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Welcome to your Workshop. It is great to have you as a member of the community. We encourage you to say hello and introduce yourself.
Please reply to this post and tell us a bit about yourself. Whatever information you feel comfortable sharing is fine.
You might like to tell us about your current D.I.Y. and garden projects, your work, your passions, your hobbies, your dreams, what you struggle with, what you hope to learn from this community, and/or your favourite ice cream flavour.
And for something truly revealing about yourself - tell us what you call a barbecued sausage served on a single piece of bread.
We look forward to your post and getting to know you. Thanks for joining the discussion.
Jason
Community Manager
Welcome @MzB and many thanks for introducing yourself. It's fantastic you could join us. I'm sure you will find that our community members provide lots of helpful advice, information and inspiration for your projects.
For your garden furniture project, I would encourage you to click on the Start a discussion button and post in the Outdoor messageboard. You might like to post some photos of similar furniture that others have made so members can see what you're trying to achieve and make more useful and detailled suggestions.
Please let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the site.
Jason
Thank you @Jason my main project is upgrading the camp kitchen made out of pallets and putting a roof over it all eventually I have already extended the deck here is some photos of the work in progress 
Hi Barbara,
Thanks so much for your msg. What state are you in? I am in Northern NSW 1 hour from the coast, the last 3 summers we have had about a minimum of 20 days at 40+ degrees heat. There are also some restrictions on what I can do in the subdivision I am in. No front fence, no large trees in the front yard (although the next door neighbour has a tree that has matured and council seem to not care). I have started accumulating Dwarf Powderpuff Lilly Pillys as my Mother gave me 16 that she grew from seed which will give my garden some sentimental value, as well as a screening hedge. They are native and attract birds, the only downside I can see is they are a bit slow growing. From the original 16 Mum gave me I now have 45 from taking cuttings, to plant out the back and side fences I will need 80. I am a bit worried about how many holes I will need to dig!!!! I have gotten my hands on 2 lovely pandanus palms that I plan to spotlight, 1 for the front, 1 for the back, so I have included a pic for you.. 
Lovely to hear from you so soon.
So I'm in Vic and right away the plant in the photo is one of those I mentioned that can't be grown here but I googled it and have found out the following;
P.gemmifer - Pros:
Can be potted and effectively kept dwarfed
Can be kept indoors
Cons:
Has profilic offshoots so you might find it difficult to prevent it constantly spreading?
P. tectorius - Pros:
Leaves can be used to make hats, mats and baskets
Can be trained to grow as a shade tree instead of clumping by removing the bottom leaves
No cons mentioned
P. cookii:
No real pros or cons but points made about this variety is:
It has stilt roots
It can take 12 months to germinate which isn't an issue for you as you already have a specimen
Each seedpod has 3 seeds
Summary:
These palms must be planted in FULL sun and if they are not, they will literally find their way to a sunny position but walking their stilt roots along the garden, so for me I would be very concerned about the location being perfect otherwise the palm sound like it could be quite invasive!!
All Pandannas are either male or female and the edible variety is P.amaryllifolius which of course might matter if you want fruit, meaning you may need a female in the front yard for example and a male in the back yard unless there are other plants in the vicinity but I don't know how close the pair need to be to effectively germinate the female flowers?
For example I have a green guage plum and even with a graft on the same tree of a guage but a different variety for diversity, I had no success with fruit until I planted another type of plum just a few mtrs away and the reason it worked better than the graft is that flowering was at or about the same time whereas the graft unfortunately flowered later!!
Sysygium wilsonii ssp. wilsonii - Dwarf Lily Pily - Pros:
Informal screen/shade tree
Helps with erosion control
Pipe friendly, in other words not invasive
Fast growing
Playground friendly
It is suggested they grow to a height of around 5mtrs and a width or approx 3mtrs so you probably only need to plant them about 3 mtrs apart minimum but perhaps up to 3.5mtrs - 4mtrs apart, depending on how much you want them to touch?
Seems this tree has no cons and is fast growing although you mentioned you though it wasnt??
I can see how your yard would look stunning when all these trees start flowereing and will of course look quite formal being all the same.
It is so nice to have some plants that give you sentimental value, as I too have plants that my mother had before she passed away, so they are still alive and regularly remind me of her.
Whilst I don't have a traditional "formal" garden setting, I do have mainly perimeter garden beds and then a few trees dotted around so most of the area is predominantly lawn and I like this look as I feel it resembles a "park like" theme.
Below are before and after photo's showing anything is possible with time and effort and the world is your oyster as the saying goes!!
Best get to be, it's half 12!!
Cheers,
Barbara
Hi @Will,
Thanks for introducing yourself. We have lots of keen woodworkers here in the Workshop community so I'm sure you'll find plenty of like-minded people to inspire you and learn from. Welcome aboard.
I'm looking forward to seeing some of your work - perhaps you could share some photos on the Gallery?
Please let me know if you ever need a hand getting the most from the site, or have any feedback about how we can make Workshop more useful for you.
Jason
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