We are fast approaching 12 months in the new house, and whilst a lot has been happening inside, not a great deal has been accomplished in the garden.

I made the tough decision to sell off more of my potted roses as I just don't have the space and water to accomodate them. We are resticted to only two watering days as we don't have a bore, so moving towards more drought-hardy species. Although I will still be planting out my big Archiduc Charles, which is reportedly very tough and performs well in poor soils. He should be going in the ground this weekend.

I have recleaimed some land from lawn and widened the garden beds out front, but I have a lot of plants i want to put in and competition is fierce,

We had the lawn vertimowed and it is coming back, and have poisoned the patches I want to give over to landscaping.

We are also quite close to the Yellagonga Regional Park (trees behind the palm), so we are thinking that we also need to garden with potential bushfires in mind. We will be putting in succulents like Aloes, as well as juicy Frangipani which are resistant to ember attacks.

This will give you all a an understanding of the struggles we have in perth. The "soil" is literally orange sand. I planted this Frangipani out the other week. it was actually one of the few plants in the front yard that we kept, but I had dug it up potted it up as it was planted far to close to the paving/house. I do dig a bag of cow manure into any planting hole, but even so, the plants will need to be tough. The magpies didnt waste time checking out the new shade source, though I think they were more interested in the disturbed lawn beetles.

It's not all sand and misery though, my remaining potted roses (Francis Dubreuil, Perle d'Or and Sophie's Perpetual) are dowing very well in thier new home. My non gardening partner even commented on Sophie's perfume at teh weekend. Yesterday I managed to obtain another dragon pot for my cutting-grown bush Devoniensis. Hopefully it isn't too vigorous for potted life.

Adam