the trees have landed (at Mum's place)

Mum collected the trees from Prue. Then Mum and Dad along with Dave's parents potted them all up in a marathon potting session the next day.

Mum's email - 7th August 2004

All lemon gums now potted on. 80 as predicted. They look nice and
healthy.

5 persimons, two chestnuts (different varieties Spanish chestnut "Flemings Special"... and Chestnut, "Flemings Prolific".) and two Moorpark
apricots I think is about it. They are all now in 12 inch pots. All
looking good. We have masses of potting mix left over. And blood and
bone and Osmocote of various types.

Prue is looking out for quinces and apples and some other nuts right
now.

adding more tanks at Amherst

Dad had already installed one tank at Amherst, but after we talked about the need to have lots of water for irrigation he decided to add some more.

Email from Dad - 2nd August 2004

I took the opportunity while free at work last night to surf the net briefly about the water tanks issue. I found several sites for you to visit and will include all sites websites at the end of this letter.

I looked at the big picture, as well as my availabilities shortterm and made some decisions. I must update you first on the fact I uncovered while surfing the net last night: namely that I was misled, or misremembered the size of the tank I installed. I remember I asked the shop person when I bought the first tank how big it was in gallons, and he told me 2000. This was wrong, as I discovered the 4500litre tanks equate to only 1000 gal. So at present you have only 1000 gal at Amherst. I looked at the 2000 gal tank and at least 2-3 men would be needed to move such a tank. Also delivery is free to some areas for tanks 9000 l and over, so site preparations and permanent positions must first be established. All the tanks can be buried to as least 1/2 their height, but that is another matter. Without good digging equipment, such an approach is not possible.

I decided we needed to get catchment started immediately, and using the 1000 gal tanks was the most practical, as I can manage them by myself. The cost of the tanks where I buy them is cheaper than any of the sites I looked-at last night, and for that I am pleased. Also, the connecting pipe and fittings are ready to hand for designing the plumbing. The cost of the 1000 gal tank is $765 and the 2000 gal is $1250. The difference between the 1530 and 1250 is $280, and this figure would easily be eatten up by costs of earthmoving equipment, and the need for more men and equipment to arrange the larger tank's installation. Moving it to it's proper future site would entail the same costs and bother, though getting help later would be easier of course. But getting water into tanks for the October deadline means one thing: haste. So I bought two 1000 gal tanks, and will go tonight to Amherst to deliver the first, and go on Friday to deliver the second and setup the two on site. I must return tonight for a commitment in the morning, but will have more time later this week. I hope you are okay with the decision I have made. Love Dad
The supplier of the tanks where I bought these is ARI Plastank www.ariplastank.com.au
The site to visit for underground tanks is resapps@yahoo.com
I compared with the Bushman tanks for the tanks I have bought, and the site of access for me is local so I favored this outlet.

My reply - 2nd August 2004

Thank you *so* much for doing this. I'm very happy with the decision you made. The small 1000 gallon tanks are really convenient, they will serve our purposes in the short term and also be very useful for the longer term. As you suggested, in the long term we will probably do best to have a huge tank installed semi-buried near the top of the hill and then pump water from the smaller collecting tanks up to it as
they get full. Don't forget, you must let me pay you for your time / hassle in doing
this, just buy things on my card to cover it.

Email from Dad - 3rd August 2004

I think you may consider the advantage of having two 2000 gal tanks delivered as delivery is free, I think. You could have Dennis excavate a flat area where one of the ponds or lawns is to be put on the downhill side of the house. These tanks can be moved later when you wish, but would give a place for overflow from the three uphill tanks and would still be place to develop the other areas of garden in the future. I believe with proper approach the 3000 gal you have now will see your trees through the summer without any trouble. Once they have wintered once, and when there is no drought, they will be untouchable except by roos and sheep, which you will be protecting against. The way it was raining last night you will have no trouble filling these two additional tanks.

If you opt for not getting anymore tanks for now well and good, as I was only putting out the idea for consideration. Any tanks bigger than 2000 gal should not be placed until the eventual placement can be done once and for all time.
I'm off today to take the other tank and install. I will take you up on the offer of some financial assistance because I spent all my money for the fortnight getting the dvd player and television so no money for food except bankcard. But I will allow just 1 1/2 days for payment of time if you don't mind as I feel bad about you needing to pay for all the little bit and pieces of my time. I am always happy to help when I can fit-in time. I don't get-on too well when exhausted because I am getting older and don't bounce back so quickly. I have caught a small cold and am hoping it doesn't get bigger.

I took Bonz for a walk at dusk and had another close look at the dam wall.
The damage is old, and the entire wall is breached. The dam will fill to
only 1/2 capacity, or perhaps a little more. Equipment will need to be used
as the breach must have the portion of wall above removed, and consolidation
of materials done from the base of the breach upwards. Tell me if we need
to get this fixed urgently, or use equipment there for soil preparation
later. I could contact Dennis and get him to look at it to give you an idea
of costs befrore proceeding. If we wait to October and hire a backhoe for
everything that may be better. The water level is a long way from the site
of the breach, and you aren't needing the water from the dam much right
now.

I got "hellooooed" by the neighbor, and took 15 min to talk to Charlie,
Tex's wife. They have lost a lot of geese and chicken and turkeys, and 20
lambs to foxes already.They are also going to build on the 20 acres adjoining you at the front. They gave that paddock to their daughter Donna. So you will have another
young neighbor. That's all the news for now. Love Dad

My reply - 3rd August 2004

Hi Dad, thanks again for arranging the tanks. I think you should
allow at least 2 days payment though because given you're making 2
trips, that's 10 hours + of time already. For now I think we will
stick with just the tanks we have as, as you say, that should give us
enough water to feed the trees. When we come back and Dave sees it,
we will work out what to do next. Thanks again and hope you had a
good time up there even though it was brief.

I agree there's no rush in repairing the dam but Dave suggested it
would be good to get a quote from Dennis, just so that we know the
extent of repairs needed and can plan for it.

The search for trees

We want to plant a lot of trees at Amherst when we're there and so need to organise suppliers well in advance. Here's a collection of emails relating to that:

Email from me to Prue - 4th July 2004
In terms of getting trees, I found a nursery that seems good and looks
reasonably close by: http://www.meredithnursery.com.au/about_us.htm
Have you heard of them? I've emailed to ask about getting hold of
tubes of lemon scented gums for when we're back, plus to ask if they
know of any local contractors etc to help with planting. I figure if
we can arrange for the lemon gums to be put in by someone else
(assuming it doesn't cost an exorbitant amount that is), it'll free us
up to work on other parts when we're back, like putting in other
specimen trees, marking out the terracing layouts etc.

It turned out Prue hadn't heard of them and after a couple of email exchanges and phone conversations with Meredith Nursery it turned out they weren't going to be able to help. (Their stock of lemon gums were too damaged, and they got a bit grumpy with email correspondance... didn't seem to realise that the alternative for us was to stay up really late to call them. So we decided to go elsewhere)

Prue's email about trees - 12th July 2004

I had actually started enquiring into the trees. I spoke with my dad to find
out through the man (Stuart) who planted his hardwood plantation where to
get trees and if there was anyone in the Amherst area that would plant
trees. He has given me a contact in Boort. So I will contact them. There are
a couple of growers of native trees in and around Melbourne that I will try
also for sourcing the trees. Stuart plants trees for Land Care, farmers,
govt and Greening Australia and to give you an idea how many trees he can
plant he said he and two others planted and put tree guards around 1500 in a
day!That was with good soil preparation. He strongly suggested to rip the
areas to be planted (with tractor and ripper or discs or plough) kill the
weeds with herbicide and deep water before planting. This will reduce the
mortality rate. He also suggested that they be watered as often as possible
(every couple of weeks) during the first summer. This may be a little
difficult but it will help the survival rate.Is it possible to get the
ground prepared prior to planting?

My reply - 13th July 2004

I'm sure it would be possible to arrange for soil preparation. I had
a look on the ballarat.com services guide to Talbot and there were a
couple of local people listed who seem like they might do that kind of
thing - e.g.,
Bruce Adams (backhoe, bobcat, soil, gravel, etc) - phone 5463 2344
Bond Cartage (backhoe, bobcat, soil, gravel, etc) - phone 5463 2295
Also, apparently one of our neighbours builds sheds, dams, etc. I can
get Dave to call the guy who owns the pub, as he'll know who it is.

The only slight hiccup would be that we haven't precisely marked out
where we want the driveway to go yet... but perhaps that is something
we could do when we're back rather than planting the driveway trees,
if your Boort contact comes through. I just want to make a start and
plant at least a few trees myself, that's all.

Practicing for Amherst life in London!

We are practicing for Amherst life. We are getting two
chickens! and a cute imac looking henhouse that they promised me is
foxproof and really easy to keep clean. The whole lot are coming from
http://www.omlet.co.uk, you can see pictures there plus it's a very
amusing site I think. Dave reckons they are henhouses for yuppies,
which is true, but at least it's a place to start. Besides, a normal
henhouse would stand no chance against the foxes here. There's an 8
week waiting list for them, they were just released here and
attracting lots of attention. I figure, I talk about wanting to have
lots of pet hens and ducks at Amherst, I may as well get started
learning about how to keep them on a small scale. They will give us
eggs, eat slugs and be nice pets too I hope.

Also, we signed up at the weekend for an allotment! It's a 17.5m x
10m plot, just as an English style allotment should be, with a railway
line at the back, and in the middle of lots of other plots with
falling down sheds, mixture of wildly overgrown and cultivated. It's
only 10 minutes walk away from us, through a park, so there'll be no
excuse not to go. It's even on the way home from Dave's work so he
can stop in to get the vegies for dinner. We were given a great book
called "Self Sufficiency - the classic guide for realists and
dreamers" http://makeashorterlink.com/?U10B5362A which among other things has instructions for doing practical things like clearing an allotment, planting vegetables, etc. With that book as a guide, I drew up a crop rotation plan and planting schedule on Sunday afternoon! :-) We don't get the allotment key officially for a few weeks yet, but then we will spend the first few months
clearing it properly, building a shed, seed beds with cold frames,
compost area, etc. Get it all set up so that it will be ready to go
with a vengence come Jan/Feb for the first lot of plantings.

major reworking of garden plan

I made a flying visit to Australia at end June to see my Gran who was very ill, and while there I managed to go see Amherst. This was my first time at the property in person and to my relief it was wonderful. Really green, far more so than I'd expected, so I was very happy. However, it turned out I'd totally misunderstood where the gas pipeline was, so that Prue's plan for the garden doesn't work.


Email to Prue on my return home from Australia - 4th July 2004

While I was there I managed to get a few hours at Amherst, in the late
afternoon of my first day there. To my relief, it's wonderful. I
think it helped it had rained quite a bit so it was all very green,
but the slopes / layout of the land was better than I'd expected too.
There's only a very small part that's flat, and gentle rolling rising
to a slightly steep peak on one edge. But all is workable. Also,
there weren't that many rocks, I'd been envisaging it almost like
gravel, but it wasn't that at all. And the rocks there are, on the
quartz outcrop, are a lovely rose-pink colour. The house is a wreck,
which we knew, but it has good vibes so we can restore it. The dam is
huge and was filling up.

However, after having seen it in person, unfortunately we have to
change the design. For two reasons... first, parts of it won't work
with the lie of the land, eg the lake would look silly as it's not in
a natural spot for it. But more importantly, there is a natural gas
pipeline running under the land which is an easement - we can't build
anything, including planting trees for 20m around it (10m either
side). We knew the easement existed but for some reason had thought
it was way over the other side of the block. Turns out we'd got it
upside down and it runs almost right past the front door of the house!

