Our Greek Garden’s What, Why and How
Plan 2
Anestis begins clearing
Australian Gardens
An Australian house is usually single story and set in the middle of a
house block of land. Because of the size of this spread-out house and its
placing there is usually a small amount of garden all around it. Australian
gardens, like those in England and America, usually use the garden to enhance
the house. So gardeners plant trees, flowers and bushes, and perhaps ponds and
pergolas. There is often space for a lawn where the children can play.
Australian Gardens
Australian Gardens
(Gardens of many immigrants from Asia and the Mediterranean however are
often different, as the garden, rather than being devoted to flowers, is often
given over to fruit trees and vegetables.)
The Typical Lemian-Town Garden
In most Greek towns a house is several stories high and set right on
the roadway. There is usually no house-garden, and folk keep plants in pots on balconies,
while vegetables are grown outside town in an allotment.
But Every Garden is Unique
Our Greek house is three stories high and set right up against two
roads. This placing - where you step out of the door onto the road - is typical. However what this place gives us is far more garden space if we wanted it, and even more than one would have in a
typical Australian house and gardens set-up where the house takes up most of the garden space.
We were happy to have so much land around the house, and we have now fully developed every corner to give us all the
aspects of a garden that we wanted.
The What and Why of Our
Lemnos Garden
What
did we want? And Why did we want this?
The Basics: sitting areas, amenities area, car parking area
Plus.....
We like entertaining at home, so we wanted a number of pleasant sitting
places. I like drying my clothes in the sun rather than in a drying cabinet
(especially when there is plenty of sunshine), and we preferred to park the car
in the property (rather than on the road as so many have to in Myrina).
Vegs and fruit areas
Even the White House has a vegetable garden!
And as we like cooking for ourselves and others we wanted a good
vegetable garden and some fruit trees.
How we Achieved our Lemian Garden
The Plan
Along the way I found that the original grand scheme (see blog 23) needed to be
adjusted, to accommodate various practical needs. For instance, our driveway
was steep and we needed to be able to turn at the top. Plus we wanted a shaded
carport for summer. Plus the first plan had not included a place to put the
rotary hoist that came from Australia.
And, looking over my original design, I changed the pathways in the hot
garden area to be more informal, limiting straight lines to the vegetable and
herb gardens. I had hoped for the same informality along the back wall in the
shade garden however once our helper, Anestis overseen by my husband got going,
the stonewall ended up with straight lines.
Materials and Workers
I often found that I had to work with the conflicting wishes of all of those
involved, plus I learnt how to deal with necessary limits of space and
materials, and so compromises of many kinds were made.
Often revisions were needed in a hurry, and were drawn on scraps of
paper found in a hotel room, or in the kitchen, on memo pads supplied by
hard-wear shops, or in my diary, on planes as we flew back and forth to
Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment