I have to chime in and say the Gardening with Angus site has been invaluable in my research on natives. Lots of natives you can buy in tube stock. Google suppliers. They say that in two years or less the tube stock has caught up with the nursery size plants. And they are way cheaper. Def use Pintrest, Instagram and Houzz for inspiration. My two cents worth is to do mass plantings of the same plant. Use very wide garden beds as you have space. And go for Height at the back, mixed in the middle and spilling at the front. I'd also stick to only a couple of colours in the flowers.

I like the look of the outside of the house , and initially I wouldn't change the yellowy beige colour . What I would do is get the concrete block retaining wall either rendered in the same colour as the house , or if the budget ran to it -- get a genuine stone facade . As far as gardens to soften the look , I'd stick to the meditarreanian theme , and do a couple of 2 metre tall green leafy plants in wooden round planters ( half wine barrels or similar ) , and maybe a long , slim garden ( 4 or 5 metres long by 40cm wide ) with marigolds or similar .

Some great comments and thoughts from you all. Trends are a consumer marketing tool to encourage you to continually spend and buy their products... A home should be a living curation of things you love that work for you and nobody else. Yes there are some design principles you can follow but these are a guide and should be considered along with the space, it's purpose, the light, the people and much more. Instead of buying more, consider what you have and carefully select things to complement them - update by changing things around and making sure YOU love the style and it suits the way YOU live!

tall shrubs would be great ..check with local nursery for suitable pittosporums or similar but a simple pergola made out of treated pine built across the yard with taller rear posts sloping down to lower front posts and with roof and back wall covered with black sarlon cloth would be the quickest and neatest until some climbers could grow..the black sarlon is see through close up but is a great block out screen from a distance and makes a great shade house for plants and people but you would need to check with your local Council to make sure that any structure is legal..you can work out the best height by standing back and have someone hold a broom up next to the corner post to see how high you need to go to block out the view up to the neighbours' gutters ..but, is that a back verandah on your house? as that height looks like it might be ok and the size of the pergola depends on how you would use the space underneath