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An extra car space was created and screening trees planted in this front yard makeover.
The project
We recently bought a house that was built in 1990 and needs some work. While we plan and save for renos, I’ve been tidying up the front and back yards.
One day, while I was tidying up the driveway, I discovered wooden garden-bed edging buried underneath the grass running along the driveway. I was pretty excited and got straight to work digging up the grass to reveal the edging. As I got closer to the house, the edging took a turn off into the grass area.
I then did some research and found an old picture of our house on Google Maps from more than fifteen years ago and saw that there once was an extra parking area right in front of the house.
As our driveway is a single-car driveway, this would be perfect for parking, so I decided to follow the old wooden edging and dig it all up. By shovel.
I also discovered all the old reticulation and some more edging along the garden beds around the house.
It turns out around fifteen years ago the original owners wanted more lawn, so they had a truck dump a heap of sand over the entire front yard.
Underneath it all was compact gravel which explains why the grass struggled so badly there in summer.
It took a few weeks and we filled around fifteen trailer loads worth of sand and grass.
Most of the original wooden edging was still in good, useable condition, while other sections were pretty rotten, so I replaced that area (around the garden beds) with large rocks that I got for free. I also dug out another garden bed along the front and planted some hedge plants for future privacy.
The plants we planted are called Pittosporum Tenuifolium, also called Silver Sheen, and they are really fast growing. We planted some along the back fence when we first moved in six months ago and those ones have already doubled in size, so I hope these ones do the same and grow quickly.
Overall, I’m so happy with how much better and practical our front yard is. The best part was it only cost around $300 (the cost of the hedge plants) as we salvaged most of the original garden-bed edging and did all the work ourselves.
Before and after
More inspiration for your garden makeover
Community member Itai did an extensive Front garden landscaping makeover which featured a new irrigation system.
Workshop member suequarford used Port Wine Magnolias and Sasanqua Camellias to create a Front yard garden bed screening between her property and the street.
For further inspiration, check out our Top 10 most popular garden makeovers by Bunnings Workshop community members.
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