The Biggest Mistake I made Gardening

Way back in the early 1990's when I was doing my first gardens (unpaid works on houses my parents had bought with big stretches of green grass and nothing much else)I had huge plans and grand bvisions of European inspired layouts with monster ancient trees romantic stands of silver birch.

So I went out and ordered the European trees and staked out a rough plan for the planting and when they were delivered set about plating them out. Which was all fine and with copious water made for a great start for the saplings.

Only thing was, I didn't count on the searing Australian heat, nor did I plan for the planting by taking into account the aspect of the planting. So the silver birch were sitting high facing torrid western sun and the blowing hot winds of late summer, which stripped them bare of their delicate leaves. And the slow to establish Oak just sat morosely in it's spot and basically entered a hibernation prior to quietly dying a season or so later.

That's when I learned to snap of a twig of a deciduous tree and to see if it is green on the inside just to check that it is still alive. But they were valuable lessons learned.