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Hey guys, I’m after some advice on what to do with my front sloped yard. I would be keen to improve drainage quality away from the house and add some street appeal.
many thanks
Hello @tulle
Thanks for sharing your question about your front yard. One way to improve drainage is to install a French drain at the lowest point of your slope and run a socked drainpipe to one of your storm water drains. Please note that you'll need to engage the services of a licensed plumber to connect your drainpipe to the storm water drain.
There are so many options when it comes to adding street appeal to your front yard. Adding raised garden beds, planting shrubs and putting in decorative pavers or even a low-level deck are some of the things you can explore. I suggest looking at some front yard pictures and see what elements you would like to see in your garden. My favourite is adding potted fruit trees as they are an easy source of fruits when they are in season.
Here is a link to ideas and inspiration: Top 10 most popular front yard projects
Let me call on our experienced members @Dave-1 and @Jewelleryrescue for their recommendations.
If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.
Eric
Good Evening @tulle
Day dreaming as I flicked through your photos 
So where is the lowest point of your yard and what part of the yard does the water run to when it pours rain?
I can see the grill drain in front of the car and it looks like some water is funneled down the left hand side of the house.
I like giving straight edges to the yard, I find it defines the area and gives a settled look.
I also like gabion styled walls to help with retaining and drainage in the same breath. The stop erosion and slow water transfer through the walls.
So Where your car is parked, on the left hand side a new retaining wall goes along the edge of the driveway. A gabion wall something along the like of this Wiggly pavers for sloped path in front yard The cages you can see a pre-made ones from Bunnings Jack 80 x 40 x 40cm Rectangle Landscaper's Plant Support Garden Gabion
You can see some gabion styled posts on the left, they deliminate the edge of the block from my neighbours and nicely frame up the fenceline without a whole fence I have larger freestanding gabion walls along the fenceline but have just realised that I dont have a project to show them. Will try and put one up tomorrow. If you put the vertical baskets along the front fence line of your yard, you dont need to fill the space between them but a garden bed would look nice. It gives an edge between the footpath and your block. (I grow tomatoes in my front yard btw)
With your stepping path where it goes through the retaining wall I would also backfill that slope with another gabion basket or two to give it a straight line and also stop erosion issues. You can fill the baskets with whatever you want really, even broken rubble and face the sections that are viewable with nicer looking stones. I have even seen baskets with timber blocks inside that look pretty nice.
Once you have the straight edges sorted then you can flesh them out with small shrubs. I like colourful flowers such as crepe myrtle or Jacarandas. The crepe myrtles can be shapped via pruning but the Jacarandas are more tree like.
That section of path with the dirt on the low side plus steps is then next part that drew my eyes. Maybe some ground covers with deep mulch and some larger stones intermixed to help stop the mulch from drifting down the slope until the ground cover establishes itself. On the high side of the concrete path you could form up a dry creekbed styled channel. A bit of a dip to stop water from running straight down the hill towards the house. You can make a feature of the dry creek by lining the edges with chunky sandstone and flowers. Native riverbed run by @TheSaltyreefer is what I am thinking but smaller in size to suit your yard.
The last bit for now, that bessa block retaining wall with your bins behind it. I am thinking of a picket styled fence along the front edge of it. Mainly to give extra height to hide the bins from the road and make the space "your" space again. I want to do the same with my yard and am thinking of using ground screws for the posts (posts around 800mm high) Otter 690 x 90mm Ground Screw Stirrup Ive never used them before but as I dont want to concrete posts in these could be a nice temporary/permanent solution.
Dave
Hi @tulle,
I would encourage you to have a good read of How to plan a garden makeover. The best way to get started and not feel too overwhelmed is to create a wish list and make some plans so that you can then divide up the project into small, manageable chunks.
A good source of inspiration is 10 ways to improve your home's street appeal . It has lots of good ideas from Bunnings Workshop community members.
Hope that helps,
Jason
Afternoon @tulle
Stacking stones in the cages pretty much feels like playing tetris in real life Slow and stead and its done pretty fast. I never really spent all day on each part of the photos, usually 2 to 3 hrs a day. if you step through the photos you can see the days change With the building up of the rocks in the cage you pretty much you keep the nicer looking material (whatever you are using) for the facing of the cage and the not so nice materila for the inner area. I would strongly suggest you have tie wires in the cages you build as they usually want to splay outwards.
Here is one of my gabion projects that shows the breakdown of the cages and how I put them together. The ones you buy from bunnings are good and I have examples of those I have used as windbreaks plus the vertical coloumns in the first example.
I have just built another one that is the widest (800mm) yet plus a set of gabion steps with timber tops. I am yet to put the project up I keep running out of time.
The old retaining wall was a sheet of corrogated iron with some metal square posts rammed intothe ground.
I need a large footprint/weight as it will be holding the clay soil plus 3 ton of water from the spa once its laid down.
Almost done, paved and drain plus oiling still to be done at this point.
Dave
Afternoon @tulle
Found the Large gabion retaining wall showing how I was putting "fill" behind the facing stones
Dave
