The house we live in is fairly new (built 2000) but unfortunately when I moved in here, the landscaping was a touch on the wild side. The garden beds formed by the rock retaining wall were choked with weeds, the only turf was out the front and the backyard was a forest of all sorts of weeds of fascinating sizes, shapes and colours. Some of them I had never seen before but given the size of the thorns on them, no way were they staying in town. So with much persistence, the weeds were removed from the garden beds, natives planted out the front and along the side and the backyard forest was decimated with several lashings of Zero weed killer to keep them at bay.

But what happens when you remove ground cover and leave bare soil? Bingo, wind and water erosion of the soil. Around 2003, we noticed that the slap was starting to show underneath on the side of the house. I tried planting a native ground cover but as soon as I started watering it, the weeds started popping up to life and pushed out the plant. The weeds were not giving up without a fight. So in the absence of any real idea to do in that area, the weeds have been allowed to take up residence again just for the sake of keeping the soil there.

In the backyard, erosion hasn’t been so much of a problem. Although the plants were all killed off, we let their remains rot into the ground to increase the fertility of the soil. Plus we just couldn’t get the roots out, even once the plant was dead. Since all the nasty weeds were killed off, a new breed of weed took over. It doesn’t look like turf when mature, but when mowed short it is passable so I have let it hang around town on the pretence that it really is turf so that I can look out my window and see something green that doesn’t resemble something evil from Lord of the Rings!

2005/2006 were very exciting years here, it was the year of the patio and fence - an event that brought us closer to the year of the Dog, which is as yet undertermined. You see as much as I love my kitties, I love dogs equally as much and I would like to have my own doggie again. The fence went up and we tested it’s keeping in powers by hosting a lovely yet excitable labrador of my friend. It kept her in just nicely and we are looking forward to having her here again in November until we get our own doggie. That brings us to 2007, the year of the deck!!

And it has arrived, albeit in parts that have been piled nicely in our patio area. Let me show you a before shot of what we are working with. You can see our lovely weed turf popping up there after a nice flush of rain. That lovely green spot there is where the pink spa is going to go. We have had the spa sitting on our patio for around a year or so….we figure this summer it should actually get some use - that is after I eradicate the population of spiders, cockroaches and creepy crawly population that has set up residence inside the spa.