Thornley Mews: Back Garden & Fence

Kia ora whānau, again it's been a while since I posted last, it's funny how life just happens and before you realise it, months have past so quickly. After spending so much time and effort on the communal front garden, I thought it was abut time I actually did something with our back garden which was still in a bad state even though I had done some work to it.

When we first moved in, there was overgrown Ivy everywhere... it had wrapped itself around trees, fenceposts, pushed the fence panels off or cracked them. One of the trees in the property behind us was actually suffering really badly because the Ivy was choking it.

Unfortunately on this picture, you can't see how bad it is on the fence on the left.

A few months after we moved in, I decided I'd get rid of as much Ivy as I could. You can see from this picture how badly it was attached to the fence, but what isn't clear is all the cracks and holes in the fence as a result.

This is a more recent picture, only a few weeks old. I've dug out the overgrown Agapanthus (Man I hate those things) and you can see here more clearly how bad the fence is too. I don't know why, but the washing line was installed the length of the yard, right in the middle which was a real pain in the ass. It was also mounted on a huge wooden cross.

I moved the washing line so it goes across the yard instead of front-to-back and started painting the wooden posts of the fence in a Charcoal wood stain. Sorry about the quality of this picture.

And this is where we are at today. I've replaced the fence panels with 7mm treated plywood and stained the panels with Cabot's Kingfisher. So far I've planted...

(L to R)

Rengarenga (Renga Lily/Arthropodium Cirratum),

Piripiri (Acaena Microphylla) also known as the Kina groundcover plant because it's flowers look like miniature spiky Kina,

Kōwhai Tree (Sophora Microphylla), one of the most beautiful New Zealand native trees, and

Miniature Toetoe (Chionocloa Flavicans)