Garden inspirations

This week I have been walking my daughter to and from school. On the way I was pleasantly surprised to discover some great inspiration for our garden. We have wanted to do our garden for some time. I wanted a mix of tropical and edible plants. We want plants in the front to reduce the size of the lawn as it takes quite a while to mow and a front garden would look much nicer than the big stretch of lawn we currently have.

I have been growing a few things from seed such as carrots, herbs and strawberries to have in our back yard and I wanted to do something practical but pretty with our front yard.

Since I don’t plan on staying here long term I also did not want to invest a lot of money into it and not really reap the rewards of my efforts.

Today I saw this:

I know the picture is not fantastic but it is a LillyPilly hedge (fast growing, edible berries and great for screening), with bilberry bushes in front, followed by gardenia’s. I love that there are 2 native berry bushes, the leaves are thick and while it is not tropical like I wanted, it blends really nicely with the area.

Another thing that surprised me as I was walking around was the amount of people who have fruit trees in their front yard. It makes sense because you don’t want to waste the space, but I was always worried about fruit being pinched. As you can see here it doesn’t seem to be a problem.

This house actually had 4 orange trees and a few houses down was another house with apple trees out the front. All the trees were fruiting, yet still full.

I saw, but didn’t get a picture of a garden lay out I like which could incorporate all aspects of the above and a bit of the tropical look I would like. It also had some plants in pots, which would be easy to move.

My mind is now buzzing with ideas of what I could do to make the yard inviting, but practical and useful. What do you have in your garden?