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.

Clearance on door dampers

Right, so it's taken a while to figure out that our website tim-and-tina.com hasn't been working, but it's fixed now!

Anyway to celebrate, we're clearing out the last stocks of our door dampers at a special price - a special bundle enough to do all the doors in your house!

They work like this;

If you're interested in ordering, please see our website for more details. Please note that screws are NOT included in this clearance price, but are available cheap from any hardware store.

t&t

Backyard update

Wow, can't believe that it's been 5 months since I last posted on this blog! I guess once you've gone through the excitement and anguish of building your house, other things grab your attention. That said, we're still progressing very very slowly on getting our house sorted out!

The next thing we did after laying the pavers for the BBQ was to have a look at the rest of the backyard.

Right... so it's not pretty is it? Leftover builders rubble, rocks, a couple of weeds. Not really something enjoyable, and we've left it a couple of years like this!

Anyway I was driving home one afternoon and was following a bloke who was towing his bobcat behind him - I contacted him and organised for a bit of a cleanup of the backyard.  This was around the end of 2012.

Spying on him working from one of our surveillance cameras! First I poisoned all the weeds for 3 weeks, before he came in to level the backyard. Fortunately his bobcat could just fit through our garage rear access door.
 

So after a bit of cleaning up, we've got a base layer of turf underlay soil spread out with a slight fall towards the back fence. In the far corner near the unpainted fence I've left a section vacant for a shed.

Delivery of some buffalo grass waiting to be laid. While it's entirely possible to DIY turf laying now that the basic preparation has been done, I just don't have the time or energy to do it, plus the cost of turf laying is pretty cheap.

Aaaaand.... turf laid out! I had a huge water bill for that quarter, since it was in the middle of summer and you have to keep the turf wet for it to take well. Now it's early winter and the grass isn't growing so much there's only 1-2 weeds to pull out by hand.

We still have a lot of work to go of course... would love to have something done about the front landscaping, since it's nothing but a vast wasteland of black mulch right now! More to come.

On a final note for this entry, my condolences go out to those affected by the GH collapse - read more about their plight here on whirlpool.

t&t

DIY Pavin pt 3: Laying pavers

Wow, is it the end of the year already?! Been taking a bit of time off lately working on constructing my shed, but I guess we should finish off some unfinished business first - the little paving project.

So now with the foundation of crushed rock and sand laid, you need to make sure the sand is as level as possible - I used a long straight bit of timber to sweep across the sand.

The 16 pavers to be laid are off to one side. Useful tools for this step is a rubber mallet, tile spacers (I used leftover 3mm spacers from my deck project) and ideally someone else to lift and lay the pavers for you, as they're quite heavy!

Anyway, started off carefully laying the first paver, and the first row. Use the rubber mallet to gently seat the pavers in place and to tap them closer together. If they're too close, wedge in a flat screwdrive to prise them apart.

And then (actually didn't take very long) here are all the pavers laid out.

To finish things off, I mixed up some cement to lay a cement border around the sides of the pavers, and then used PaveLok sand to sweep in between the pavers. Apparently it has some extra ingredients to stop it washing out and to stop weeds growing inbetween the pavers. I still need to seal the pavers (which will make them look nice and dark and glossy) but other projects, as usual, have interuppted me finishing things off 100%.

So, for the end of 2012, we hope everyone has a happy and safe New Years, and looking forwards to another exciting year to come!

t&t

DIY: Paving Part 2 - foundation

So the next part of paving is to put down a suitable foundation, something that won't move (much?) that will make things look all wonky later.

Some professionals will only lay paving on concrete, but that gets expensive rapidly - and if you're already going to put concrete, you might as well put down coloured, stamped or aggregate concrete and be done with it, I figure. Depending on how much paving you're putting down, some DIY websites suggest just levelling, putting down some sand, and then pavers on top. Because my "soil" in thge area was pretty crappy, full of builders rubble, clay, cracks etc, I figures I wanted something a little more solid than just sand, even though I was only doing a small (4 square meter) area for my BBQ.

So for my foundation I figured 1/2 cubic meter of crushed rock, compacted down, topped by 1/4 cubic meter of sand (about an inch) on top.

First, the crushed rock; I also put another sleeper in near the deck, and a couple of spare bits of wood on the sides to temporarily brace the crushed rock in place. Yes, the sleeper near the deck is slightly off, which annoys me no end - but I'm planning to make a little step down in merbau matching the deck later on anyway, which will cover that sleeper entirely.

Then spread a bit of sand on top. Check with your landscaping yard for appropriate sand to use, as there's a few different kinds.

So far, so good... next - the final part, laying the pavers.

[Recently we're also had someone in to lay turf in the backyard, and it was just finished - exciting! Finally, no more weeds taller than I am!]

t&t