I rest my case with Little Basset. He has been eyeing up the new garden bed every since the landscapers arrived.  For a dog that loves soft sand and soil it’s like his birthday and Christmas has arrived all on one day.  The fact that the bed is raised and he can think he is above all of us on higher ground just reinforces his small dog syndrome and his ambitions to be top dog around here.

As the one and only leader of the pack, I’m pretty chuffed with the new arrangements out front too.  Rather like we might be close to having a front garden instead of piles of mulch and weeds spoiling the garden effect.  2 years and 4 months after we moved in I can now declare our front garden landscaping over.

There is still plenty of planting to be done.  This bed is like everything around here over sized but in keeping with the large surrounding landscape. It’s a tear drop shaped bed so it draws the eye to create a clean perspective.  Heaven knows what we’ll actually plant in it.

Bad planning on our part meant we have boxed around the cherry tree that’s planted there so it’s still intact and I think it actually looks more in proportion with it’s meagre canopy now.  We just need to make sure that it doesn’t get flooded during the worst of the weather with the boxing filing up with water.

Originally the bed was suposed to be level but when if we’d done that there would have been a 2 metre high wall on the house side which would have looked crazy.  But then this bed was suposed to be built from stone so we’re not frightened of changing things.  We decided on wood in the end since there was so much other wood retaining wall out front and didn’t want to add more materials to the mix.  That and it being so much more expensive!

The only problem with putting in new structures is that the moment you do there it shows off the weaknesses elsewhere.  So now the drive looks completely rag bag but that is just going to have to stay the same.  Maybe next year we’ll replenish it with some smaller shingle to fit in between the base course.  It would of course help if people didn’t wheel spin off the drive but without a four wheel vehicle parking on the slope can be an interesting hill start for some people.

I do think though that the overall effect of the new beds is giving us a great structure to work with and it clearly defines the residential part of our land from the paddock and bush area up the top.

We planted out the rest of the new mega, mega bed.  It’s still got lots of gaps but we’ve chosen large structure plans that will fill the gaps.  We’ll top up with some new plants next year including plants that hang down and soften the hard edges of the wall.  In case you are wondering, the fencing is to keep the rabbits of the grasses whilst they establish themselves.

They are mostly native species so we’re hoping they’ll last the worst of the conditions and weather.  I hasten to add that I have weeded this bed since this photo was taken and it all looks very crisp although definitely in need of mulching which is the next thing on the to do list.

I didn’t need to weed the grasses growing on the tear drop space as the landscapers took care of those when they build the raised bed.

All in all I’m very happy with out smart new look.  This sets a new standard of neatness for the veranda too so I’m going to have to refrain from spoiling the view with dog towels, boots and other miscellaneous debris which seem to litter it all the time.

I think that task will be easier to tackle than keeping little basset off his new favourite spot to sit!