VAL AND BRIAN ELLIS’ ECHUCA FRONT GARDEN AND VERGE ARE ALL ABOUT BEING EASY TO MAINTAIN.
“It is a bit of a joint effort,” Val said.
“My garden is not very conventional.
“We did that when we shifted here 20 years ago.
“We didn’t want any lawns that we had to mow, and we wanted something that would be easy to look after.
“And because everything is grown now, it is easy to look after, doesn’t get many weeds because there is no room for anything other than plants.
“Everything that is in it is things that will grow in this area.
“We have something flowering all year around.”
Val likes crepe myrtles with her 10 in bloom when Our Home visited.
“I have a lot of crepe myrtles in the garden because I like them, and they flower through the summertime.
“When they built up this end of town, the blocks were only meant for one house, so I could never subdivide it and sell the deck off because it is only a small garden.
“The front garden is a normal-size, maybe 30 feet, 10 metres wide from the fence to the house.
“It’s got a lot of flowers, full of flowers.”
“I have deciduous trees in the front garden, and I like them because they let the light in in the winter and make it nice and shady in the summertime.
“There is an ornamental pear tree, and I have got a couple of Japanese maples in there that are grafted, and one of them is a red one, which is beautiful.
“The garden is designed so that it is good for us.
“We have a lot of rocks around it, which were good 20 years ago but probably not as good when you are getting older because you can trip over them, but it does make you be careful where you walk.”
Val was growing a multitude of flowering bulbs in the front yard, which recently have been replaced with a dry rock bed.
“I had bulbs and things growing all through there and we put rocks over them because it became kind of wild,” she said.
“Bulbs are beautiful when out in flower and then go very untidy.
“I didn’t want them that untidy and to have to dig them up.
“There were probably only jonquils and things, and people don’t want them, wanting things that are different.
“The bluebells come up through whatever I’ve got anyway and still may come up in spring.”
Due to the size of the garden, along with past pet dogs and chickens, Val grows many plants in pots.
“The dogs got old and passed and then we decided we would have some chickens, which are worse than dogs,” she said.
“We had four of them and they roamed around the backyard.
“And will tell you what, we never had any weeds while they were there, no snails, things like that.
“But they are massive scratches and anything that is not a tree doesn’t survive.
“They are really, really quite destructive.
“I even have a rose bush out the back.
“Anything that was found that they could pick and eat, it has been about eight weeks since the last one passed away of old age, the roses have grown up underneath and are looking really, really good.
Val has started collecting begonias to add to the garden, as they grow very well in the area.
“They are one of those things you can grow from cuttings, and if you know someone that will give you a cutting, you can swap them around,” she said.
“I just find that they are good ‘talk about’ plants, and you can swap them with other people.
“I’ve got quite a collection and three years ago, I wouldn’t have had any.
“I put the cuttings in a bottle of water, and they get roots on them, so now, at this time of year, they get roots quick.
Val joined the Echuca Horticulture Society when she started thinking about slowing down from full-time work, having been a member for about 10 years.
“I like things that you can collect and swap around, and that is why the horticulture club is good because we do swap things,” she said.
“I decided, by the time I got to 60, that if I was going to leave work, I had to have something to do other than sit down and take naps, so I joined the horticulture club and the family history club, and I am on the radio too.