Making gardens

I’ve been making gardens. When we moved here, the house was covered with shelves of pots. Small pots everywhere. Hanging baskets too. By the dozens, hanging under the eaves where they needed hand watering. All containing pansies, violas, petunias and the like. Annual flowers.

My first act of gardening here was to give them all away, to strip it all back. To go back to the bones.

The house sits beside a small creek on a couple of acres of cleared ground on a valley floor surrounded by towering karri trees. I wanted a garden that befitted the scale. I wanted a bird attracting and productive garden. A garden that honoured its location rather than imposing something different.