Perth's New Scented Garden

It's time I shared with you the latest project we've been working on - our new scented garden. Our mission was to transform a patch of grass into a beautiful sanctuary of flowers, shrubs and shade to greet all those coming to the centre and provide everyone with a nice spot to gather and be inspired by nature.

Last year this was just a pipe dream we had, but thanks to the generous help of some people, it has become a reality. 

Although we have a fair bit of gardening ahead of us, all of the groundwork is complete. We started in late June and just finished the paving on Sunday. This project innvolved a bobcat (a small bulldozer), granite rocks, railway sleepers, soil delivery and alot of landscaping work before we got to the point where we could plant anything. But I'll show you all the stages to it through some pictures. First up, heres how it used to look:  

Goodbye lawn: We hired a bobcat to do the dirty work.

Excavation: This is what we were left with and where our dirty work began.

Digging: Heres me making a start. You can see the railway sleepers and rocks to be used.

Up goes the wall: Here Dean and I are preparing the railway sleeper retaining wall - a lot of digging involved there! To the left you can see the 4 cubic metres of soil conditioner we had delivered. Although we are wearing the same thing, we are not prison workers :-)

Wall up: Here we have completed the retaining wall.

Dean dug a hole: Dean prepares a home for our tree.

Success: After a long day we have planted our tree. Some thought we had just put a big twig in, but its not supposed to have any leaves this time of year - its a deciduous tree, meaning it loses its leaves in autumn/winter and they return in spring. We wanted a deciduous tree because we want shade in summer but we want to let the sunlight in during winter.                                                     

Taking shape: We begin to see what the garden will look like here. Dean begins spreading the top soil.

Donation: Rose has been very generous with giving both plants and her time to the garden. A lot of the plants have come from her.

Wheelbarrow work: Rose hard at work spreading the top soil.

Rocks: Shaping the beds

Nearly there: Just need the final touches...

Stepping Stones: Sabah and Rose adjust the pavers for the path and as you can see, we've added some plants. In the middle picture you can see the the ground had been raked to prepare to scatter Roman Chamomile seeds, to grow a scented herb lawn.

Sunday: People enjoying walking through garden when they attended the courses on Sunday.

This could not have happened with out the help we received. Sabah and I have been wanting to do this for a while but we never really believed it would happen. Sabah and I want to thank everyone who helped in some way towards this, and special mention must go to Dean and Rose who have helped a lot and Derrick who gave generous donations which helped us to pay for this. To all who helped - we thankyou, and hope you enjoy the new garden.

As we add more things and as the plants grow, I'll post some updates.