In the garden there are bird houses, baths, a giant apple, emu, concrete koala and angel – and mushrooms… Seating is always close by – and helps to make sure everyone is well rested while walking around.
Winter at the Lane is a special time – autumn has meant leaves have fallen and the great structure of the trees and plants are revealed. It is really striking to see as the days get longer and colder. The Wisteria Colonnade is bare and the Elm over looking the Secret Garden turns to yellow and then drops its leaves over just two days….
I first saw a kitchen garden with a willow fence at Stonefields with cane cloche’s over the plants… ……and thought at one point I could in fact make one myself. However Tim who sometimes gardens at Uccello Lane (and many other things as well) not only could make one BUT knew where to get the willow – so the willow fence with a small…
At the back once you get past the native garden and the Wisteria Colonnade – you will find the “Red Garden” – this marks the boundary of Uccello Lane – with a row of Claret Ash, some grasses, Red Hot pokers and the red Fire Bush plant! The westringa balls with their grey foliage provide a great contrast – with the tall gums signaling…
One side of the Secret Garden wall looked up to the Birch Forest and the Wisteria Colonnade where we had done a lot of work and was shaded by the wonderful elm tree. The other side was really just a dumping ground for garden rubbish and had a very steep slope. Initially it was also dark as a row of Cyprus trees from next…
Past the edibles and through the gate is the native garden – wattle to the right and then correa and native plants mixed in with some sedum “Summer Joy”. The soil here was terrible – tee trees had made planting difficult and the only plants that survived were natives. There were rocks and established trees – but very shady and for ages we would…
Next to “The Bank” is the edibles area. We built raised garden beds, and a large chook pen area called Casa di Paola with a Rosemary herb wall. We are constantly changing the plants seeing what works – sage ended up taking a whole bed here but when we moved it to the kitchen garden it looked very sad – too shady. The artichokes…
We planted an “orchard” next to Il Pergolato Di Rosa with mainly apples and pears. It has been slow growing in size but every year there are cherries, apples and plums – and some great blossoms. Crab apples were a favorite of Edna Wallings and Paul Bangay has them in his white garden at Stonefields – he calls them “2 week wonders” but for…
A Perennial Garden has always been on my wish list – but the right spot did not present itself until we put in the path to complete the “Edna Walling Walk” which goes around all of Uccello Lane. It is also outside my bedroom window so something to see each morning was an added bonus. I did not want a straight line but instead…
For the first 18 months we just cleared the areas where plants had been left to grow wild – blackberries and weeds of every sort were thriving – and no pruning meant ground covers had turned into bushes!. Trees at Uccello Lane We did the back first as there was a lot of undergrowth and snakes were on our mind. Trav the Treeman came…
