Thank you to all for the wonderful feedback. I didn't intend to paint the walls blue rather a taupe/brown - the De Sousa home is a great example. Since publishing the photo and the question - I have viewed many fabrics in many shades of blue and came to the conclusion blue is probably not the right choice. The photo looks beautiful but have moved to silver/grey with plum purple walls. But keeping the padded bedhead with demi lune side tables, an occasional chair in far corner and I already have the perfect bedside crystal tired lamp bases already. Again, could go very wrong with purple but I think I've found the perfect colour here in Australia. There are some stunning fabrics available in the silver/grey tone and I think it would well in the bedroom. The starting point funnily enough in moving to silver/grey was stumbling across the most gorgeous drape fabric. Then I built the rest from there. Now it's down to making final selections. A frustrating but fun process. Can't wait to see end result. Fingers crossed it all works out! Thank you once again - this site is amazing and your feedback is most helpful.

It depends on where you are situated. Japanese Maples are from........Japan. Their climate is much kinder than ours and they also get significant winter cold and snow. If you can't replicate these conditions, then you are forever pampering them to try to keep them looking good. Personally I would prefer to grow a tree that I KNOW will work without the fuss. They are also fussy about soil and hot northerly winds.

Hi Roger, With the pleached trees, I think your underplanting amps up the tropical look especially if you go with a magnolia that have the dark green upper leave and the bronze underside. You could just go for banana or palms - personally I think you might be right about the clumping bamboo becoming a bit dense. Regarding your 400mm retaining wall - citrus are shallow rooted and tend to have a root system that goes out to their drip line. Maybe if you put it in a corner you can use the corner to espalier it in conjunction with staking it to get upper stablility but I'm not sure how it'd go with the roots - but give it a go at $30-50 depending upon size it's not an huge amount if it doesn't do well - just dig it up (just watch the thorns) and give it to a friend - check out Daileys for varieties and maybe get in touch and see what they think, they might do them on a dwarf root stock - I've found them to be helpful in the past. i'd be reluctant to underplant any kind of citrus though - as they are shallow feeders.

Hmm, seems no one has seen them around. I have found them online at Trend Living at Chipping Norton in NSW, Aeros in Victoria and Stallion Product in WA. I didn't think they were that uncommon. Any feedback would be appreciated!!!!