The Path to the Citrus Grove

The very rapid growth of native grasses in this season is allowing us to define many of the important paths around the property by regular mowing.

The path to The Citrus Grove was mown lost week.  This axial path really requires perfect symmetry. The line of the path could be tweaked so that the curve on the right  is identical to the curve on the left.  By next week the grass will have grown sufficiently to the path again and make that simple tweak.

The next question will be how best to mark the path so that we don't lose that  line. An "eyecatcher" placed at the top of this axial path would help strengthen the overall design.

Notes from The Library #9

The Library contains many reference books that have inspired parts of the garden designs here at The Drip.

This  design is part of a biographical entry for the early Melbourne 'garden architect'  Walter R Butler in The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens.  The highlighted area of Butler's design for an early twentieth century garden in Toorak is pretty much exactly what we had in mind for The Espaliery and The Cut Flower Garden when we drew up the original plans back in 1993.

Many of the ideas in the gardens here at The Drip are deliberate references to historical styles of gardening. An appreciation of this historical context can add a lot to the enjoyment of exploring the property and The Library is a source of continual inspiration.

Covering Up

Last week,  with relentlessly high extremes of temperature,  might not seem the best time to be planting out young vegetable seedlings.  But we decided to give it a go after  putting in  some preparatory  groundwork to ensure they had a good chance of survival.

Rick created a simple shaded area over one of the beds in the Espaliery using four tall steel posts and a piece of 70% shadecloth.  Importantly, this was quick to put up and easy to take down, giving great flexibility. Clive set up a timed irrigation system, with the plants getting a drink in the cool of the morning and again in the evening. 

So far so good.

Getting off the Beaten Track

Beyond the cultivated areas of the property lies another world.  Here you will find sandstone cliffs carved into fantastic shapes by thirty million years of wind and water, schlerophyll forests, lush ferns, masses of rock orchids and abundant wildlife including several species of wallaby, wombats, goannas and the rich diversity of birds that has made the Munghorn Gap a mecca for birdwatchers.  Of the sixty acres comprising The Drip approximately forty are bushland. 
 

The Waterfall Walk , which was mentioned in yesterdays blog,  is a great way to begin exploring  our bushland here at The Drip.  It is a relatively easy walk, involving a bit of scrambling over rocks but nothing too serious.  Remember to take drinking water with you and it's best to wear long trousers.

We will mark the Walk with pegs at some time in the near future to make it even easier. 

Making Tracks

Ensuring all-weather access to the important areas of a property is one of the first steps in achieving a workable landscape design.  The recent floods reminded us  just how important this can be.

The track across the hillside below The Citrus Grove, a simple  path  mown through native grassland, runs alongside the intermittent watercourse and  leads to The Bush Garden and to the campsite beside The Gully Garden.   Apart from a few hours at the height of the recent  floods this allowed access from the house to all areas on the far side of the watercourse. 

The track continues on beside the creek and leads eventually to The Waterfall.  To find out more about the The Waterfall Walk look in the page called  "Garden Design at The Drip."

Simplification

Analyzing the photograph from yesterday's posting has resulted in a rethinking of how the bank on the left of the photo could be treated.  The original idea was to plant masses of lavender.  Very Provencal; you get the general idea no doubt.  But stopping the local native grasses swamping the lavenders would involve a massive amount of initial work and high ongoing mainenance. It is time to simplify things.

Native grasses, in particular the original Kangaroo Grass which is now returning here,  can  provide all the visual interest that is needed to make this area aesthetically satisfying. The beauty of these grasses lies in their seasonal changes of colour and texture, the movement  they add  to the gardens when the wind and the light catches them and  also the fact that they provide a good food source for the many seed-eating  birds native to this valley.

By removing the existing clumps of lavender that we planted as a trial a few years ago we can simplify the whole area and still achieve high visual impact, allowing the sculptural form of the bank itself to dominate.  The addition of a second line of box hedging above the grassy bank would complete this design; this can be done using our home grown buxus cuttings in the autumn.  Overall,  this simplification will lead to an inexpensive and very low maintenance design with high visual impact.  This approach will be important if we are to achieve our  landscaping ambitions for The Drip.

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(h)Edges

Defining the edges of cultivated garden areas is a fundamental component of garden design.   Edges can be hard, involving the construction of  stuff such as fences and walls; or they can be soft,  using  a wide range of plant materials as hedges or borders.    Here at The Drip we use a lot of Box Hedging, buxus,  to achieve clear definition.

Buxus has certain advantages over other types of hedging.  Firstly, it is suited to the Australian climate, dealing well with extreme heat. Secondly, grazing animals will not eat it ... cattle, sheep,  rabbits, kangaroos, even goats,  won't damage it.  Thirdly, it is slow growing, meaning it can be kept manageable fairly easily; in fact the maintenance of our Box Hedges is much less work than mowing the grassed areas.

A final factor in our choice of hedging is that buxus is very easy and relatively inexpensive  to propagate.  Check out the page on this website called "Propagating Plants at The Drip"  to see more information on this.