Small pockets of our garden are taking shape... Tucked in beside the house on the eastern side in a small courtyard area outside my studio is the vertical garden made from an old trampoline. The legs were removed from the old style rectangular trampoline and then we hung it from the fence. I then covered it with a bamboo screen in front and chicken wire behind and then poked the bromeliads (they don't need soil to grow) through slits in the trampoline and tied them with wire to the chicken wire behind.

Handyman P. attached the trampoline at one of the short ends to the fence - so it can swing out away from the fence at the other end. In the swung out position (and supported underneath by bricks) I had enough room to get in to plant it up and it can be swung out in the future to allow for ongoing maintenance. I also have to say a big thank you to our friends J & K who did a fantastic job helping to clear out the side passage, digging a trench for our cat run (that's another story - more on that in another post) and levelling the area and doing the ground work (sorry about the pun) for the vertical garden.

I reckon the vertical garden could do with another planting session at some stage - maybe some birds nest ferns or old man's beard trailing down for a lusher rainforest look. I didn't have to buy any of the plants - my mother generously supplied them all from her garden - except for the two succulents in the ground beneath the vertical garden which have been in pots for years and have survived two house moves.

The masks I've had for years and am glad to have finally found a special place for them. The top sun face mask is from Bali from an old friend who brought it back from her travels. The other two are from my sister S and I think are African. I'll be keeping my eye out for more prospective vertical garden inhabitants when I next visit the op shops. The mirror is a present from my mother. I spray varnished the masks and the mirror to protect them from the weather. This seems to be working mostly - except for the lower mask which has developed some form of mouldy measles... which tie in quite nicely with the surrounding spotty plants!

We've also planted four grape vines which will have eating grapes and eventually grow over a trellis/pergola and shade the house on hot summer mornings. Until they grow we will use shade cloth for this purpose - I hope this will make my studio more usable during those hot January days!

Our house has been marvellously warm during the winter - we have sun streaming straight in from windows at the top of the roof as well as from our bank of glass windows and doors across the width of the living room and two northern rooms. The solar heating on the roof also warms the tiled floor so we have been really toasty. The challenge is to protect the house from the summer heat. I did find January particularly hard last time 'round. On a couple of occasions you would have found me locked in my studio sitting in front of the blasts of air from our mobile air conditioner trying to stay cool!

In time for summer P is also planning a pergola next to the car port on the western side - to stop the blaring afternoon sun hitting the house. He will be able to use leftover wood from our fence construction. This will be planted with vines and maybe screen with bamboo. I would like to plant some medium sized trees in the side passage along the carport as well - for privacy as well as shade.

The bones of our mandala fruit and vegie garden have been laid out. P. and L. have planted six fruit trees making a large circle which marks the circumference of the garden. Inside that will be smaller circles of vegie patches and a dome shaped mobile chicken run will rotate around the garden one day, doing the jobs of clearing, turning over and fertilising. The 'first' of our fruit trees (they have been planted in fruiting order) - a peach - has got flowers. Even L was excited as he told me 'You know, Mummy, what that means, don't you... it means there will be fruit!".

In front of the house I have put a few herbs - not sure how they will go as they are not getting much sun right now. I've also put a few natives mixed in with perennials for colour. The general colour theme is purple and yellow - to match the golden rubinia and the purple tibouchina over the fence in S.'s yard. The kangaroo paws are yellow, the callistemon is mauve, there is purple hardenbergia as well as orange pig-face succulents and marigolds and pansies for an extra colour injection and in memory of my green-thumb English grandmother who passed away in July. She loved being out in the garden, digging and planting and there was always a splash of colour in amongst her vegetables and fruit trees. If I can be half as productive and creative as she was in her garden I will be happy. I found some kid's gardening gloves so L. has been helping me plant the flowers and loves watering them with his own L-sized blue watering can.

I really do need to find something to go on either side of the front entrance, as Mum keeps telling me. At the moment I have two medium size pot plants - succulents (like a giant leaved jade plant) which are a bit sad really. We might need to have something hanging on the wall as the floor pots can be hazardous for children dashing in and out of the house (as well as being hazardous to the pots themselves!). Hanging pots will also be more visible from the approach to the house - the current pots are mostly hidden by the raised driveway/turning area in front of the house. I'd love to find some old metal containers to use as pots - go the recycled look I say! The plants will have to be hardy and manage without much light as they would be under the eaves on the south side of the house (for those in the northern hemisphere: this equals no direct light).