what you see....

I'm feeling stupidly pleased with myself. I've finally created a 'mud-map' of sorts of the large house garden here at Sams Creek - and I couldn't wait to plonk it up here... looky....

(click pic for a larger view)

yes I know its a bit rough and ready looking - but because I've overlaid garden bed/area shapes on a satellite pic it's actually quite accurate. Now at present I'm sure all these coloured blobs look very strange so I suppose a key and a clue to scale would be in order...

garden key

Black = buildings
Brown = the vege garden area
Purple = decorative garden area
White = the decorative white garden
Pink = the deciduous orchard
Red = the hot border garden
Orange= the citrus orchard
Dark Blue = the herb garden
Light Blue = berry garden beds
Green = sunken garden
Dark green = hedge

and all the round natural green blobs= actual photos of trees and shrubs in the garden

scale: the external perimeter of the house yard is represented by thin black line - the highway fence line is approx 75m (just under 250ft) - the longest fence line is close to 100m (330ft) and the total yard area is between 2-3 acres.

whew! so now when I talk about 'doing things in the white garden', or ' I'm going to tackle the weeds in the hot border'! it will all make perfect sense....


Now for a few other bits of background information. According to the Australian National Botanic Gardens plant hardiness zones chart, my area is typically zone 3 (which is apparently equal to zone 9-10 for anyone in the US) - and I'd agree - our lowest winter temp would be about -3C, maybe -4C.... our highest summer temps of course can reach 45C (nasty!) we had a couple of those shockingly hot days last summer... eek.

Presently our area is experiencing extremely dry conditions - so much so that the district has been granted 'Exceptional Circumstances' declaration from the government (I'll no doubt write more about this over the coming year as we weave our way through gov red tape to access assistance for the farm) and it's these current extraordinary conditions that have prompted my quest for record keeping.

Well - there you have it - a very basic introduction to the garden here at the creek.... I need a lie down after all that map making!