I am bringing in the experts into my garden - well..just for suggestions. I need help, and not just with Shakespeare quotes and a fountain. Being short-sighted is wonderful if you are a librarian like me and read a lot of books, but it doesn't help in seeing the big picture and long-term vision for my garden.
I'm trying to imagine, as in the book, 'Where the Wild Things Are' what it would be like if a the forest just overtook my bedroom. I mean garden. Would wild things start swinging from the trees? At least I would have my hammock.
I decide I will start small (Small and Slow Solutions, principle no 9) and just do that narrow strip of lawn for the back to front house and turn that into a herbaceous border full of bee and butterfly attracting perennials..so I may be spoiled for choice come church flower Sunday. My yield is going to be flowers and possibly other herbs for perfume, medicine and keeping my underwear drawer smelling nice.
And possibly the neighbours will have a nice vista and appreciate the bees coming to pollinate their vege patch too.
I have drawn up a site plan from the Geo maps of our property and am hoping permaculture expert Cathy Angell can help me look at the space and make some plans on paper. So I may have a 'designer garden' after all and not just one I created by planting plants randomly. In return I am going to do 3 hours gardening at Earthsong. How is that for a deal?
In other research am watching Alan Titchmarsh take me on a guided tour of Gardens of the National Trust in England. Since I am not financially in a place to go to England myself, I just borrow DVDs from the library and imagine myself there. The English are very good gardeners don't you know. Obsessed even. The Chinese, well, we're good gardeners too, we garden everywhere there's space and do market gardens before the Europeans even heard of the concept. But if I were to have a Chinese Garden I don't know if mum would like it, because bamboo spreads everywhere, we don't have any pandas to eat it, and turning our backyard into a rice paddy might be against Council regulations. I think I'm much safer going with a traditional English style, since I can't get rid of the box hedges.
