Bench and Outside Storage

This is another summer project that is not quite finished. I have been putting off posting about until it was finished, but I sort-of included it in my last post … and I may not ever finish it (for reasons I explain below), so I may as well post some more pix of it now.

We decided to use some of the heavy-duty modular shelving and some heavy-duty, sealable storage boxes (both from Bunnings, of course) to store all our gardening tools etc to stop them getting soaked whenever it rained. (Yes, I know, it is under cover. No, that doesn't stop them getting soaked. Every time it rains, the gutters back up, overflow, and we have a waterfall all the way along the eaves.)

This is what the area under the back verandah/porch/thing (outside our lounge room) looked like in October 2011. A mess.

Note the genuine 70s oregon panelling in bundles on the garden wall at left, and the dirt patch next to the back door at right. This had been a garden bed, but our pest report suggested that we get rid of it—which we did by demolishing it to ground level. Immediately behind the dirt patch is a pile of pavers. Both the pavers and the oregon panelling were very cheap eBay finds.

Anyway, we bought the modular shelving, and started cleaning up the area thus …

…and thus …

etc. (BTW: I did help too. Really!) M. then set to work paving the dirt patch with genuine 70s, ugly cement pavers (i.e., pavers which matched the original, ugly, 70s cement pavers) …

while I assembled the shelving …

Once M. finished the paving…

I took to the oregon with the circular saw and started to create a bench-top …

Work had to stop a while, for the cement to set (before shifting the whole structure onto the new pavers), and for the timber to be oiled (to make the surface water-proof.) In the following weeks we continued to saw, oil, and screw together the panels until …

What remains to be done is for a "roof" to be fixed over the high part of the shelving (we have the corrugated iron and the timber to fix it into place with) and a top to fill the gap at the join between the bench and the front panel—but we got distracted by vegie-box and stone-wall building.

Now that the rains are returning we have the incentive to complete the water-proofing project, but with a new roof for the whole house on the cards it is not clear whether there is any need to do this anymore. So this shelving will probably look like this until we know what is happening with the roof—which could be a while. And if we do nothing for long enough we will be able to move this whole structure, as it is, into a water-proof shed.

Our Herb Wall

Over xmas/New Year I was inspired by a picture in Lesley Bremness' The Complete Book of Herbs to add a herb wall in the back garden. In my first and second garden plans I'd included pretty large herb gardens and—although there were lots of spaces for herbs in my third garden plan—I was unhappy about losing a dedicated herb garden. When I saw this picture I realised that I could use some of the bluestones we had lying around, and some of the vertical space in the garden, for herbs!

As Bremness explains, the advantage of a herb wall is that it gives you a well-drained rocky environment to grow herbs like catnip and pennywort, and the wall can be arranged to catch lots of sun on the Northern face, and be protected from too much sun on the Southern face. I figured that if I curved the wall around our monster gum, the Southern face would also be somewhat shaded by the tree trunk, meaning the herbs would be less likely to burn up in mid-summer.

Unfortunately, we didn't have quite enough bluestones for what I had in mind, so in January I bought some more off eBay (19 for $50). Getting the ca. 200kg of bluestone home in my car was not fun, but we did it, and once they were home I laid out the herb wall like this:

Many of herbs that Bremness suggested for the herb wall were pretty exotic, Germander and Pellitory-of-the-wall, or exotic forms, like Prostrate Sage and Prostrate Winter Savory, so I figured that I wouldn't be getting any of them at Bunnings and went looking for a specialist. Amazingly, I didn't find one. I thought I'd find specialist herb farms all over the place, or that I'd be able to get everything I wanted online: but not so. In fact, finding a well-stocked herb-dealer turned out to be an almost impossible task.

In desperation I did, in fact, go to Bunnings. And I was right: it was a waste of time. I then went to Banksia Nurseries and—much to my amazement—found a lot of herbs. Not the ones I was after, but I had pretty-well given up on finding anything at all so I bought everything I could knew or had ever wanted. This as the haul:

(Of course, I bought far too many herbs to plant in the wall, but I planted what I could. Some of the rest I will plant elsewhere. The others … R.I.P.)

… when everything was planted I covered the wall with netting to keep the possums (and the dog) away until the herbs could get established (this was in the second week of February) …

…which—two months later—they now have.

While I was waiting for the herbs to get established, I discovered that there is/was a herb farm in Lillydale (the "Lilydale Herb Farm Shop and Nursery"). I had found their website (here) early on, but dismissed them because they seemed to be primarily a restaurant and dried-herb business.

When I went to visit them** I discovered I was wrong—they were a genuine herb nursery too—but the nursery was closed and a sign informed us that they were in the process of moving. Very frustrating. According to a call I had the other day, however, they have finished moving now and I look forward to visiting them soon. But, moving on …

I took the netting off over Easter. In the few days since we have had no losses, and no possum/dog damage. In another week or so I will take down the stakes and twine and will plant a few more herbs in the gaps—which I will get from the Lilydale Herb Farm. Then I might post a list of all the herbs we have growing.

**I was actually directed to the old Lilydale Herb Farm address by someone at New Gippsland Seeds in Silvan. I was so desperate to find a herb nursery that I had convinced myself that New Gippsland Seeds might have herb plants for sale (since they had seeds) … or they might just know what had happened to the "Herbs & Cottage Plants Nursery" in Hurstbridge, which seems to have disappeared (or rather, been replaced by Going Green Solutions—to judge by the Google Street View of Main Road, Hurstbridge.)

