Life's a Garden

January 28, 2024

I was struck, as I was showing a dear neighbour the progress in the back garden over the weekend, how a garden reflects the various stages of our lives, particularly if you are lucky enough to spend many years in one place.

Our garden in Campbells Creek was established over 30 years ago when we moved into our new home. It seemed a vast space, this half acre block, and having been mined mercilessly in the 1850’s as part of the Mount Alexander Goldfield, it was covered in clay and quartz. This was a place where it seemed only Coffee Bush, more correctly called Drooping Cassinia, and prickly Gorse would grow.

Coffee Bush is what is known as a pioneer plant, one of the first to colonise disturbed land. We certainly felt like pioneers, as we set about cleaning up the block and levelling, first, an area for lawn out the front of the house.

As we raked and levelled, we brought more rocks to the surface, so there was much time spent picking up rocks, that first year. Rohan who turned 4 soon after we moved in, had his pedal tractor fitted with a tipping trailer, so the rocks could be transported and removed. The beginnings of the garden encouraged family work and play time.

Gradually, edging was formed along verandas and beside cement paths, and garden beds took shape. The front of the block now boasted a sturdy fence and a green lawn dotted with shrubs. A rose garden was planted outside the bay window and a bed for colourful daisies and low shrubs outside the bedroom windows.

In the front yard, the children could ride their bikes along the gravel driveway, while in the back yard, an upper-level area of green lawn held the rotary clothesline with a narrow strip of garden for small plants along the back wall of the house and a rock-bordered rose garden to be admired from the dining room window.

The rest of the back yard was a vast open space suitable for children to ride, play with balls, and entertain themselves in a sandpit, cubby house, swing set or trampoline. A large shed had sprung up in one back corner, and an orchard in the other.

As the children grew and there was less call for bike (or motorbike) riding, around the back yard, a pool was established above ground, the sandpit and cubby house were replaced with a water tank from which to top up the pool and a circle of large shade trees were planted in the middle of the yard. Below the pool, in front of the shed, remained a storage area for winter wood and the layout of the back yard was dictated by the need to drive trailers in and out of the yard.

Meanwhile, the trees out the front eventually established, (after about 20 years!) and it was decided to turn the lawn into a vast area of mulch with native trees and shrubs to attract more birds to our garden. Behind the house, the narrow garden bed and the path were removed, and replaced by a wide curved garden area and a meandering gravel path that disappeared around the corner beyond the lemon tree and led to the side gate. This garden was perfumed with lavender and herbs.

Now the back yard is peppered with trees and the long western boundary fence is bordered by a wide, curved area of mulch, planted out with native trees – a perfect spot for the free-range hens to scratch and the dog to keep guard and bark at potential threats, or receive treats through the fence from the neighbours, and pats from passers-by.

The round bed outside the dining room window now houses low-growing red-flowering grevilleas that are a cacophony of bird sound when the New Holland Honeyeaters arrive to suck their nectar.

Beyond the pool, the wasteland which was previously home to the wood stack, drying out for next winter, has been transformed into a raised gravel seating area with a border of flowering eremophilas, which leads to another meandering path through a mulched area filled with a variety of trees and shrubs – callistemons, banksias, grevilleas and buddleias – all designed to attract birds and butterflies to a garden that is becoming an oasis – a place of inviting areas – a place of sanctuary.

The shed and the orchard remain, but the shed is gradually becoming more hidden from the house and a less intrusive part of the landscape. The orchard has been allowed to relax into trees that provide shade for the chicken run, and which may, in a good year, happen to bear fruit, rather than a pruned and cultivated food-producing area. If the parrots and cockatoos claim the fruit before I do, then that’s ok too.

Its still the same half acre block, there is still clay and rock not too far from the surface in many parts, but the function and form of the garden established in another century, a time of children and space for play, has changed to become a refuge for its animals, its abundant birdlife and its human occupants. There are plans afoot for a dry creek bed and a hedge of hakeas to beautify the back of the shed; there is always more to do.

There are grandchildren making an appearance now too, so there will again be a need for a sandpit, a cubby house and room to run, ride and play, but now there are also inviting shady trees to play and sit under, birds to watch as they splash in the bird baths and feast on the nectar, and vegetable beds to plant out, tend and harvest.

Our garden has come full circle and continues to grow and adapt to new needs and uses throughout life’s seasons.