My Garden
People say a builder’s house is never finished. The same applies to a gardeners, I suspect. Since starting Robin Adamson Gardening and Horticulture, my own garden is lacking love. I need a gardener!
My own garden is located on a steep, bush block on the northern outskirts of Sydney. The ground is rocky – some very large floating boulders, and many thousands of smaller rocks ranging in size from too big to lift to pebbles. The soil is sandy, hydrophobic and shallow.
The light conditions vary from deep shade to hard western sun depending on where on the block, the tree cover and the time of year.
We bought the block because we saw a lot of potential, but it is a very big challenge, and that’s before we mention possums, wallabies, brush turkeys and cockatoos!
The garden is a constant work in progress, but working on it has given me has given me great insight and a lot of skills when it comes to working on difficult sites where scrambling is required.
Around the House
The first part of the garden I worked on was around the house. There is significant tree cover, so a lot of root competition and variable light conditions. In summer parts of the garden are full sun, in winter parts are total shade.
I inherited some plants, so it’s always wise to take a bit of time to see what is doing well and repeat. The garden lacked cohesion though, so I set about giving it some style unity.
Where possible, I built retaining walls, some only 20cm tall in order to create some soil depth to plant into and to retain the soil from washing down the slope. I also lean towards heavy planting so that not many weeds make it through and to prevent water loss. Over the years I have added a lot of organic matter, but hydrophobic soil will always be with me.
Pool to Pond Conversion
Around 2016 we converted our underused swimming pool into a pond. It has totally changed the way we interact with that area of the garden. My partner is the fish enthusiast and takes care of the aquaponics.
The Gully
The garden is an ongoing creation. I am currently rehabilitating the gully at the rear of the property. It is part of remnant bushland that has significantly degraded. Access by anything other than on foot is impossible.
