My garden makeover

How would we describe the original garden when we bought the house…? I don’t think ‘useless’ and ‘ugly’ would be too strong. Throw ‘impractical’ in there as well, actually.

These photos above perfectly demonstrate my point. The whole area was completely exposed to the elements. The gravel area was a magnet for everything nature through at us… rain, hail and shine. On a rainy day, the drainage was so poor that it would flood and take days and days to dry out. Then the weeds would appear. It was a part-time job keeping on top of them. There was no shade either, and with a west-facing property it would (and still does) get freaking hot (check out our dog, Poppy, struggling with life in the pic above!).

And as shown in this above pic, there was no real consideration to best use of this small space. These steps were completely useless and ate into the already small seating area. So between the cubby house (aka spider’s home) and the steps, we had virtually nowhere to put any furniture except a dining table which did not satisfy my desires for a perfect entertaining and chillaxing space.

So I pulled open Microsoft PowerPoint to tidy up my hand sketched garden design to get it landscaper-brief-ready. To get to this point, I’d spent the first six months in our new home religiously tracking the sun to see how and when the shadows cast, given how we wanted to use this space. I then looked at lots of magazines to get outdoor living inspo (this was pre-Pinterest and Instagram).

I got the idea of a sunken grass area and planter box that could double as seating from looking around at other’s external spaces – even in retailer’s catalogues and websites where they had furniture in situ.

There was no question around using as much timber as possible in the space. I wanted low maintenance, so the combo of decking, artificial grass and a planter box filled in with stones rather than soil ticked all the boxes. The artificial grass in particular has been a game changer for us.

Check out my blog on how we decided on artificial grass and why I’m such a big fan. I’d struggle to use real turf in future – especially in the small outdoor space that we are inevitably always going to have. At the time, we were parents to a dog (Poppy) and no children so our primary consideration was how to keep the dog damage to a minimum and ensure we had enough usable space for kids down the track.

We engaged Jonathan Saad, the owner of JJ&J Developments for the job. He came recommended from the place I purchased the water feature funnily enough! (Probably did that in the wrong order in hindsight.) He was awesome. Though FYI, he’s devastatingly since moved to Sydney… traitor! ;)

The trees we have used are Ornamental Pears as recommended by Jonathan, which he sourced from All Green Nursery in Hoppers Crossing. They are deciduous which is a bummer, the alternative was to use Magnolia ‘Little Gem’ trees. But when I saw pictures of how vibrant the Ornamental Pears are when they are fully matured and in bloom, I couldn’t go past them. Check them out today!

They look especially gorgeous against the charcoal fence (which was installed by our ‘fence man’ prior to JJ&J coming to do their thing). We had a window of a couple of days after the fence went in to get it painted up and ready for the rest of the job.

We installed lighting (from Beacon Lighting) at the base of each tree to shine onto the tree of an evening to create drama and impact. There was a bit of expense to run electricity through the garden for both the garden lights and water feature but for us it was important to make the outside a real statement piece as we look out onto it from the back living space all year around. I especially enjoy it when I’m washing up the dishes, as the kitchen is designed such as to be looking out to the back garden from the prep and sink area.