Don't worry though, I don't think it will stop us having an amazing
garden, we just have to reorient it. When I was at the block we took
some more precise measurements (give or take a metre or two). So I've
now drawn up a map which has the positioning of the house, dam, and
existing trees near the house more accurately. Also, we've made a
start at reworking the plans, using your original design as
inspiration. There are still a lot of blanks, but I wanted to show
you where we'd got to so far, and to see if you had any ideas for how
to fill it in.

Here's some pictures of the plan:
















Some of the things that I've changed - but obviously very flexible
still so if you think any of it wouldn't work, or you have better
ideas, let me know.

* Allowed space to extend the house. There is only the one direction
we can extend it, so even though we don't know yet exactly what it
will look like, we know roughly the area it will occupy

* Changed the layout of the driveway to match where the entrance is.

* Drawn in stables, hen house etc. The stables in particular need to
be in the area where they are on the map so that the roof will face
the right direction to catch the most sun (as we're going to put the
solar system on there), plus so that the roof is facing away from the
house - so the panels are largely out of sight. We figure too there
will probably be a garage between the stables and the house, but
haven't worked out precisely that bit yet.

* Added in a terraced planting section, around the part that gets
steepest to the back right of the house, because it just seemed like
it was crying out for it. Then building on that we totally rethought
the pool, so as to put it in a spot where it gets views with the
terraced section as a backdrop. It also means we can put the pool on
the other side of the easement, and have the easement area as grass /
etc (e.g., for cricket, boules, etc) between the pool and the house.

* I haven't drawn in the lake with jetty, as there is really only one
spot that it could go, which is in the distance to the far side of the
property. It would give a great outlook and I'd still like to do it
but I suspect it will be one of the last things we do because of the
cost, plus because it will cover the best grazing pasture on the
block. (Speaking of grazing, there were about 30 sheep on it, and
there was loads of sheep / cow / roo poo everywhere that I'm sure
would help to improve the soil if we ploughed it in). Instead, to
satisfy my water craving, I've allowed for two mid-sized ponds in the
main part of the garden which cycles water from the dam. I even
planned in for a little pump house next to the dam, as I figure it
will need a bit of machinery to make it happen!

* I've combined the meditation pond / gazebo thing with the summer
house / reading room, with the idea of having a cabin thing that is
partly on land and partly on stilts protruding into the bottom pond.
I saw this done once on a DIY show and it was gorgeous. It seems like
it would combine my desire for a jetty (where I could dangle my feet
in the water) with all the other things.

* Planned in a vegetable garden with 3 brick walls and the other with
a wire or wrought iron-like fence facing the driveway, positioned so
as to get the maximum amount of sun. The other reason for having the
3 brick walls is that it will allow us to put a shadecloth or netting
roof over it if need be. Then I drew in the orchard in the section
leading down to the summerhouse just because it felt like it suited.

* We've scrapped the idea of the tower. We might build a treehouse or
little cabin instead, on top of the quartz outcrop, but that will be a
later stage thing. Given the land is so sloped anyway we won't need
a tower to get a view of the whole garden, we'll just go to the top of
the terraced section.

Photos of Amherst

Here are some photos of Amherst, which collect together all the ones that Mum and Dad have taken as well as some others which had to be scanned
http://www.ofoto.co.uk/I.jsp?c=ghiijyl.qc9gkmx&x=0&y=ct2vpd

initial tweaks to the garden plan

After we'd done some more thinking about the plan, we had a few more ideas...

My email with initial tweaks to the plan - 2nd June 2004

Last night I looked some more at the design, and I still love it.
It's taken me a little while to digest, when we met I was just blown
away by the thought of it, it suddenly seemed to have moved a step
closer to reality! Now I've thought about it some more though, I do
have a few tweaks I'd like to make. Given that we have to rework it
anyway to move the driveway, would you be able to make these other
changes at the same time? If you disagree with any of them, let me
know, as you're the expert, but thought I'd ask anyway.

