WE decided it was high time we put some plants into the backyard in time for spring so that the roots could take and the plants wouldn’t struggle as much come summer. Also, we needed to mark out the garden beds before the lawn was rolled down.

We always planned to have a tropical sanctuary in the back (I need a piece of home in Australia!) although we we were well aware our budget would only allow for half of that ideal to take shape. Anyway, out we went to a couple of plant and tree nurseries and came home with this:

It’s obviously just a small selection of palms and ferns to start us off with, but we also bought a mango tree and lemon tree to kick the edible side of things off. The hefty lemon tree:

Tiny lemons growing and budding flowers in the background:

Before we could plant anything into the ground, the back fence began to really bother us. How ugly is painted Hardifence? Again, thank you magazines because we were inspired and ran off to get bamboo fence cladding. Et voilà!

Once that was done, the planting began. I mixed in the trailer load of soil conditioner, manure and all:

And Brendan took the man-route and dug giant holes for all the plants:

Our first go at gardening! Not too shabby we say…