Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sit a while................

At the pink Breakfast today they had an auction with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Research - bear with me that is my justification for spending - I bought lot 7 - A garden bench.


That got me thinking on the way home about where I sit in the garden at various times of the day and year.


So here is a tour of my garden via the places I like to sit .............


My little white table and chairs (that are now my new photo id on the blog) came to me via a playgroup mum who was getting rid of them for the princely sum of $40. They sit in the little grassed area in front of our verandah. I sit here on my own in the morning at 5am with a cup of tea and my diary working out where,who,how and how much for the day, and waiting for daisydad to come home from his early run.

Then daisyboy4 and I sit here at 10ish and have morning tea as it is still in the shade of gum tree then.

When we first moved here the gardens were awful. The one at the front behind the white table and chairs was a metre wide strip in front of the verandah with a dozen scrappy looking native shrubs that were all dead at the bottom and stringy at the top. Apart from that, a flame tree planted 80cm from the side of the house and eight coffee trees planted in the shade on top of the biocycle unit there was nothing. So I set about building and planning garden beds to soften and enfold the lawn rather than edge it. We had a lot of shade from the pine trees, our gorgeous gum and various other tall trees so the beds were built around them and I edged them all in granite.
I moved all those rocks myself and hand selected each one for its spot - amongst them I put four "sitting" rocks the one above is near the kids sandpit and is a great place to sit and have a chat to daisyboy4 and 7 while they play. The other three are a wonderful place to rest while I weed or mulch, or for one of the daisies to perch on and tell me about their lives while I work.

This little white table and chairs I bought from the dump treasure sale for $10 - it is so adorable I love it I had it powder coated white and it sits through the archway at the back of the garden. You can just see the fence post for the house yard in the background and beyond that is the gully that leads to the dam. The orchid in the pot was my mothers she has had it for as long as I can remember - it is far too shady here for it so it doesn't flower much but sometimes it surprises me.




So this is where I sit when I need an early afternoon pre pick up cup of tea or for afternoon tea with kids when they get home from school. It is also lovely for a late afternoon glass of wine and chat with daisydad. This photo was taken at 3.20pm today.

Here is one you would have seen before this white set was my mothers and it now sits behind the house near the vegetables garden adn voerlooking our dam. We sit here and have a drink in the afternoons, or have lunch with the kids as it is in shade these days from about 2.30pm.







And here is the view from those chairs. Across the dam and into the back paddock. I cannot tell you how much of a difference to the feel of this property was made by putting in this dam. We swim in it all summer long as you can see there are shady bits that get really cold and sunny bits that are really warm. It is about 3 m deep in the middle when it is full at the moment it is half full when it is full it is half a metre short of the base of the gum tree at the far end.




So that is a quick tour of the house yard, I will take some photos next week of the orchard paddock and the back paddock.
Not sure where the little garden bench (did you see the bird on it??) will live yet but I will move it around until I find the perfect place.



And now it has gotten very dark very quickly and I can hear thunder rumbling through the saddle of the mountain so it is time to get off the computer and start moving some of this furniture away from windows.


Off to the Stitches and Craft Show tomorrow.


Enjoy your day hope you get some rain and no damage.



daisymum

4 comments:

jacqui jones said...

enjoy the fair tomorrow


love the garden bench

Caroline said...

Thankyou for the lovely tour of your garden.Swimming in the dam with the kids in summer sounds divine i love it to how some bits are hot, some cold. Sounds like a lot of hard yakka has been put into your yard i think the photos show it was all worth it -lovely

Unknown said...

Oh thnaks you Caroline it has been a lot of fun and bear in mind the photos try very hard not to show the weeds!!!! There are plenty of those!!

But a few years ago I chose to live with a few weeds and just enjoy my garden and now they don't stress me so much. I have friends who come and that is all they see and like I say to them a garden is like a child the more loving attention it gets the better so feel free to pull weeds.

daisymum

daisymum

The Old Dairy said...

What a wonderfull tour. I love that you have all the differant areas to sit. I think that is a blessing of having a big yard, it's hard work but worth it.
I love the veiw out over the dam.What a wonderful place to sit on hot days.......
I hope you enjoy the craft show,I asume it's the Brisbane one. I usally go down with my Mum. Mum and Dad are on holidays so I deceided to stay home this time.(more time and money for gardens)
Thank you so much for the comments you leave, and to think you are going to make me a dishcloth!!!!!!
Did the happy dance when I read that.....
Blessings
Mandy