Whatever the size of your backyard, there is a style of garden that will meet your preferences. Plants and shrubs may need to change, depending on weather conditions in your area, but different garden styles can be used anywhere. Here are a few to whet the appetite
Easy Maintenance for Disabled Gardeners
Strip all the turf, level the area, and lay slabs or block paving. Around the perimeter, add 60cm high raised borders, built from blocks or bricks. The rest can be as basic or complex as you like. Add other raised borders, a pergola, or an EasyShed. Use the removed turf and soil to build up the levels in the borders and top up with a few bags of fertilizer from your local garden centre. Plant shrubs; and add climbers like ivy or clematis to cover the fences and new pergola. Liberally dot with flowering plants in large pots, tubs and hanging baskets, to break up the hard landscaping.
An Australian Wild Garden
Insect and wildlife populations are disappearing the world over due to loss of habitat and insecticides, especially the humble bee. Many people are choosing to turn their backyard into a haven for native flora and fauna, by planting wild flowers and native plants in large borders. Add a small natural pond to encourage wild birds to bathe, and small mammals to visit. To get the buzz back into your life, include a few of these bee attracting natives in your planting scheme.
- Cut-leaf daisy
- Lavender
- Flowering Gum
- Pincushion Hakea
- Tea tree Leptospermum
- Purple Coral Pea
- Sage Salvia
Succulent Gardens
Is your lifestyle such that your plants continuously die off, due to lack of attention during the hot summer months? Then consider planting succulents. No matter how hectic the lifestyle, most of us like to be able to grab some down time in a pleasantly planted garden environment. Not only do we feel more relaxed, but plants help improve our feeling of contentment and wellbeing. Native succulents are hardy, require minimum watering, and little maintenance. Here are a few of the many available.
- Kalanchoe Tomentosa (Panda Plant)
- Crassula Ovata Undulata
- Puntia Burbank Spineless (Prickly Pear)
- Euphorbia ‘Cowboy’
- Agave Geminiflora
A More Secluded Garden
Nobody wants to be unsociable, but sometimes it’s nice to have a little extra privacy in the garden. Especially so, if you enjoy socialising outside with family and friends on those warm summer evenings. Thick hedging evergreens such as leylandii or privet are ideal for screening, but will require regular trimming to keep them to a manageable height. If you don’t want to do that, screw some trellis to the fence around six or seven feet high, and build a pergola over your patio furniture. Ivy, clematis, or other vigorous climbers can spread up the trellis, and over the top of the pergola, to provide that more intimate feel to your al fresco evenings.
A Balcony Garden
Even on the smallest patio or balcony, you can enjoy the aesthetic appeal and fragrance of garden plants. With a little planning, and basic DIY skills, you can build upwards, rather than outwards. By fixing wooden planters to trellis screwed to your apartment wall or tied to the dividing fence. Add a mix of climbing, trailing, and standard plants, to cascade and spread down the trellis. Filling the space with a profusion of bright blooms and greenery.
A Mediterranean Garden
If you live close to the coast in Western Australia, and fancy a different garden to your neighbours, consider a Mediterranean style garden. No lawn, hard landscaping, large terracotta pots, pergolas, and rustic furniture, make it a great, colourful, low maintenance garden. Leave some space for one or two must-have olive, fig, or palm trees. There is every chance your fig and olive trees will produce fruit in the WA climate. Consider bougainvillea cascading down the fencing or house wall, and geraniums, red-hot pokers, or rock-rose in large pots or borders.
