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.

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Definitely agree with Amber Tiles above. Natural stone will require continuous sealing over their lifetime but it is an easy process and well worth it. The efflorescence are unfortunately unavoidable if the salt is in your paver/concrete. Get on to the sealer straight away and it actually prevents it from coming out all over the place. Are you concreting in the pavers? There is different trains of thought on efflorescence. You can wait for it to come out or you can seal it straight up. If you wait you will have to acid wash them down and let them dry prior to sealing. You may end up doing this anyway. Efflorescence take elbow grease to get off. 1 part hydrochloric acid to 10 parts water usually, with a scrubbing brush. As it's acid make sure you follow the instructions to clean stone down. I had to increase the acid proportion 1/5 to get the efflorescence off. *** It can etch the paver so trial it first. If you have a heated gurney wash it down using that. Tip: get the acid off straight away and dont do it in full sun. The acid if left to dry can stain your limestone a rust colour. Do a meter at a time. Use a good penetrating sealer and make sure you keep the name for future sake. Depending on the look you like get the appropriate sealer ie natural, wet look etc. Again, trial it first to see if its what you like. As for fence, monument is an awesome colour. Will bring the look of space in. Will be a big job. Are you doing this? Monument is a Colorbond colour. Nearly all brands of paint do it but each brand has a slightly different pigment base. If you do go this way, see if you can find out what brand your builders used and use the appropriate outdoor wood fence monument paint so the base pigment is the same. I hope this helped. Anneke

Edric there is so much potential in this space. At the moment the different mixture of river pebbles, bricks and pavers is visually breaking up the space. The river pebbles are not trafficable so they are limiting the usable space. I would start by removing pebbles, pavers and bricks. Remove the polycarbonate roof over the pergola. I would build a composite timber deck between the brick walls to maximise the usuable space, with the top of the deck in line with the top of the sill bricks for the sliding door to make transitioning between inside and outside easier. Some products such as ModWood decking are low maintenance, splinter free and are available in a range of colours to complement the brickwork. Once you have decided on the best ModWood colour I would repaint the pergola structure to match the decking. I would soften the look with a over sized pot in each corner growing a deciduous creeper, such as an ornamental grapevine or wisteria over your pergola, and furnish with an outdoor setting and a market umbrella. It will be like adding an outdoor room to your home that is naturally shady in summer, and sunny in winter, and will get a lot more use than it currently gets. http://www.modwood.com.au/decking/