Landscaping our front garden

[Itai]

Hey Everyone.

Now with my deck project done and dusted, it's finally time to landscape our front garden.

We live on a corner block, so our front garden extends to meet our "back" garden, which is actually the side of the house and perpendicular to our front garden 🤔

Here are some before shots.

This one was before we did anything at all with the house:

These are the immediately before work started shots. Though I had already removed the lemon tree in front of the window as you can see with the orange flags to caution the hole. This is all the same area from different angles.

For reference as I write stuff out in future, the terminology I use will refer to the unfenced area in front of the window and entrance as the "Native Garden", the area behind the fence as the "Fairy Garden" and the area as a whole as the "Front Garden.

With that out of the way, I have had a Garden Design appointment with a nursery to work out the best plants and way forward.

This is a plan I made of the property last year, with addition of the nursery designers notes for plants and I added in some hedges

The left of the hedge near the entrance will be a Aussie native garden. (I may also add in an extra pathway through the middle), and on the right of the hedge is a forest themed fairy garden (for my wife and kids to enjoy). The two fruit trees provide a decent canopy, and the hedges once grown will prevent much light from filtering in, and thus will give a full forest feel.

And the planned list of plants with associated markings:

Where	Location	Description
FG	A	Fatsia ‘Japanese Aralia’ 8″ Pot
FG	AB	Ajuga Reptans 'Burgundy Lace' 6" Pot
FG	CA	Ajuga Reptans Astropurpurea 'Bugleweed' 6" Pots
FG	PP	Beaucarnea 'Pony Tail Palm' 8" Pot
FG	BP	Alocasia macrorrhiza 'Giant Taro' 7'' Pot
FG	SC	Senecio cineraria Silver Dust 6" Pot
FG	PG	Loropetalum Plum Gorgeous 8"
FG	BM	Ophiopogon ‘Black’ Mondo Grass 6″ Pot
FG	SW	Ophiopogon 'Stripey White' 6" Pot
FG	J	Prunus ‘Subhirtella Alba’ Weeping Cherry 1.8m 20″ Pot
FG	AS	Cottage Assorted 8"
FG	AS	Hymenosporum flavum Native Frangipani 6" Pot
FG	C	Clivia Miniata Belgian Hybrid 6"
FG	M	Monstera adansonii 'Swiss Cheese Plant' 5/6" Pot
FG	D	Asplenium ‘Birds Nest Fern’ 8″ Pot
FG	M	Muehlenbeckia 'Maidenhair Creeper' 6" Pot
FG	T	Ligularia reniformis/Cremanthodium TRACTOR SEAT 7" pot
FG	F	Asparagus 'Foxtail Fern' 6" Pot
FG	G	Strelitzia nicolai 'Giant Bird of Paradise' 10'' Pot
FG	Along Fence	Parthenocissus ‘Boston Ivy’ 6′′ Pot
FG	Hedge entrance	Hardenbergia 'Free n Easy' PBR 6" Pot
FG	Hedge entrance	Hardenbergia ‘Happy Wanderer’ 6′′ Pot
NG	S	Grevillea 'Superb' 6'' Pot
NG	L	Callistemon 'Little Silver' PBR 7" Pot
NG	BC	Banksia 'Birthday Candles' 8" Pot
NG	D	Leptospermum ‘Dwarf Tea Tree Burgundy’ 6″ Pot
NG	C	Casuarina 'Cousin It' 8" Pot
NG	SB	Eremophila glabra 'Silver Ball' 6" Pot
NG	Not on Map	Pycnosorus globosus 'Billy Buttons' 6" Pot
NG	A	Acacia cognata 'Limelight' 6" Pot
NG	LD	Gastrolobium 'Lemon Drops' 'Yellow Pea Flower' 6" Pot
NG	DB	Correa reflexa 'Dusky Bells' 6" Pot
NG	SS	Grevillea 'Strawberry Smoothie' 6" pot
NG	LJ	Dianella 'Little Jess™' Flax Lily 6" Pot
NG	YG	Anigozanthos flavidus Kangaroo Paw 'Yellow Gem' 6"
NG	BB	Anigozanthos 'Bush Blitz™' Kangaroo Paw 6" Pot
NG	WS	Scaevola 'White' Fan Flower 6" Pot
NG	BS	Scaevola Purple Fusion 6"pot

We'll also introduce a water feature, a concrete mushroom table and chairs set and some lighting. All posts for in time.

For now, wish me well on this long journey of hard perilous work, haha.

