AFTER 36 YEARS, SHERRIL AND SAM FRANCIS HAVE TRANSFORMED THE FRONT YARD OF THEIR ECHUCA CORNER BLOCK, FROM A WEEDY LAWN TO A DIVERSE, LOW MAINTENANCE LANDSCAPE.
“We got the fence done because people kept cutting across the corner, then we started doing the garden and it has involved over all that time,” Sherril said.
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“We have it pretty well mapped out how we like it and it is fairly drought tolerant.
“A lot of things need to survive, if they don’t survive well, it doesn’t get put back in.
“The front yard is on the west side, so we have planted things that are going to cope with the hot winds and hot sun.
“It is not a hard garden to look after because everything just needs a trim a couple of times a year to keep everything tidy and compact.
“People make too much work of it, I think, it looks daunting, which it is not.
With a focus on flowering plants Sherril and Sam’s garden will look the best over spring, as a majority of their plants bloom.
“I love the magnolia, it is just starting to bloom, so is the peach elburne and that is like cotton wool when it comes out, but we haven’t had enough sun for that yet,” Sherril said.
In the garden there are Dutch iris, a selection of roses, geraniums, echium and salvias.
“This is salvia auria, it is such good value, we made it into a hedge,” Sherril said.
“We recently added escallonia, with a pink flower, to be an informal hedge.
“We did have lavender along the south fence, but it got a bit scrappy, so we pulled it out.
“That’s a California tree poppy over in the corner, which gets as high as the fence and has a beautiful big flower on it.”
Moving behind the fence, you come to Sam’s vegetable garden with two water tanks, with a dripper system for the summer and worm farms.
“We have had the tanks for a long time, we were probably innovative way back when it was a drought, we put those in and did a lot of drought proofing, they come in very handy,” Sherril said.
“Sam throws all his leaves next to the tanks, which he feeds to the worms, when there is nothing much for them to eat, but we feed all our scraps to the worms.
“He has one going that they are in, then they will transfer themselves over when he stops feeding them, so it just keeps turning around, we have been doing that for a long time.
Hidden from the front yard, is the courtyard, which the couple use as a ‘another room’.
“Especially in summer, because the Japanese maple will be out and it is like an umbrella,” Sherril said.
“It gets quite hot in that corner, next to the barbecue, so that’s why I’ve got all the succulents there, because they don’t care about the heat.”
For eight years, Sherril has been an active part of the Echuca Horticultural Society.
“I really love it, it is a really good rapport with all the people, you learn something all the time,” she said.
“You can pass on something if you know something, it is really good.”
Horticultural group members are currently propagating plants for people affected by the Rochester floods.
“We have already done one lot and now we are doing another lot, for people to fix their gardens up once they have fixed up their houses.”
“We are just doing cuttings, whatever you want, and then we are giving them away, that is why I have done all of these,” Sherril said, pointing to a large array of her potted up cuttings.