* Could the hothouse be bigger, say double in size. The compost area
can just be shunted sideways further

* Could the stable be bigger. Also, could the ducks have a separate
house from the chooks, down near the lake, as I figure they will want
to swim on it. The chooks it makes sense to keep near the house so
it's easy to collect eggs in the AM, etc, but the ducks don't need to
be. Eventually my hope is that they would go slightly wild and
free-range anyway

* Near the tower perhaps, could there be an outdoor picnic / BBQ area?
e.g., it could be a kind of room made of trellis that we could grow
plants up and over for shade, and perhaps the BBQ might be on the
bottom floor of the tower. Perhaps one side of the tower could be
solid, and thus a wall we could use to project films onto (Dave has
this great projector that we use here in London to project onto the
wall of the conservatory, but it'd be even more amazing outside).
It'd be nice down there near the lake. Not that we'd use it loads,
but still it'd be nice. We might even make the tower square, with a
proper enclosed room at the top, ala Sissinghurst, then it could be a
guest room. :-)

* Was the path near the petanque lawn where you've drawn the lines
across the part you were thinking of having trellised? If so, that's
brilliant. Could we extend is also along the rest of the path, near
where the olives are at the moment?

* In terms of the olives, could they be moved to behind the herb
garden, perhaps running into the orchard? That way Dave has room to
plant more if he wants. Also then I can use the bed where they
currently are for flowers.

* I love having the herbaceous border near the house. I just wanted
to check, how long will it look good for? Is it possible to plant it
so there'll be something nice to look at in almost every season - or
at least spring, summer, to mid-autumn? If not, then perhaps the
herbaceous border could move to where the olives are currently and I
could plant a different kind of border there. Or perhaps I just want
something that gives the effect of a herbaceous border but is
technically mixed. :-)

* Just so I don't forget it, could you mark a small pet cemetery area
out near the clump of trees in the distance? Not that we'd
necessarily build it right away, but it'd be nice to have it on the
plan.

And now here are two potentially more difficult changes...

First, I don't know the shape of the house yet, and I won't for
certain until Sept at the earliest when we see it. But, one thing for
sure, it's going to be larger than what's there currently, since I
want it to have a minimum of 2 bedrooms and I want the rooms to be all
quite spacious. All the plans I've come up with so far involve a
similar shape externally, it's just the rooms inside that change.
I've attached a jpg showing this, do you think you could adjust the
garden plan around it? There are verandahs all the way round too,
except on the side near the driveway. I'm really sorry, I know you
asked me for this ages back, but it's taken me a long time to come to
it. I hope it isn't too much of a pain, I think it just means pushing
the pool, etc down a little, and making the patio areas with the big
tree a different shape. Then, in the gaps between the old house and
the extension, that could be a garden area, with a part for
ferns/hydrangeas/etc, perhaps even tucked under the new extension
depending on the slope? The other side of it could be storage - for
tools etc, which'd be nice to have them handy to the garden areas.



Second, I would really like to have a big lavendar/yarrow/sage bed. I
figure it's the kind of thing that would take care of itself and
thrive out in the hot sun. I don't mind where it is, I had some ideas
- e.g., maybe near the stone maze, or maybe along the top side of the
driveway as you came to the house?. The effect I want to get is like
in the attached picture.

Garden plan - 1st pass

Prue came to London for the Chelsea garden show and we met up with her for a drink on Tuesday 1st June. It was great to meet her in person and have a proper chat, although unfortunately I was really busy at work so couldn't stay for lunch like I'd hoped. Anyway, we had a few drinks and a chat and she showed us her first draft of the plan. It's amazing how well she'd managed to fit in everything we asked for. There were a few things to tweak, like the driveway was in the wrong place, but aside from that our initial reaction was that we loved it. :-)