I was born and raised in Melbourne -- a great place to live, and a great place to grow fruit. As Larry says, most people on this forum are in the US, as I now am. I believe a very well regarded nursery in Australia is Daley's. You can find them on line. I know that here in the US serious fruit tree growers order their trees on line from nurseries that specialize in fruit trees, rather than from local nurseries whose employees tend not to be very knowledgeable about growing fruit trees. And if you want to grow fruit trees, get yourself a copy of the great book by a fellow Melbournian, Louis Glowinski, "The Complete Book of Fruit Growing in Australia." He used to grow an enormous number of kinds of fruit trees on his quarter acre block in Caulfield -- maybe he still does.

Hi! I live in Palm Bay, which borders West Melbourne to the south. I grew up in Melbourne and we always had a garden growing up. For a lot of acreage in Melbourne, consider the Turtlemound, Post Road (West of Wickham Road), Lake Washington (West of Turtlemound Rd.) areas. We lived on a smaller lot, about 1/4 acre, and roughly 10 minutes driving to the beaches; We never seemed to have problems with salt, etc. Now, I live on about 1/2 acre in Palm Bay where the lots tend to be larger than in Melbourne. Our garden is just starting, but it is doing well. We opted for a raised bed garden and containers for things like our tomatoes and peppers because we rent . We have to worry more about things like raccoons and possums, etc. than in Melbourne, but they are obviously likely in that area as well. Also towards palm bay and worth investigating, depending how large you want your lot to be, is Malabar. It is growing, but has all the big stores you might need, hospitals, etc... but much larger lots depending where you look. If you look towards West Melbourne, lots of land can be found off of the main road, Minton Rd. (which turns into Wickham rd. in Melbourne, further north).. Neighborhoods off of Heilde Rd. (where there are a few farms) or Michigan Ave. have large lots while being close to city stuff. Hope this helped somewhat, and if you do decide to move here... Welcome! :)

Wonderful pictures again Ricky. You and Karen look like you are having a GREAT time. The flowers that caught my eye are reddish brown and the picture is right under Karen's. Those flowers are really unusual. The rest are beautiful and that opal, oh my. The critters cute. DH was wondering what kangaroo tasted like. FlowerLady

Trancegemini, Sorry but I have read the posts correctly, apart from being too hasty in my typing and therefore mistaking Paradisi's comments as Misty's. I was late for work. I stand by all else that I have written. I agree that the form of development that you have described is unsuitable. It is just a cheaper version of urban sprawl. It is driven by the preference that buyers have for just the suburban block rather than a more organised and balanced mix of higher density living, community shops, larger parklands, etc. and fast transport. Government knows that urban sprawl is getting out of hand and by making blocks smaller, it is supposed to slow it down. Of course it is not slowing. But it is having an enormous strain on infrastructure. I feel many outer suburbs will end up as the slums of the future just as they have in the USA. Economies of scale naturally means that services like trains and buses are going to be much more difficult to run in a sprawl than in higher density communities. Before the car, people occupied a footprint a tenth to a fifteenth of what we do now. As a result of the car we take up ten to fifteen times more space. So it follows that it costs that much more for services and inconveniences. When the price of petrol gets even higher as it is bound to, the outer suburbs will be really hit. Where transport hubs are and commerce and shopping exists, Goverments should zone for higher density housing. There are many examples of excellent high density living with adjacent parks and gardens in Europe and the USA. But right now there are not enough votes in it. There will be inevitably though. There are many examples of outer suburbs that have become slums because of the lack of services and amenties being provided. One classic example is Los Angeles where I have spent some time. With reliance on the motorcar and very little consideration for public transport and decent educational facilities, parks, health facilities etc., there are now suburban "no go crime zones" where everyone has a backyard but nothing else. People feel so isolated with support facilities so negligible and morale is so low that crime is rampant. Freeways spaghetti everywhere and yet are still clogged. Billions are now being spent on railways but far too late. Of course everyone in these garden forums are entitled to their garden blocks but that does not mean that there must be some sensible thought into how our cities as a whole will be sustained. It also follows that inner-city high density living can also be quite enjoyable. Most folk need to live close to their work and to the things that gives them pleasure. Urban sprawl has resulted in clogged roads and unreliable public transport services. In order to save on the time it takes to travel they choose to live in higher density communities. Mostly it is surprisingly pleasant believe it or not. I know many more folk in my street than I did when I lived in the "Burbs". We...