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Seeking inspiration for outdoor / garden makeover

Hi All

Being a newbie, I am writing with a lot of hope and excitement of getting some amazing ideas for our outdoor / garden area - frontyard, backyard and sideways.

I would like to firstly tell you that we are just beginners in DIY/ Gardening but would love to explore and try our hands on different things with beginner to intermediate difficulty. Also budget is one of the key considerations in this makeover.

Front yard -south facing - pic 1 - right side of driveway:Right side of the frontyard

We are looking to beautify and make the front of our house more colourful. We want to add some more definition to each area, like the edges against the driveway and the edge around where the pebbles are, may be through timber edges or rocks. We have just planted these lily pilly's in front, I dont know whether we should add them on the left side of the driveway (second picture) as well to create symmetry or plant something else like camellias etc to have more colours around. As the front is south facing it does not get full sun through the day, so we have to consider that while selecting plants.

Backyard - North facing (around 100m2)

Sideway which will used as a passage to the backyard

This is the back side of the house which gets sun throughout the day. We want this area to be more colourful again with citrus fruit trees and a kitchen garden (which i'd like to do on the side where the water heater is placed - refer the pic above). Also i want to plant to some trees/ hedges for privacy screening from the neighbours on the back side of the gazebo, while keeping the sun shine in the yard as well.

This passage in the above pic will be used by guests to come in and we want to make this passage more colourful and exciting. I really liked the idea of putting in climbers against the fence, inspired by one of community posts https://www.workshop.com.au/t5/Garden/Seeking-inspiration-for-Side-of-House/m-p/41607#M4937 .

Can I please get some more ideas to make this entire space more welcoming and interesting.

Thank you all 🙂

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Comments

Jason

Hi @Ankur,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community.

Looks like you've got a wonderful space to work with. We are really looking forward to seeing how you can improve your front and back gardens.

Have you seen the recent article by @Adam_W on how to plan a garden makeover? I think it could really assist you at this planning stage.

Creating a wish list and then some sort of design on paper would really help other community members - and be of great benefit to you! For members, they could better understand your goals for the project and be able to offer more specific help in making recommendations and how to break the project down to manageable tasks. Could you put something together for us and share?

Great to see you've already had plenty of inspiration from other posts on the site.

Jason

Ankur

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/8866#Comment_8866

Thanks Jason

I have drawn up something for my backyard and have got an idea of what i want in my front.

Hbackyard ideabackyard ideabackyard ideabackyard ideabackyard ideaidea of the retaining wall i want in the front and a raised garden bed on top

For the front - i am looking to level the slope and put a retaining wall. Will pull out the lily pilys from the ground to put it over the raised garden bed.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Ankur

MitchellMc

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/66717#Comment_66717

Hi @Ankur,

That certainly helps us visualize what you have in mind and is a great starting point. I'd encourage you to make a list of everything you have here and prioritise what is most important to you. It would make sense to focus on one particular area at a time and complete it before moving on. Too many projects on the go and you'll find you might not finish any of them.

Was the kitchen garden something you wanted to get going early on, perhaps the trees for privacy are something you highly prioritise? If you can make a decision on an area we can start providing some specific advice to assist.

Your designs look fantastic as you've certainly put some great thought into them. We look forward to you starting your project and can't wait to see it develop.

Mitchell

Ankur

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/96139#Comment_96139

Thanks @MitchellMc that certainly makes sense.

I have now noted down what all I want to do in the order of priority:

1. Privacy screening with trees/ hedges on the side behind the gazebo (the pics above have trees on the other 2 sides)

2. Laying of pebbles and paving stones in the sideways

3. Raised garden beds on left side of the gazebo (opposite to what is there in the pics above) as I believe the north western side would be better as it receives the morning sun and the afternoon shade, so it hopefully wont be very hot in the summers

4. Making the other sides of the fencing better looking by putting climbers over them, something like a passionfruit vine. I don't want to plant trees on these two sides, not at this moment at least.

5. Repainting the gazebo

By putting these down I am myself feeling better about this 🙂 Hope this assists the team as well.

Thanks

Ankur

MitchellMc

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/114665#Comment_114665

Hi @Ankur,

If I understand correctly, you would like to have a row of trees/hedges for privacy at the rear line of the property behind the gazebo? With the height of those two stories dwellings over-looking the yard you would need something up to 4 meters tall to provide adequate privacy. You could consider photinias as a hedging plant, as most varieties grow between 2 meters and 3.5 meters.

Let me mention @Noelle to see if they might have some suggestions of tall screening and hedging plants that would be suitable in this application.

We also have a fantastic range of privacy screening in many different styles to choose from. I noticed you liked the idea of putting climbers against the fence, this would be a great idea to soften the impact of it. I am a particular fan of the method described in Climbers to dress up Colorbond fence as it is very cost effective on a larger area.

Mitchell

Noelle

https://www.workshop.bunnings.com.au/discussion/comment/125118#Comment_125118

Hi @Ankur @MitchellMc

In one of your generated images, you have a row of conifers along the side fence. The Italian Pencil Pine (Cupressus sempervirens 'glauca') would be ideal - they grow tall and straight and you can plant them quite close together to give a dense screen.

Other excellent hedging/screening options include Pittosporum 'Silver Sheen', Photinia 'Red Robin', Green Spartan Juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Spartan') and Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis). All will grow to at least 4m high, some may need some pruning to encourage vertical growth but they'd all screen out the two storey house at the back to give you some privacy in your garden.

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