November & Freezing

 A new iris in the new garden

 The lavender garden with iris and Seduction roses about to bloom

 Peony in bud

Iris on parade at the house gate.

A white delphinium in the new white garden

It must be about 2 degrees this morning - I think the weather man forcast snow showers on the mountains!! I braved the cold to take a few (more) garden photos. The roses are still in bud but the iris are putting on a pretty amazing show this year.

And a swarm of bees in a pear tree

We are very lucky at Wren's Nest to have a variety of ornamental and fruiting pear trees. This is the last pear tree to flower each year- the fruiting variety. This year it is an absolute picture of beauty - and the bees from up the road agree. I hope they are making lovely honey - and pollinating the flowers to make lovely pears in 2011. Thank goodness for bees. It is a shame about the pears perfume - well it's not exactly a perfume - more a pong - but the incredible show makes up for this.

Gardening at Wren's Nest

The garden at Wren’s Nest has caused us much grief over the years.

At the moment, we are at last, tackling the front garden – properly. We have played around with paths and curved garden beds in the past but I think we have a design which will work this time. Some curves, a lot of straight lines, a lot of symmetry and 2 garden rooms.

We have several  major concerns.
• a very long stretch of ground along the front of the house which, because of its length, looks really narrow – but isn’t really. You look at this from the southern end.
• It is so dry where we live – well up until this year. But I know the dry will return.
• Wind.
• And even after living here for 8 ½ years, we still find it difficult to think on a large scale – mass plantings, big everything. Small delicate just doesn’t seem to work in the Australian countryside with it’s huge vistas and skies.
• And lastly, creating a garden which will not take night and day to maintain.

Our Aim. (We'r not expecting too much are we???)
• To create a garden which enhances the house inside and out.
• Is beautiful to look at and be in.
• Has flowers for looking at and cutting for inside.
• A garden which encourages bird life.

We are basing our ideas on 3 great Australian and 1 UK landscape architects/ designers/gardeners . The ideas of Paul Bangay (symmetry – defined hedged areas) www.paulbangay.com. We love picture # 5 in the town Garden photos. David Glenn (sustainable drought resistant plants and gardens) www.lambley.com.au . The photos of the dry garden are beautiful. Michael Bligh – who we received some advise from a long time ago. www.michaelbligh.com.au . Dan Pearson from the UK. I loved his TV shows. www.danpearsonstudio.com

So – we will see what happens and I will document the progress here. If we can pull together even half these ideas we will be a very happy couple.