Regards

Itai

[Itai]

For those who will follow this thread, I have asked @Adam_W some watering advice here in his thread

[EricL]

Hi @Itai

Thanks for sharing the photos and details of your next project. This sounds like a very involved project. I'm very keen to follow along and see how your layout progresses during the weeks that follow. 

We look forward to seeing the garden transformation happen.

Eric

[KatieC]

Wow @Itai! You have put some incredible thought into your upcoming landscaping job. 

Let me also tag @Noelle, @robchin, @Jamespeter100, @mich1972, and @LisasGarden as they may also be keen to check out this transformation. I am very much looking forward to read how your journey goes. 

Also, by removing your front fence it really made your home more open and welcoming, good call!

Katie

[mich1972]

Looking forward to watching this thread and seeing the changes you make. All the best @Itai 

[Itai]

Hey Everyone.

Apologies for the big delay in posting. Life got busy! 

Anyways, I've now completed (well 97%) the landscaping project. A lot happened since the before photos I sent above. Here is the almost complete project. I just realised I am yet to take a photo of the final outcome with everything mulched in and weeds pulled out! I'll do that this weekend.

Jims Digger has begun his workAnd some more progressLand all flattened and posts for the entrance gate are put in. I marked a fix point from the top of the post going down to ensure the tops lined up and a used a level string line to align these. The posts are not in a straight line between the fence and house on purpose, as the whole structure with the fence will be curved.Some more plant planning.

If anyone is interested, the setup above consists of:
5 x Solenoid Valves (1 for Native Garden Drip, 1 for Fairy Garden Drip, 1 for Fairy Garden above surface sprayers - to increase the humidity in summer, 1 for the back deck irrigation which I installed in my decking project and 1 for the lawn)

1 x Master solenoid valve

1 x Pressure reducer with built in filter (used to reduce the pressure to all the solenoids except the lawn one).

1 x Backflow preventer

Dripline keeping the path area clean.In this one you can also see the additional wiring at the top of the fence. You can also see the Muehlenbeckia hedge planted along the fence line that will engulf the entire fence in a year or two to form a curved green wall.Laying the pipe. I used blue pipe as I am not using any pressure regulation for the lawn, so it needed to withstand town pressure. You can see one of the popup heads I've installed using Articulated Rizers to make height easier and more impact resistant. In hindsight, I'd use the Hunter SJ Swing Joints to make it even easier.

For the popup sprinklers, I have used 100mm popups, and rotary sprinkler heads.

I didn't know much about popup sprinklers, but just assumed I wanted the typical fan spray style sprinklers.

After doing tons of research, I saw that these consume a ton of water (and thus water pressure) and I would've had to install at least 9 but probably 12 sprinklers, and create 2 zones so that they could handle the water pressure.

I then discovered rotary sprinklers, which shoot little jets of water at alternating lengths, and they spin. They consume much less water, are much more wind resistant and therefore I was able to do my entire lawn with just 6 sprinklers and much less water usage meaning only 1 zone.

Here is one at bunnings: https://www.bunnings.com.au/k-rain-4-9-5-8m-rotary-nozzle_p3120744

They can also be retrofitted to existing popup sprinklers and can shoot up to 14m if you buy the right one and have the right pressure. But these were a gamechanger in my plans. Much less trenching required too!

View in the other direction with the water feature.

Regards

Itai

[EricL]

Hello @Itai

Thank you very much for sharing those photos of your amazing garden layout. I'm really looking forward to seeing the mulch and the rest of the path installed. Suffice to say that it's looking pretty spectacular, this will really look like a garden retreat once all the plants have settled in. That watering system you've installed looks very serious, will you be putting a timer on it or is it all manually operated?

Again, thank you so much for sharing your landscaping project.

Eric

[Itai]

As promised here are the final pics.

Here you can see the Muehlenbeckia is growing quickly. A vine has already reached the upper supporting wires after just 4 months.Our Fairy garden which our daughter loves. As the plants grow bigger over the next few years, the magical creatures will become more hidden.We literally cleaned up all the leaves on Saturday!

[EricL]

Hi @Itai

Thank you very much for sharing pictures of your landscaping project. It looks wonderful and really gives the entry area a fantastic fantasy vibe when coming in. the fairy castle and the mushroom furniture are a beautiful touch. The bee house is a great idea to invite insects in to pollinate the plants when the flowering season comes. 

Again, thank you for sharing your amazing landscaping project.

Eric

[Itai]

Thanks Eric. Would you mind putting some of the final images next to the before images in the first post? So it's easy to compare and see in the search