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A complete front yard makeover with new fencing, gate, mailbox, irrigation system, garden beds and plants.
The project
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. This is how it looked before I started.
I had a garden design appointment with a nursery to work out the best plants and best way forward. This is the plan I settled on. (The letters are for different types of plants - I had a very big list).
I had Jim's Diggers come in with a little bulldozer to level the site properly. Then I covered the in-ground parts of the gate posts in bitumen paint to protect them. I painted to 10cm above the surface. The end of the post is not painted to allow any water that might come in from the top to drain back out.
I used a string line to make sure things were put in the right places.
Then I installed the 2.4m fence posts. I drew the line I wanted into the soil, then marked the fence posts with a yellow spike before digging each hole. Each hole is 600mm deep and has about two-fifths of a bag of concrete.
I used tennis court wire as part of the fence.I also ran lengths of normal fencing wire above the tennis court wire through the remaining holes in the fence posts.
Starting to put some plants in place.
In the native garden, it was much smaller and I only had to trench the one line. Here you see the pipe being run, and at the end I have a flush valve.
Laying out plants. You can see the placeholder pipes coming out of the surface.
Here is the irrigation system in place, powered by a Holman WX8. The setup consists of five Solenoid Valves to cover all the garden areas, one Solenoid Master Valve, one Pressure Reducer with built-in filter and one Backflow Preventer.
Laying out a ton of Eze Drip Irrigation tube. Almost all of it was looped. There are only two spots in the whole garden where I have dead-end drip lines and that's because there wasn't space to loop them around even with a 90-degree joint.
While I was at it, I trenched the lawn to install popup sprinklers. I ended up buying the Ozito lawn edger just to make cutting through the ground with minimal damage 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 discovered rotary sprinklers, which shoot little jets of water at alternating lengths. They don't consume a lot of water, are fairly wind resistant and therefore I was able to do my entire lawn with just six sprinklers.
I wanted an old medieval feel to the door at the main entrance to the garden. I used 100 x 25mm treated Pine sleepers as the main door front, and 70 x 25mm treated Pine for the frame.
Here's the finished and planted native garden with the beautiful postbox from Bunnings and stained the doorway entrance.
Then I installed stone pavers for the path. I decided not to set them into the ground as they'd be lost into the mulch when put in.
Before and after
How to plan a garden makeover
Experienced Bunnings Workshop community member Adam provides expert help in How to plan a garden makeover.
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Nice remake of your garden area! I actually like your Star post idea and even to concreting them in 
I was a little unsure at first (Hate concreting stuff in) When I thought about concreteing the posts it would make it so much more durable and also the posts would be narrow enough for your eyes to blend it with the mesh. I also like your medievel entrance to the yard! 
It ties it in nicely. I have never put in pop up sprinklers although I do daydream about them. It would make life a lot simpler. Your makeover has really brought the yard together.
Dave
Thanks @Dave-1
The concreting the posts was super easy ... just dampen the soil in the hole slightly, and then pour in the concrete mix and add water. I used some of those yellow pole things to slightly mix the water into the concrete once I poured it in just to help it along. The large wooden posts got around 2 or 3 bags each because of the weight they were supporting, but the star posts only got a 3rd of a bag each, just to help a little with stability.
You can almost no longer see the star posts and the fence mesh now, there's still some places where the hedge has to grow through ... and it's a slow process of training the new long shoots to go there, but it's almost done. I reckon in 1 year time it'll all be completely covered. I haven't given them the first trim yet, I'm waiting for the mesh to be completely covered. Once I do get to trim the hedge properly, it'll look amazing!
Here's some shots of the native garden a year later. It's weed season, so it's a little weedy and I haven't had time to clean up ... so will be calling a gardener over soon to help
Probably should top up the mulch too!
I'm also thinking to put a few wires across the roof of the entrance to allow the plants to crawl over the top
Cheers
Itai
The mesh fence and posts make so much sense now! Thanks for the photos, they show how well it works.
@Dave-1 Indeed, they do work well ... I'm amazed how much the muehlenbeckia has grown in just 1 year. It's crazy! You can see them along the bottom of the fence in my original photos
