Whatever you do never plant a gum! They have no place in suburban areas! The sooner the council realises that these trees kill people the better! We have had two gum trees fall on the back of our house now, one in 2012 and one in 2014. We are so lucky that myself, my husband, three children, three dogs, five Guinea pigs, two parrots and one bearded dragon were not injured. It's just a miracle not once but twice! I still don't know how we escaped unharmed. The gums do not have a stable root system and they grow very shallow, they get to the point where they just fall over. And the scary thing is they fall silently. They are not called 'Widow Makers' in the bush for no reason. I like the Tuckeroo tree, not sure of scientific name. They grow with a straight trunk and keep their foliage in a straight and symmetrical line along the bottom and grow hiding their branches. Essentially they look like a large mushroom. They are green all year too. I think they get to about 6 metre or ten if they have to reach for the sun.

I'm from a European background ... Italian and Catholic. Christmas means celebrating the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. I hold onto generations of passed down tradition ... We celebrate December 6th as St. Nicholas Day (European Father Christmas) ... this is the day that all the house & garden decorations go up! We celebrate January 6th as The Epiphany (this is the 12th day of Christmas - when the Kings went back home) ... this is the day that all decorations get packed away. That's one month of relevant religious dates/events ... just enough time to truly appreciate celebrating the birth of Jesus with family and friends - whether gift giving or not - and "ooh-ing and ahh-ing" over the home Christmas decorations without getting bored with them.

As C R says, you will need to check with council or relative authority before planting into one of their assets. There's a lot of subsurface assets in a bio retention systems (drainage not to mention the soil itself) which they may not be happy about you disrupting. They will also be able to advise of the preferred species for your area and taking into account the filtration media depth (you need min 800mm media depth for tree planting in a bio swale or retention system).

Ok So I may be repeating other here on here! I do not like the internal bathrooms and toilets. I would much rather see the ensuite on the outside wall and robe in center of house. WIR doesn't matter but fresh air and light in ensuite is a must to me. Enter main bedroom between the two. Also the kids bathroom and loo which needs to be a powder room so then you do not need the other one in center of house, find a way of them being on an external wall. maybe up with laundry? I really cannot see the use of such huge pantries....but then we are all different. I love our db shower: 1200 x 900 with two roses: he is 6 ft ++ and I am 5 ft nothing so roses stay where we each need them!! Cheers Margot