice! 3Jan 21, 2011 11:41 am Would love to see pics too! We also inherited an existing garden that hasn't had much done on it and are finding lots of interesting things all the time. I'm no expert either. That's why I come here to soak up the knowledge from those who are One tip I was given years ago though was that, before you do anything to the garden (other than keeping it under control!) give it a year and just watch it. Find out what comes up where at different times of the year, watch the existing plants that are always there change throughout the seasons and get an idea of the amount of sun and shade each area of your garden gets through every season. We've spent a year watching our garden, since moving in at the end of October 2009, and are pretty sure we know it fairly well. During this time we've worked on identifying the plants as they emerge and grow or change, we've got a good idea of the what the soil in each area is like, we've charted the sun, identified the wet and dry areas, plus the areas that get the worst of the northerly winds, and worked on removing plants that we don't want in our garden, to give those we do want more of all the good things they need to grow happily. Over that time, we've fallen in love with our gums, banksia, melaceula, camellias and hebe. The native bees absolutely love the melaceula (it's a 'robin red breast' and similar to bottlebrush in looks) and hebe and have moved into a hole in the garage wall to be closer! We've identified plants that we'd like to keep but need to be repositioned because there are other spots in the garden where they'd do better. We've also identified areas of the garden that are currently dead space and could be better utilised. It's only over the last month that we've worked on removing the problem plants and clearing back areas of planting to make our own mark. Then again, I know how much you must itch to get stuck in and do some planting to make the garden your own!!! So, if I were you, I would get rid of the ivy and the plants you know that you definitely don't want to keep (you might want to reconsider the bottlebrush and hebe though ) and then I would then do my screening plants. You'll get loads of suggestions here - especially if you post pics of these areas and a bit more about your soil and amounts of sun / shade for those places. I won't make any suggestions as I'd only get it wrong Then I'd sit back, relax and just watch... Re: Help, Gardening Novice! 4Jan 22, 2011 2:02 am No such thing as no maintenance. Gardens planted under that theory will become some of the hardest work there is as well as commonly having some of the greatest enviro impacts of all. It is not the plants that will be the crux of what happens for the work required. It will be the soil. The best plants will be the worst plants in poor soils. It's not about what fertiliser you use but how you care for the soil and nurture the micro organisms we cant see that are the very basis for true low maintenance gardening. Add soil amendments. Use therm religiously! Zeolite, spongolite, perlite. Certified organic composts. All that stuff you are ripping out, get it mulched and straight back on the garden as mulch. It will be absolute gold for you Best mulch you can get. There is the next thing that creates a true low maintenance garden, uncomposted fresh mulches Straws and the stuff from your local tree lopping chap. They will forever more sustain healthy soils and with that flows a healthy plant When the mulch is gone, get more of it on there That is how nature has done it for millions of years and doing the same thing more intensively at home is all it takes to make the work disappear Looking for some advice on pool surround planting. We have roughly 500mm wide garden bed around the edge of our pool. Depth of the bed is only around 250-300mm to top… 0 1965 That drawingโs in the old units. The sewer tie is 1.44m deep and 4.5m offset from left boundary however the levels were taken ages ago so the surface level will have… 1 3542 Hi there, long-time lurker but first time posting. 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