Garden Environs

The block is a quarter acre (20m x 50m) house block on the edge of a small town in South Australia's mid north region.  Existing buildings include a two bedroom cottage, outhouse, garage with attached wood shed and a large six by ten metre shed at the rear of the block.  There is a septic tank system along the southern fence, extending for the rearwards half of the block. 

The block 'faces' east with the cottage and driveway entry taking up much of the street frontage behind a galvanised  'picket' fence.  The driveway is white gravel and goes about half way down the southern side of the block, accessing cottage, garage and wood shed.  The rear half of the yard has no simple vehicle access anymore (you'd have to take down 'temporary walls' and drive over garden beds and/or paths to get there).

The climate is 'temperate', with hot dry summers and most of the rain falling in the cooler winter months.  We had 34 days over summer that had temperatures of 35'C or higher, half of which were over 40'C.  The hottest day was 46.9'C.  Winters are not extreme, a rare light frost and generally sunny days.  The area is a 'high wind zone'.  There is even the odd tornado, though not of the size generally associated with the term.  The prevailing wind is from the west.

We are located within the surrounding landscape just on the flat side of the boundary between plains and a low rolling hillscape.  Sheep and wheat dominate the local agriculture.  No large native flora reserves nearby.  No nearby permanent watercourses either.  The original Goyder Line (a map feature marking the geographical extent of land with rainfall reliable enough to sustain economic crops) lies within thirty kms of here (there's a cairn to mark the spot alongside a highway).

Mean annual rainfall is 14-15 inches (350-380mm), the average is a bit more.  We have 1kl rainwater tanks on both the north and south sides of the cottage, and a 2kl tank collecting from the rear shed.  We have waterpoints for mains water (piped in from the River Murray at Morgan) in rear, mid and front parts of the yard.

The local flora landscape is one dominated by 'open mallee woodland' with frequent small to medium eucalyptus trees.  The soil is a red brown loam topsoil with red heavy clay six inches to a foot below the surface.  Sandstone was the local building material.

The site has existed since 1892, for almost the first hundred years was 20m from a rail line.  Landuse has included as a rose garden and a genteelly cultivated 'return to nature' block.  The back quarter of the block (now mainly beneath the back shed) has previously been used for domestic landfill.

Fauna in the yard is the occasional possum, resident blue tounges and sleepy lizards, with large numbers of at least two types of skink and ghekos, occasional snakes (mainly browns, but also whip snakes).  Common birds include house sparrows, galahs, magpies and peewits, ringnecked honey eaters, new england honey eaters, dove and crested pigeons, willy wagtails.  Seasonal rosellas and grassparrots, red throated warblers.  Sightings of peregrine falcons, firetails, various parrots, wrens, robins, finches, silver eyes.  Lots of types of spiders, beetles, ants.  Termites are endemic (limit on use of wood).  Centepedes potentially under every rock. 

Prominent trees on site include a locally dominant Aleppo Pine in the north west corner, nearby peppertrees, a spotted gum, fuscia gum, a melalucca and a couple grevillias, a couple lemon scented gums, a couple calistomons and overhanging acacia in the north east and a row with a couple jackarandahs, a couple almonds and a 'socialis' eucalyptus in the south east.  Finally, a largish spruce, a couple candlepines and some conifer shrubs out the front complete the collection.

Two small sad patches of stringy grass out the back door and several climging roses, scattered bulbs (iris, lilly, daffodil), sages, bush daisies, geraniums purple creepers, and a happy wanderer round it out.

There are several brick lined paths of white stones, and a few stepping stones in a couple of places.

This is what we started with.