I need a bit of help with this one, especially among the green-fingered among you readers.
Now the dodgy scaffolding, tins of paint and building debris has gone our priority turns to building our garden around the house.
Being out in the open we get an amazing amount of breeze, and leaving our doors open but insect screens closed means the wind glides through the house and keeps it relatively cool. But being open also leave us open to the harsher elements with strong sunshine and heavy rain likely to take its toll on the building over time, so we want to give it some protection, while also making it looks good too.
This is where we need help - what should we plant?
Southern breeze
The front of the house looks south. It‘s our view from the living room, the kitchen and most of the balcony. There’s an almost constant breeze at the moment, plenty of sun throughout with a little shade, and lots of water when it rains.
Bougainvillea grows like wildfire here and we think vivid splashes of colour just in front of the balcony rails would look great. The building is quite dark and it needs a bit of brightening up, but happy to hear any other ideas.
The western front
This is tricky, as we don’t want to hide the wooden ‘wall’ completely and still want the air to come through, but we also want to protect the wood from weather damage.
There is lots of late afternoon sun and wind comes in from south/south west - which means the rain does too. It can get a bit hot after 4 as the sun finds its way onto the balcony so we are thinking of something that grows to around 6 foot - maybe a bush, tall grass or a short spruce/fir type tree. Being so close to the building we need to be careful about roots too.
The land is also lower here so there will be some water run off from under the raised balcony.
Eastern heat
The most important area at the moment is our bedroom wall. The sun begins hitting this area as the day begins, and by mid-morning the room is noticeably hotter than the house. We need to plant something here that stops the sun directly hitting the wall, and this should help cool us down a little.
It’s closer to the building and it’s foundations, there will be more water running from the fields but after 3pm the area is in shade. It’s also protected from the wind as the moment, although this should change in cool season when the wind comes from the north east.
For aesthetic, it’s also at the entrance for cars and motorbikes, so we‘d like to make it more attractive than just a brown wall.
Don’t be shy - any ideas welcome. We need them!
You never know, we might even name the space after you ;)