So I went to New Gippsland Seeds and bought … some herb seeds. They had no plants, though apparently they sometimes do. And they hadn't heard of the Herbs & Cottage Plants Nursery. However, they did assure me that Lilydale Herb Farm was not just a restaurant and didn't only sell dried herbs. So I went, didn't get into the nursery, but did discover they had one. So, we'll try them again soon.

Lower Terrace Progress

After a very long period of neglect, we did some work on the lower terrace yesterday: we used fresh soil to filled in behind, and filled up to the top of, our new retaining wall.

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The last time I blogged about progress on the lower terrace was in July and August last year (here and here). This is what it looked like in July 2011:

Since then, we had made a bit more progress on the terrace walling and a lot more on the weeding, extending the area cleared of aggies etc etc until the line of sight along the front wall (just a row of steel posts in the picture above) extends all the way to the drive. (Which, from this point of view, is an ever-diminishing triangle of ground behind the camera.) And we weeded upward, clearing the stonework of grass etc. in preparation for rebuilding both terrace walls.

Doing this extra weeding we discovered that there was another, somewhat mysterious, partial terrace wall completely overgrown with weeds, about one metre to the left and behind the camera. Once the foliage was cleared we were unsure what to do. The cutting is steep, about 60–80cm high and has nothing holding it up except aggie roots—so we decided to work on other bits until we decided whether to build a retaining wall for it (and if so, what sort) or not. We still haven't decided.

In addition, in the last six months, we mulched most of the area we weeded, creating an earth ramp down to the terrace, with stepping-stones and edged in stones; and we intermittently weeded (and then sprayed!) the area furthest from the camera trying to get rid of the last of the blackberries and any other weeds before putting any fresh soil on top. (After months of trying—and failing—to track each blackberry shoot back to its root we gave up and started using Roundup. Likewise, after trying and failing to get the last of the weeds out of the terrace walling—without dismantling the entire wall—we started using Roundup there too.)

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Fast forward past months of micro-progress: two weeks back we went to the GrassRoots Community Market in Upwey and, apart from getting some great food, presents etc—we got three sturdy "Kings Park Special" Callistemons for only $50. (Yarra Ranges information on this cultivar here; listed by Angus Stewart here as one of the top ten native plants.)

Having bought, desiccated and killed a $70 grafted red flowering gum (called "Wildfire") just before xmas, what appealed to me about the plants is that they are large (1–1.5m) in large posts, acclimatised to local conditions, were not being maintained on a sprinkler system, meaning that if I neglected to water them daily they would not turn up their toes. And since it was likely to be a while before we won the war on weeds, they needed to be able to survive a few months in pots. They were also cheap and we were skint.

Having these lovely bottlebrushes sitting on the deck—and having read up about them—we found the motivation we needed to get two cubic metres of soil delivered, and shift it onto the terrace so we can plant them. The shifting took about sixty trips, using our big rope-handled buckets, with M and I shoveling, straining, stumbling, slipping, sliding, toe-stubbing, sweating and swearing until we were stuffed. Anyway, the soil is now in place and we are ready to plant the Callistemons and mulch around them. Que photo:

If we can, we will get another three of these and plant them as a hedge at 1.5m intervals. It is a shame not to use the Scarlet and Crimson Bottlebrushes at all, or to alternate between varieties of Bottlebrush—as I originally planned—but we might be able to use these behind the Kings Park Specials once we have rebuilt the stone wall.

A large part of the reason for the delay in planting anything at all was our realisation that it would be difficult to work on the stone wall with freshly planted tube-stock at out feet, without stepping on, or dropping a rock on, said plants. M. wanted to do the wall first, I was happy to plant first and replace any damaged plants. We were at an impasse, so we did nothing!

But, since these Kings Park Specials are a decent size, they will be a lot easier to see and avoid than tubestock, and we can stake them with big tree-stakes (50x50mm hardwood stakes) which will make them even easier to see and should protect them from stumbling amateur stone-masons! Also, by planting them close together (six instead of the three plants numbered 1,2,3 below) and close to the front of the terrace, they will be further out of the way, leaving us more room to work. This was my argument anyway and—as you can see—M agreed in the end.

Once the Kings Park Bottlebrushes are established, and the wall is rebuilt, there will be space available for a second row of plants. We could plant the Scarlet and Crimson Bottlebrushes here, instead of the Red flowering gum (numbered 4 below), as per my original plan. But even if we decide to stick with the Red flowering gum—or to leave this space clear for access—there are other places I might be able put these Scarlet and Crimson Bottlebrushes** and I will still plant the Weeping Bottlebrush where it will hang over the drive and gate etc. as planned (numbered 5 below).

**The "other places" are on the other side of the drive, on top of the stone wall, but in front of the planned fence. This space is triangular because the fence must be as far back from the stone wall as the wall is high (2m back where it is 2m high, 1m back where it is 1m high etc). Since the area down to the drive is M's territory, it is up to her to allow this, but since she really doesn't care what is on the other side of the boundary fence—since she can't see it from the house—it is possible that she will agree to me planting in this grey area. (It is largely because M is indifferent to what is on the "other side of the boundary fence" that the terraces are "my" area of the garden at all.) A few pictures would make this clearer, but they will have to wait for another post!

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UPDATE: We have planted four of the Kings Park Specials, with Running Postman between them. The survey stake marks where the fifth one will go. Sometime this week we will get some more mulch to cover up the bare ground around the plants and when my back gets better I will extend the retaining wall one more timber-length and terminate it. Then we can return to the back garden to finish what we started up there.