the curse of the corner block

when we bought our house I was on the fence about buying a corner lot. I'd always thought it was a bad thing to live on the corner, but really had no idea why. what really sold me on this place though was the size of the block at over 7300 square feet (683 square metres). that's a pretty big plot of land in suburbia!

it's also a pretty big space to water - even with most of it covered in concrete... I turned our automatic sprinklers off a few months after we bought the place as I just couldn't justify watering a grass lawn every second day... it really didn't need all that water anyway. in July, it started to turn brown and not look so great, so we turned the sprinklers back on - until I got our water bill! it costs us $50 per month to water that front lawn! not to mention the gallons of drinking water being poured onto the grass...

we've been planning on making the front lawn a meadow and decided we should make a start on it and get rid of that water sucking lawn!

I have been collecting photos for inspiration and Julie drew us up a plan. we talked about putting in a fence, but Bryce was dead against that. if it were up to me I would build a 12 foot hedged wall around the whole property and create a private oasis - but he thinks that's weird... so we decided on a grass covered berm or a mound if you will.

we started ripping out the old bricked garden edging that is all broken and rickety and have been using that to build the base of the berm.

to create privacy on the corner

and then we're going to cover it in this beautiful green carpet of green fescue, which doesn't need much water or even need to be mowedbut you can cut it back every 6 months or so just to tidy it up

and then on top of the berm we will add this mexican feather grass to create a feature and also more height (privacy). this stuff needs zero water and turns greener in the winter when it gets rain.

we bought these little baby fescues a few weeks back and planted them in a temporary location so that they can get bigger, while we do the prep

saving us money by buying the smaller plantsand I've been find it hard to find mexican feather grass, but grabbed these 2 about a month ago
here's a photo of the 2 of them together. I love the great contrast of the green and the yellowy brown

this made me happy...

to see this sign on the side of a bus the other night - I had to take a quick pic to share...

some great ways to save water here

poor little guys

For those of you that know me know I am a bit of a water conservationist, as most Australian's are these days... growing up on tank water, the 2 minute shower, watering the garden with the washing machine water and never letting a tap just run is totally normal to me. So when I got this email this morning I just had to share with you how precious water can be...

These photos were taken during the recent heat wave in South Australia and have apparently circled the globe via email. these little guys were actually approaching strangers begging for water which they usually get from the gum trees they live in. they are totally shy by nature. Learn more about Koalas here

water works

The company I work for took away the free bottles of water and soda today. They have been threatening for a while due to the 'current economic climate', but today I went to grab my bottle of water so I could make my quota (hate drinking water) and the fridge was bare... then I thought - I'm thirsty, but there is nothing to drink here. So I walked over, turned on the tap and drank a glass of tap water, which tasted just as bad as the bottled stuff... but what a novel idea in this day and age.

A friend recently sent me an email with some facts about bottled water which were quite scary and it got me thinking how glad I am that my company did this. There's the cost to our pocket, the cost to the environment and oddly enough the cost to our health with the chemicals that can leach from the bottles...

What better excuse do I need to buy this funky decanter for my desk? :P