Tackling a Tough Garden Bed part 2 in Design Elements

Part2 Tough Garden Bed In the last 5 years Glenice and husband Phil, have made so many improvements to the soil . <ul><li>We used a rotary hoe to break up the soil before planting.</li> <li>Spread/dug through gypsum and watered in liquid gypsum</li> <li>Dug through premium garden soil and compost.</li> <li>Mulched the area with fine grade pine bark, sugar cane mulch, straw and tea tree mulch.</li> <li>Continued fertilising any new plants with composted animal manure pellets and liquid fertilisers every 2 to 3 months.</li> </ul> She said of the garden that they did this process listed above ,every year for 5 years but it wasn't until the 3 year mark that there was a turn around in plants being able to survive. Without those years of soil preparation, the plants would not have been able to thrive. <a href='https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GW8r1JoeM5w/YVGX0_BkBTI/AAAAAAAAk78/JfyWMGbleDE1DqAFd9dXNi6NRck_R8u4wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Miscanthus%2Btransmorrisonensis.jpg'></a> Miscanthus transmorrisonensis Planting Palette Glenice used for this area - lots of silvers! <ul><li>Miscanthus transmorrisonensis-Evergreen Feather grass, evergreen leaves to 80cm tall by 100cm wide fountain-like mounds</li> <li>Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ or Blue Switch grass is special for its dramatic, metallic blue foliage and for its strong upright habit to around 140cm.</li> <li>Senecio viravira- a beautiful rounded evergreen shrub with silver-white dissected leaves topped by soft lemon flowers. One of the best silvers. Sun loving and drought tolerant. 80cm x 100cm.</li> <li>Artemisia Powis Castle- a hardy, bushy, low growing shrub that has very attractive, soft, silvery grey, deeply divided foliage</li> <li>Olea europaea 'Piccolo' suits really tough conditions - drought, frost, poor soil, no irrigation. Grows to 2m</li> <li>Teucrium fruiticans- also known as Germander, is a very hardy small evergreen bush in the mint family with grey stems and undersides of the leaves. 1.2m</li> <li>Philorea</li> <li>Aloes</li> <li