the big clear out

When we bought our house it had lots of garden beds-mainly built into the retaining walls built into our block. Unfortunately, there is nothing planted that we want to keep. 

We have already had a HUGE fig tree cut down (which happened in about the first week we lived here, so I don't have any photos of it). It was planted FAR too close to both our house, and the neighbour's house, and was sending out some of it's huge roots under foundations. Although it provided some privacy, and some shade to the north west side of the house, it just wasn't worth it. 

Our first job in the garden was the front garden beds. 15 meters long, by 1.5 meters wide of THICK fishbone ferns, with a few huge native grasses scattered throughout. They grow like weeds in SE Qld, really hadn't been taken care of, or clipped back, and just looked awful. 

We also wanted some privacy to the front of the house, so decided to grow a camellia hedge. 

But first we had to tackle the ferns. 

There doesn't look to be too many from this angle...

This is one of the garden beds

This is the other side

Big job... They don't look too bad from this angle, but up close you can see how much dead rubbish was in there. They looked messy and awful 

Yuck

Partially cleared 

The first side all cleared out

It took the two of us a few massive days to clear it all out, using a shovel, a garden fork, metal rake and a lot of hard work. We even managed to snap the garden fork digging out the roots of one particularly stubborn plant. 

It took us 6 ute loads piled high, and strapped down, to take it all to the tip.