Sonja’s Garden was named after my mother, a passionate gardener who also happened to be an incomplete quadriplegic. She lived with us up until a couple of years ago. The permaculture design I did for our very small suburban block was heavily influenced by her passion and dogged determination to continue gardening, in that all areas of the garden are still largely accessible by wheelchair.
Sonja’s Garden has undergone a Permablitz this year – adding a new native verge garden to create more habitat for the local birds and wildlife. This garden includes a range of flowering prostrate native plants and includes two community herb gardens.
The wicking beds in the north facing zone 1 edible growing area are gone (bar one) and have been replaced with more in-ground garden beds and vertical growing spaces. An area has been put aside for quail (that may or may not be on site by October). The top ‘hidden orchard’ contains apple, coffee, banana, tamarillo and papaya trees along with guilds and many pollinator attracting plants.
The front yard contains a food forest of another twenty plus fruit trees, fruiting shrubs, brambles and vines along with guild plantings built on contoured levels to slow down and keep water on site for as long as possible. The frog pond is filled from the overflow of one of three rainwater tanks.
We’ve crammed a lot in to this corner block and it’s changing all the time. We use all our prunings and scraps to make beautiful compost and have a couple of productive worm farms.
