Breaking ground!

This week, we finally broke ground on a project that we have been working on over the last couple of months! Excavation works started so that our client can realise the enclosed raised garden beds and compost bays that you can see in Ludovic's plan below.

3D render of the raised garden beds and enclosure designed by Ludovic, with compost bays below.

Looking at the plans you may be forgiven for thinking that this is more like a prison potager than a productive garden for a free-spirited local who loves her cooking. However, with plenty of possums, quolls, wallabies, pademelons and even deer residing in the neighbourhood, these tough measures are necessary to ensure our client gets to eat her produce!

The garden on our first site visit

Excavation to level out the garden for the raised garden bed enclosure. The compost bays will be built below.

You may be wondering "Why the raised beds?". Our client loves her new home and wants to stay there. She is thinking long-term. As she ages, she would like to keep gardening so wanted an option that was a little easier on the back and the knees. And there is another important reason why we designed this garden to be raised. Take one look at the next photo and you may be able to guess what that reason is!

Clay sub-soils on site are not exactly free-draining and would require extensive remediation. Putting any plant in this environment would see its roots drowned. Raised garden beds are one way of overcoming this problem.

This excavation was definitely not a whole-scale clearing of the site, although it may look like that from the photos above. The rocks in the foreground have been retained and re-positioned along the western edge of the yard. Our client's beloved Mountain Pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) was carefully lifted by the excavator and temporarily planted in a 'safe site' to the top of the yard until the garden is finished. The Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) below takes pride of place in front of the kitchen window. Its leaves turn a beautiful red colour in autumn.

This Japanese Maple is one of our client's favourite plants in the garden. So it is definitely staying!

Well it has been a big week in this particular garden. So it is time for us to take a little break over the weekend. Stay tuned over the coming weeks as Ludovic commences construction of the raised garden beds and compost bays.

A bientôt!