My first garden...ever!

Nearly 2 years ago we bought our first house and I finally had my own piece of heaven! Well a start anyway...



So this is my first attempt at a garden from scratch.
First I had to get rid of the weedy shrubs and get the fence rebuilt.


Fuchsia magellanica and his mate a blackberry, Pretty!

Once all the mess was cleared I could start.
I know its a cliche but Ive always wanted an Iceberg hedge.


This was the point where I saw RitaG's photos of her garden. I was inspired. Thankyou Rita
I marked out the edges with a hose and spray paint.



I sprayed the grass with glyphosate because it was full of couch, twitch and sorrel, and once it was dead I cut out the edge. Then it was time for the soil. Yay!



One day I had a fit of inspiration and made a few phone calls and discovered a gold mine! Free unlimited ute loads of well composted stable manure. So that has gone on over the soil.






So this is where Im up to so far. Now I can start planting.

Thankyou everyone for giving me so much inspiration and joy from reading your own journeys in gardening.

Rip... I'll have to send you down some roses to fill in all those gaps now do you want some own-root burgundy icebergs to go with the whites?

Thanks Simon, thats very kind but the front garden will be for pinks, whites and some blue perennials, with the odd contrasting colour. The roses will be mainly DA's and heritage. Plus Im sorry to say but im not very fond of the other icebergs As well as the hedge Ive already planted a New Dawn to climb the fence, a Gruss an Auchen (hope Ive spelt that right) and my beautiful Devoniensis to go over the arch. Happy days!

Rip all the above emocticons say it all, what a lovely garden you have created. What a find on from what I can see the best stable manure ever. You can't buy that quality I reckon.

Off to a great start, Ripley!. Take your cues from Rita's garden and you can't go wrong. Love your taste in roses too
Here's ND at David Austin's garden in Shropshire:

Roseman, you should see the pile of manure i get this from. I think it would mulch just about everyones garden on this forum. And the man loads it for me with the front end. He's desperate to get rid of it, but Im keeping its location a secret hehehe.

Dave, I can practically smell that picture of New Dawn. I cant believe I was in Shropshire in '06 and didnt know to go see the DA garden. I hadnt really discovered roses so much back then and was in the middle of a 3 year break from gardening. (Long story short, bad gardening job, horrible people, got out and did something different ie 3 years of computer studies. Still terrible at computers, but found my love of gardening again!)

Thanks for the encouragement guys, Im hoping the weather is nice over Easter so I can plant up some more.

The roses I have are
Radio Times
The Alnwick Rose
Madam Hardy
Mary Magdalene
Eglantyne
Scentimental
Rosa Mundi
Belle Amour
Rosa dupontii
Botzaris
and standards of Sharifa Asma and Mary Rose so far.

Ripley, believe it or not you are going to have a great garden. You climate is cooler than here so the horse manure and straw composted will keep the roots warm without being too strong even when used 8" or so thick.
We used stable manure 8" to 10" thick when living in Orange NSW which gets very cold. The summers were shorter and the winter longer than here on the coast.
I couldn't quite work out which was north, south etc in your pix. Simon recons the winds are pretty strong down there. Can remember him mentioning the
Roaring Fourties which I also remember from school lessions. I have found here a lot of roses don't like being tied and canes tend to die beyoud the tie points.

Looking forward to more pix as the garden matures.

Blow a dog off a chain around here.

Are you after any other climbers? I have a few plants of 'Goldfinch' and 'Paul Noel' and you can have one of these if you like?

This is 'Paul Noel': http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.4684
This is 'Goldfinch': http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.3057

I also have a few cutting grown plants of 'Pierre de Ronsard' and 'Red Pierre' spare... but these are climbers too. The others I have spave are quite large Chinas or ground covers... you are welcome to these (red flower carpet, Summer Evening, Comtesse du Cayla, Slater's Crimson, Temple Bells, Immensee, Red Cascade... um... there's a lot more around.... 'Leda' is an Awesome rose and I have a few of these spare (one is going o Bruce).... um.... I did have a list around somewhere

Ripley,
Your house and garden look lovely. You have done such a good job, you should be very proud of yourself.
Did you ever get your greenhouse?
I do look forward to watching your garden grow.

Apologies for the belated replies.

Simon, if the offer still stands i would love to have a Leda and Immensee. I was just today talking to a customer who grows hundreds of roses and she was saying Immensee is a fantastic ground cover rose, not tall very healthy glossy foliage and thick enough to suppress weeds without being too thorny. And Ive always had Leda on my wish list.

Carole, thankyou for the lovely comments. I did get my greenhouse! Its great although unfortunately 3 out of 4 of the roof windows have been blown off in the wind in the last 6 months. I will have to replace them somehow.

Heres a pic of the greenhouse with a self sown tomato I let grow this summer, with a few other veges including a sweet potato I experimented with growing at its base, behind the mini capsicum (cant really see it very well)

Hey Rip,

I have a whole stack of new 'Leda' cuttings in so I will put your name on one. I have about 4 spare plants of 'Immensee' so if you are happy to wait till spring, the 'Leda' cuttings should have struck by then and I can post them both together. PM me your address and I'll save it for then

Ripley,
I have the same brand greenhouse,and after the first window blew away into the distance,
I now place a tie of cord at the end of the window opener to the little hole adjacent to this end.Don't trust their catch arrangement.
It was a challenge to erect,made Ikea look easy.
Stephen