Garden – Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE MBA

Adventurers, Altona, angels, Birdlife, birds, Birdwatching, Garden, Gardening, Swans, Victoria, Williamstown, Williamstown, Women in Business

Autumnal sunshine relaxes a busy mind

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

Escaping ones desk is always a challenge. There is inevitably another email to answer or proposal or report to write. So this afternoon when I took a few minutes to walk outside to inspect how my garden was holding up after a few days without rain, I realised just how beautiful a day it was and decided it was time to leave the keyboard behind and take a walk.

While the sun was shining, I took myself up to a river crossing at Kororoit Creek which is surrounded by industrial buildings and in easy view of the incredibly ugly train overpass that is unnecessarily being built 200 meters from the water.

There are a number of places close to my house where I can see birds and they are some of my favourite animals to photograph. Thankfully, the shore birds don’t seem to notice their built up environment and I arrived at just the right time to see many of them enveloped in dappled sunlight.

Three Royal Spoonbills preening

I had the birds all to myself and while taking photos is a way to capture the moment, I was happy just to witness their activity as they went about feeding, preening and generally enjoying the sunshine.

Some of the birds in this tiny patch of water included those with the most unlikely features. The Royal Spoonbills have beautiful white feathers and jet black spoon shaped bills which they waft left and right through the water to sift out food. One of my favourites are the Red- Necked Avocets whose tips of their black beaks tilt upwards in the most surprising way! Black Winged Stilts have legs so thin that I don’t see how they stay standing and the Sooty Oystercatcher is just a joy of red and black. Check out those legs!

Red Necked Avocets

Red Necked Avocet

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Sooty Oystercatcher

As I continued walking, I entered a grasslands area and here the birdlife changes. They’re mostly smaller and a little noisier. Beautiful, tiny (less than 8 cms high) are the Zitting Cisticolas. I just love their high pitched little song like hiss of a snake only less scary which immediately tells me that they’re around even if I can’t see them. Unless you get one like this that sits atop a tiny branch and makes his presence known to everyone!

A little bigger but just as flighty, the lovely Crested Pigeons shimmer in the sunlight and are not bothered by the flocks of sparrows (which are becoming more rare) also enjoying the warm air.

I found myself at Cherry Lake, Altona having walked much further than I intended… following the birds. In a whispering She-Oak I was delighted to see White Eared Honeyeaters and Red Brow Finches dropping down to take little sips and dips in the lake then quickly returning to the She-Oak. I hoped there were no large fish in the lake else these little birds would have made some quick fish a bitesized meal! A Little Wattlebird didn’t want to miss out so he soon joined the fun.

Red Browed Finch in She Oak

Little Wattlebird looking down from a towering gum

White Eared Finch

Willy Wagtail

I’m sure there were many other birds I either didn’t see or couldn’t photograph… as soon as they hear me coming, most vanish into the undergrowth or behind a convenient bush. But occasionally, as with the Red Browed Finches, they tolerate me standing right under their tree as they flit back and forth.

Seeing any birds is always a joy and I encourage to get out into your own backyard and see what you can see. Listen and look up and down. They are all around you!

If you enjoyed accompanying me on today’s walk through Williamstown and Altona, think about making a donation to BirdLife. before June 30th. Many of our birds are in danger of disappearing completely. Let’s not forget how much they add to our lives with the colour and song. Enjoy the sunshine this weekend.

birds, Birdwatching, Garden, garden design, Gardening, Weather, Williamstown, Williamstown

Soil Mountains

February 14, 2018 Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

“You’re gonna need a lot of soil to fill that hole”, said my husband after we removed part of the deck and discovered a 400mm drop to the ground. Even he didn’t know just how much! 6 cubic meters later and we’ll need more! But the garden is definitely progressing…

When the soil arrived this morning I have to say I felt a little nervous. The truck delivering it was very large! The mound they tipped onto the driveway was much bigger than expected!

We’re using a granitic sand (also known as Tooborac Toppings), to create a path through the garden which will lead you to a little seating area with a water feature. I’m advised that this sand can be compacted down so it doesn’t just spread all over the garden!

So when another truck turned up with the sand and dumped another huge pile behind the first lot, I was started to feel very nervous! How would they move all this by this afternoon? Will my neighbours start complaining we’re blocking the path? Will they clean up the trail of mud through the courtyard!? Ah the joys of creating a garden!

But the early results are very pleasing… the garden is coming together. It even smells better 🙂 It has some order; the path is defined and the sand and earth look good together. We might even have a garden in time for a planned birthday celebration… let’s see….

Australia, birds, Birdwatching, creativity, Garden, garden design, Gardening, goal-setting, protecting species, Victoria, Weather, Williamstown

Williamstown Garden revival

January 24, 2018 Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

Work is underway to return my formerly ‘aircraft-hanger’ covered garden back into a nearly wild native space for our local birds and wildlife. I’m very excited that I’ve managed to find a local gardener who sees the same vision as me and we’re hoping to get started next week.

It’s a funny thing creating a garden. For a while I looked out on what was just a barren patch of dry dirt which was uncovered when we removed part of our timber deck. It looked very unloved.

Over the past weeks, due to considerable rain and blazing sun in equal measure, weeds have established a foot hold. Now initially, I wasn’t happy with the weeds as all I saw was the painful job ahead of removing them. They go from a few green plants to fully- blown giant invaders seemingly overnight. They nearly cover the bare ground now.

