Hi Bass, Wow! You really got the all time doozy of welcome gifts from your property.

I'd recommend visiting your local tree specialist nursery for the trees and take in your site's details (aspect, amount of sun they'll get, the size and style you want and how much work you're prepared to put into them and your budget). Tube stock can be a lot cheaper if you're doing a few and they seem to establish better -the downside is that they're much smaller. Depending upon the amount of sun you get, the kind of yard you want look into espaliered fruit trees too (they do take a few years to get to full height but you're achieving a few other things - they wont eat into your yard space, will screen the warehouse (you will need to do some work providing them with structure above the fence line for them to grow along), and you'll also get home grown fruit.

With the soil - getting rid of the roots and rubble can be long back breaking using the earth mover - to get rid of the rubbish/roots/rocks and when cleared use gypsum as a clay breaker and then dose your backyard regularly after you've put your plants and lawn in. I'd then get compost and topsoil delivered.

Depending upon what you want to do with your backyard, plan out any paved areas you want now - it'll save you on turf costs and you can do the groundwork for that area before you put down fresh soil and compost.

If you're going to do garden beds - think about how you want to work them - to encourage earthworms and bio-diversity to your soil. NatraMin is an excellent organic soil conditioner and fertilizer too that can help and you can get it in 20kg bags which makes storage for the home gardener a lot easier. While NatraMin is popular for broad scale farming - it's good stuff for the domestic garden too. http://www.agsolutions.com.au

I hope this helps - good luck.

Irish strawberry will give you three months of interest, which is good going, and can make jam from the fruit. Native Frangipanis are also good value.

Plan ahead for your tummy. : Irish Strawberry (Arbutus) Jam

http://regionalfood.com.au/arbutus-irish-strawberry-jam/

http://regionalfood.com.au/heard-the-one-about-the-irish-strawberry/

what this article doesn't say is the ancient western Irish celts in county Clare did come originally from the rocky North of Spain.

Hi Bass

You're more than welcome. I'm looking forward to seeing the pics.

The yard will be the icing on the renovation so enjoy it!

Happy gardening.

Georgi02

Native frangipani

http://www.burkesbackyard.com.au/fact-sheets/in-the-garden/trees-and-palms/native-frangipani/#.VezXHicaySM

I'm in the process of leveling off my backyard (1 in 8 slope roughly) using a mixture of heron blocks, pavers and turf. Had to deal with red heavy clay that was under the existing topsoil that came out of the cut excavation.

As others have said, gypsum is your friend. I would also recommend a thick geofabric over disturbed areas that you might not be covering for a while but you still need to traffic. Just use tent pegs to pin it down. Works wonders especially over clays during rain, minimises dust and keeps a good moisture content of the clay. Get a heap of good topsoil delivered from a landscape yard. Be sure to go and check it out first tho - feel it in your hands and smell the organic matter to decide what you like.

In term of trees frangipanis will look great in the warmer months as a screen - flowering and very leafy, in the winter they will drop leaves and won't screen much. I have a fairly large one at the front of mine and i really like it - I Would recommend planting elsewhere in the yard. I don't know much about trees but i hear lillypillies establish and grow fast and screen well.

Good luck

Keep us up to date, we love that!