I live in a ground floor apartment in Sydney, earning outside space is limited. As far as this outside space goes, I have a patio area on one side and an area of what should be some form of grass, but is currently just weeds on the other. I have decided that I need to do something about the two areas of rather boring, unused spaces of my home and turn them into a colourful, wildlife friendly spaces that also produce some food for us to eat.

I am going to get my patio area set up first, before moving onto the back, weedy area. On my patio area, I currently have a couple of avocado trees that I grew from seed, a mandarin tree and two Sansevieria (mother-in-laws tongue). It faces the north-east, so receives sunshine for several hours every day, but during the summer (December to February here in Sydney) it is in shade for the hottest part of the day.

As my little weedy area is on the other side of the building, it spends a lot of the day in the shade, but does get some sun in the late afternoon during summer. In this area, the soil is very shallow and sits on top of clay. This means I’ll have to think carefully about what plants I put in here, as not all plants will be happy in such a situation.

For both outdoor areas, I want to have places that I can enjoy spending time in and hopefully to have a space wildlife can enjoy too.