Strangely, now when I look out of my lounge window and I see their seeded, bobbing heads, I don’t feel annoyed in fact the opposite because the weeds have brought life back to my embryonic garden.

Already, butterflies have returned. Mostly Cabbage Whites but also lovely Dainty Swallowtails who until now only frequented the Melaleuca tree on my nature strip. I see at least one now every day and they always lift my mood as only a large, colourful butterfly can.

Wattlebirds and Blackbirds visit (probably after the caterpillars I am sure are being left behind!); enormous Dragonflies zip about on the hunt and Rainbow Lorikeets have visited to eat berries from my neighbours’ tree which has only been revealed due to the demolition.

A neighbour who knew about my garden renovation offered me four of her most treasured plants that she no longer had space for, now that she was moving house. So I was gifted a large, thorn-less Lemon Tree full of fruit; a beautiful pink and white

flowering Pelargonium, a scented Yellow Rose and an Agapanthus, all potted and happy to sit on my deck until a space can be found for them in the garden (although the 42 degree days did challenge all of them).

Next stage is to bring in at least 7 cubic meters of earth and start adding structure to the garden. The weeds will have to go but I’m sure some of them will find there way back. Along with the butterflies.

birds, Birdwatching, Garden, Gardening, Native Plants, Photography, protecting species, Succulents, Victoria, Williamstown, Williamstown

In an Australian country garden …

November 16, 2017November 16, 2017 Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE

Beau guarding a large Echeveria (he’s afraid of birds and butterflies so no worries there).

I have the amazing opportunity to create a garden from scratch. Before we bought this house, I have always had to work with the garden I’ve been given… on more than one occasion I’ve lived in a rental house and my main aim has been to keep the garden alive for the next owner inspection. When I last owned my own home I knew next to nothing about which plants to choose, how to keep them alive or even what I really liked.

Over the years of tending these gardens and killing more plants than I care to admit, I have learned a few things, I’m glad to say. During those years, I experimented with plants in pots in lieu of my own garden so I planted bulbs and watched what would grow where; I planted a lot of succulents and absolutely fell in love with them. Who can’t love a plant that replicates itself?! Echeverias and Sempervivums and other succulents create little clones of themselves and so you can create whole gardens from just a few plants and a bit of patience. After a bit of investigation, I learnt that in some countries Sempervivums are called ‘Hens and Chickens’ because of this habit of replicating their own little baby plants. In other countries they are called ‘house leaks’ as they are used in some countries to grow on the roofs of houses to little plug leaks. I love that!.

Australian natives plants offer an amazing range of subtle, hardy and in many cases, very beautiful plants that can be chosen to suit your local environment. There are many varieties like the gorgeous Grevilleas. So while many of us still choose to plant up our gardens with roses and other ‘exotics’, Australian native plants are becoming increasingly popular not least because of their tolerance of our extreme weather and low rainfall.

If you’ve read earlier posts, you’ll know i love Australian birdlife and a native garden is a great way to attract native birds. They need all the help they can get as their natural habitats are disappearing. Many Australian birds are very small and need protection from large predators like our very large aggressive ravens, butcherbirds and magpies. Suburban cats are an absolute menace. So planting ground cover for little birds is essential if they are to find hiding places away from predators.

So in beginning to plan my own garden, I can start with a few of these lessons:

I love Australian native plants
I love succulents
These two broad plant types for the most part go very well together as they require little attention and not a lot of water – both useful things for an amateur (read uneducated) gardener in a state where rainfall is intermittent.
I love Australian birdlife and want to attract them so that I can enjoy them and photograph them and give then a little haven in an inner city suburb

This all means I want to create an Australian native garden in my very own backyard.

Over the next few months (and years as gardens are a lifetime commitment), I will be changing my 60sqm of dirt into a native Australian garden.

The garden I have to work with was, until a few weeks ago, covered by a huge aircraft-hanger construction that was supposed to be a pergola. Made of thick pine planks, many struts, brackets, screws and nails, this construction was not only incredibly ugly in my opinion, it took up 3/4 of the garden leaving me just room for a patch of scrawny grass with a few paving stones leading to a small and inefficient shed.

This is all gone… including half of the cedar deck which covered most of the garden. The decking was repurposed to create a new deck to host our spa.

Now that the pergola has gone, the spa has been repositioned, the shed has been dismantled and redistributed and the essential water tank has been rotated so it’s in a more practical location, we are ready to start to build the garden.

Actually.we are ready to start planning to build the garden. I really couldn’t envisage what I had to work with until the space was cleared. What I’m left with is a rather big hole… ! When I reduced the deck I realised the ground beneath it was more than 30cms below the deck. We’re going to need a serious amount of topsoil before we can even think about putting in a plant.

I am entering that wonderful design stage… I can see what I have to work with and I know roughly what I want to create. Next step is to get some professional advice (we used professionals to dismantle the aircraft hanger and move the deck and water tank around – couldn’t have done it without help). Possibly I wont plant much until next winter/spring as in Melbourne we are entering the end of spring and beginning of summer and many young plants wont enjoy the 42 degree days we’ll get in the summer. But I will wait to see what my gardener advises. Until then. Stay tuned.

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