Echuca Central Kinda/Preschool Garden

When Echuca Central Kinda approached me to design them a garden I was excited beyond words. Gardens are wonderful adventure places for children, and having three little ones of my own, I know the value and magic of a good garden for children.Dought tollerance, low maintenance, hardy and low alergenic plants were requirements high on the agend for the kinda. Below are the results of my efforts, and I am so delighted that my babies have had the chance to enjoy this garden themselves !!

The Garden at 35 Darling Street

Further to my post about the renovation of a 1959 garden, here are some more photographs of the progress of the garden 3 years after establishment. Keeping in mind that the budget for this garden was very minimal, we managed to create a garden of beauty, and play haven for chidldren, a retreat for parents, all via cuttings and plant divisions and re-use of available materials. Apart from tree's purchased at a local supplier, all plants in these photographs were either grown from cuttings or divided from existing plants in the garden. Remember when hiring Eden Design we dont expect a blank canvas and oodles of money to be put towards a garden, all we require is your dream for a beautiful, workable garden !

The Garden at "Ingleside"

One of our very first gardens was the 2 acre blank canvas at "Ingleside". The owners wanted a heritage style garden to compliment their house, with modern advantages such as a reuse water system, drip irrigation and weed mat. They also desired a productive section to the garden, incorporating fruit trees, vegetables and an area for chickens etc. Both partners loved fresh flowers in the house, so having a readily available selection of flowers to pick from the garden was a must, and yet the clients also liked the appeal of large expanses of lawn common to big estates. This garden was created before the onset of the 10 year drought, so issues of drought tolerance and minimal areas of lawn were not a concern at the time. Fortunately, both partners also enjoyed spending a little time now and then in the garden together, so low maintenance was not essential, although was addressed to some degree by the timed watering system, weed matting and reuse watering system as well as hardy perennial plantings. The photographs below show the results after 3 years.

Sample of Eden Design Water Colour Plans

Garden Design - renovation of a 1959 garden

We have been in our little 1959 cement brick 'cottage' for aprox. 3 years now and have done so much work to make it comfortable, to 2009 standards, without comprimising the feel and look of 1959. From the street our home still wears it's 1959 smile, but the severely neglected garden (consisting of a lawn alone !!!) now boasts healthy old fashioned plants like wisteria, rosemary, hibiscus (rose of sharon), catmint, geraniums and agapanthas - all of which are well suited to our extreemly dry, hot medeterranian like climate. I wanted to share the progress visually too, and you can see the conditions we have worked with as we extended the rear of our home and worked a drought tolorant, old fashioned garden into the overall scheme. Our backyard consisted of a very sickly apricot and two peach trees, some hardy nandina, and a small japonica bush. The apricot tree did not survive the 10 year drought (much to my disapointment), but the two peach trees have come back wonderfully and have rewarded us with fantastic crops the past two summers. You can see the fruitian of my garden design for our backyard shown below - I have to say I am more than a little proud, considering we had $0 budget and all the plants were grown from cuttings from friends, the path was constructed from our remnent bricks and all this was done under severe water ristrictions, not to mention two weeks in a row of 45 degrees last summer....I supose it proves that it is possible to have a lovely garden in the face of climatic change, water restrictions and limited finances !! Hurray for places of peace and tranquility !

How ghastly is a house in progress ?!!! These are quite obviously the before and 'in progress' shots !!! You can see all my cuttings growing in pots around the hot water service !! These photographs all show the eastern side of our 1/4 acre block

The rough watercolour sketch I drew for our backyard. The side shown in the photographs is the eastern side with the long, thin, 'snake like' cottage path winding through garden beds to the lawn

And what a beautiful difference two years makes !!! The same view as the earlier photographs (although the house is now screened by foliage). Just a small plug...Eden Design is happy to help you turn your garden into a haven with advice and water colour plans such as these. Feel free to contact me through this site if you wish. My pricelist and service details are listed under the label "Garden Design Service" - sorry for the blatent self promotion there !!! Note the darling little bubby - also a proud and beautiful achievement of the last two years !!!