Wild Hope Homestead

I would like to add something to the list of things you shouldn’t say to a new mother: “I bet your garden looks amazing.” Oh boy. Where do I start with this morsel of insanity? Today being the one year anniversary of living in our house, I would like to explore the ramifications of said morsel of insanity. Don’t worry, there will be photos at the end. And maybe insanity.

If you have studied and/or worked in horticulture or simply have a reputation as a ‘gardener’ you are automatically expected to have a magnificent garden, whatever your circumstance. Time is not a consideration. And these expectations continue even when you are pregnant and raising a baby. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had a comment about how amazing my garden must be I might be able to hire a gardener to make my garden magnificent. But no. And thus, the tone of rantiness. My garden expectations are already high enough on their own without that kind of pressure. I’m partly writing this in the hope that it will help me to take a chill pill as well.

Let’s take a wee look at my circumstances. We’ve been in our house for one year. It’s a commonly held notion that you shouldn’t change anything in your garden during the first year so as to see what the different seasons bring in terms of plants popping up, available light, water aspects and so on. That means you shouldn’t expect grand things from anyone in the first year of a new garden. Naturally, I have done some things to my garden, because I have fidgety green fingers.

When we moved in in April last year it was half way through autumn and I was half way through pregnancy. The move itself was hard and exhausting. By the time we had things decently sorted around the house winter was upon us. Is winter known as the great gardening month? No. There was cold, there was frost, there was a woman in her third trimester. Then came spring, the greatest gardening month. And on the third day of spring there came a baby. For the first two months of his life the garden didn’t exist. Not while I was tending to his every need and recovering from a bad tear. He is now 7 1/2 months old, I’m still recovering from side effects, I’m still studying by distance and The Little Fulla, though somewhat less demanding (or rather more predictably demanding), still leaves me with sparse amounts of time for gardening. The fact that I have achieved anything in the garden is amazing.

Now let’s look at the condition of the garden. When we moved in the property had been empty for a few months after the previous owners moved elsewhere. The garden beds I inherited fell under one of three descriptions: overgrown shrubbery, weed infested or almost empty (but with stumps). That didn’t scare me, and still doesn’t; I love seeing the potential, but it does mean heaps and heaps of time investment. Heaps. If only time grew on trees. Or stumps.

And then there’s all the hard landscaping, and lack of, that needs to be revamped, re-done or created. I’ve hardly even gone there yet. Plus the lawn is another weedy, wild matter of its own. All in all, young child considered, I think it will take about four years to get the garden to a ‘decent’ standard. If we’re still here after that, we might get to an ‘amazing’ standard in another few years. So, I’d say give me at least seven years before you expect the garden to be ‘amazing’. That’s not being modest, it’s being realistic. I have so many plans and have started so many bits and pieces in the garden that it’s hard to know what to do first when I do get a bit of free time in the garden.

I’m actually feeling a bit better about the state of things now, by thinking in years instead of days or weeks. In fact, I’m feeling so good I might just show you some photos of the non-decent parts of the garden. We usually like to showcase the good bits of our lives to the world but since I’ve been on a rant about the realities of gardening, here we go; the good, the bad and the ugly, altogether in one pile of photos. I can’t fit everything in here, but here is some of what has gone on in the last year and is going on at the moment.

The Maple Garden before, containing a loquat tree, re-sprouting feijoa stumps and weeds.

The Maple Garden now. Ah, it’s actually pretty to look at!

The West Fence area then. A little nook kind of area with messy climbers, ivy and a camellia in the left corner. And beautiful handmade blankets.

Part-way through clearing the climbers and ivy. The camellia in the left corner has been chainsawed down by The Husband. It’s not that I hate camellias, they are just EVERYWHERE and they are hard to get rid of.

The West Fence area today. Most of the climbers and wire netting have been removed and the ground has been sprayed. The broken washing line needs to come down. This is going to be where I grow my potted plants, on pallets for now but ideally on tables later.

The Vege Garden then. Old raised beds with weedmat and random stuff lying around. And lots and lots of weeds.

A new, solid, 8m long raised bed was planned by me and built by The Husband.

The Vege Garden today. Things are a little overgrown, but productive nonetheless.

Then: Overgrown orchard by the vege garden.

Now: Tomatoes need pulling out. One end of raised vege bed #2 that needs to be built. Feather children are keeping the weeds down in the orchard.

Awaiting vege bed #2. The chicken fence needs to be moved first.

The Husband has been busy with his chainsaw, pruning large branches off the Billington plum tree that I marked for him and chopping down shrubs that were too close to the plum trees, blocking out light and being awkward.

Now I can get at the tall yellow-fleshed plum tree to do some structural pruning. Oops, now there’s another pruning mountain.

The east side path garden then. Random grasses and flaxes. And weeds.

The east side path garden today. Native grasses, ground covers and shrubs are filling up the space nicely.

The front yard then.

The front yard now. Excuse the unmowed lawn. The Husband ran out of petrol. A week ago. The Chinese lantern tree was removed and a flax and corokia hedge planted. The Weed Mound has been a battle, but in the near future it will be leveled out a bit and planted out. The flax on the far right still needs to be moved closer to the gate.

The front path garden then. An assortment of succulents, pot-bound hydrangeas and a resprouting camellia stump.

The front path garden now. This is a terrible photo, but a small child needed me. Plants replaced with native Carex tenuiculmis sedges and Lobelia angulata (Panakenake) ground cover. Camellia stump still needs to be removed.

The weird area beside the carport before. More stumps and weeds.

The weird area beside the carport now. Some border planting done. Future plan is to cover with gravel and use as parking space. Camellias must die first.

West side garden then. Resprouting feijoa stumps and weedy ground.

The excitable feijoas before The Husband got to them.