The photinia hedge we planted three years ago to give us some privacy has unfortunately proved to be the slowest growing thing ever! I can assure you, that I have fed and watered the hedge and tried to stimulate growth as much as physically possible, however there has been a complete lack of results....until now!
When we planted the hedge it was at the level of the wall (and the smaller plants only came half way up the wall) so as you can see there has been a small amount of progress in that the hedge is bushing out and is now just over the top of the wall. Only another 5 years and we might have the beautiful private hedge we initially hoped for!
What do you think - is there much growth at all? At least it looks pretty with the lovely red leaves and makes a nice contrast to the yellow flowers and green shrubs in the flower bed in front.
It does feel like the front garden beds are slowly filling up and becoming something nice to look at rather than an eye sore. It won't be long before, we are able to take out the agapanthas and just have lovely yellow flowers and shrubs instead.
The top tip I got from our gardener friend Doug, is that we can make more impact in a garden bed by having lots of repetition rather than trying to plant an array of different things. So I am now reviewing the things that have grown well so far in the front and I'm now just filling in the gaps with more of the same whilst sticking to the yellow and green theme.
Some good friends of ours very kindly let me raid their garden and split some of their clivias which grow really well in shaded spots and under trees. The plants all survived the 3.5hr drive home from Sydney and seem to have taken well to their new location. We already have beautiful orange flowers in full bloom and they should spread nicely into the space over time. It certainly beats having a corner of weeds which filled the area previously.
On the good advice of a Life A L'Orange reader, my camelia is doing much better now that it gets more sun, you can see from the photos that the stems can barely hold the weight of all the lovely flowers.
The bulbs and pansies have been really lovely this year and the sunshine and decent amount of rain means that everything is truly blooming - I feel I am finally getting some results for all the effort over the last few years.
It is amazing that when a few things start to go well in the garden, you do get a second wind to get on and do more! Our other big plan, which I think I have may have mentioned before, is getting the lawns sorted out. However that is a fairly epic project and so far the lawn has resisted all our attempts to improve it and the weeds seem to thrive on weed killer. Perhaps I can find a professional to help me with lawn maintenance?
Hope you like the garden progress as much as I do!
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