Planning for Spring: Finishing up the outdoor landscaping

With today being one of Melbourne's coldest June days in a decade, it's not really the time to geting dirty outside - is it? We've left the front of our house until last to get done, but with most of the insides and backyard just about there, it's about time we pay attention to some street appeal!

At the moment things look like this... pretty bland, pretty boring. I've got a few fruit trees growing up slowly in pots - oranges, mandarins, limes etc, and have constructed a low-key raised box; where I plan to stick in a whole lot of mint and other herbs. But there's a vast expanse of black mulch that needs to be overhauled, and while I might not be getting out the garden spade just yet, there's no harm in getting some planning done!

Will definitely have to do something to cover up that eyesore of a brick wall that's on our boundary  and there's another wall right outside out kitchen window that will also need covering up! Plus something to hide the bins.

Anyway, while I'm happy enough getting on the tools and constructing stuff, neither I nor Tina have much of an idea when it comes to gardening. All we know is that we don't want to spend hours trimming and fiddling with things, we like to have a productive garden that we can chew into (hence all the fruit trees and herb patch) and we want it looking modern and upmarket at the same time.

I don't know if we'll ever get the patience, time and money to construct something like this, but I love how it looks!

As luck would have it, we were recently contacted by Dave from Online Garden Design who has offered to help us with some expertise and advice on how to select and create a landscaping layout that would suit our house. We certainly need a lot of help getting the large front area looking beautiful, plus there's already a gardemn bed area set aside at the backyard that needs some planting, and even the area behind the garage with a whole lot of empty space that could do with some brightening up.

So Dave has sent us an intro pack with all the info he needs  - things like a rough existing site plan, some information on the style and design we like, which we've sent back to him for review. Will update things as we progress further down this road!

Open disclaimer: Dave has offered his design services to us free of charge in this instance, so that we may review his services and provide a blogger's perspective on how his services work.