Help with my little backyard please!!!
Nicole Tottle
3 years ago
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Black Bamboo
3 years agoNicole Tottle
3 years agoRelated Discussions
My backyard landscape design
Comments (3)How much backyard space are you working with? Do you have an outdoor kitchen? What style of furnishings for dining and entertaining are you envisioning? We carry a variety of outdoor furnishings and accents to help create your back yard living space and garden. Here's a link and a couple of ideas that might help get you started! http://www.thosbaker.com/cabin-shed-12x8 http://www.thosbaker.com/outdoor-furniture-collections http://www.thosbaker.com/outdoor-accessories Christi, on behalf of Thos. Baker A great way to create a small detached outdoor office. Requires electrical installation....See MoreSimple backyard landscaping ideas
Comments (14)Can you post a sketch? I'm scrolling back and forth trying to visualise it all and understand dimensions and orientation and usage. If the fence colour suits the house and creates a good background for the plants I wouldn't worry about whether it will date. The same concern could apply to the house, but if it all comes together in a way that is classically timeless rather than overly trendy and you're happy with it, then it's working. Alternatively formal or informal hedging can obscure the fence and avoid the question of what colour the fence should be. I agree that with a toddler and dogs you want to keep as much of that lawn as you can. Work out how much garden bed is needed around the edge so that you are not constantly pruning the plants back to fit, but so it still leaves as much lawn as you want. What's missing in my view is edging, most garden styles look better with edging between the plants and the grass. Another thing that gives gardens a more finished look is underplanting. Research plants to ensure you don't plant anything that is toxic or allergenic. Remember humans and dogs can differ in that regard. Start an Ideabook for your garden. If you have images of what you are trying to achieve, and you can share that with us, you can make progress with specific how to's and choosing specific plants....See MoreHelp me design a backyard oasis please
Comments (45)Start by spending a portion of your budget on the various dream feature items that are relocatable and can be used in your final design anyway. e.g. Buy the firepit you really want - it can become the focal point of your future garden. Test it outside in your backyard for a few months. Are heaps of mozzies annoying you while you're sitting outside around the firepit? If so, then you'll know that you're going to need a gazebo with flyscreens as well as privacy curtains so you can really enjoy lying outside in your hammock year round. The hammock is another relocatable part of your design. First, lie outside in your backyard on a swag or a rug for a few hours. Is it too windy? Is there road noise? Keep experimenting until you've found the perfect location for the hammock. Then buy an inexpensive hammock and suspend it from a couple of sturdy RL4 poles. If it's working, then this is the place where you should build your future patio, that's going to shelter your hammock. Keep testing inexpensive versions of your other ideas out. Trial tea candles or a string of inexpensive white Christmas lights as garden lighting. Do they create the feel you want or do lights just attract moths or unwanted insects? What about relocatable solar garden lights? Or a portable floodlight from Bunnings? Where's the ideal place for your garden table and chairs? Test it out with inexpensive camping chairs - or chairs you already own for a few months to be sure. Then invest in the perfect outdoor table and chairs. Same with the water feature. Start with a wine barrel with a waterlily or a second hand pond off Gumtree. Can you hear the trickling water in the garden or do other noises crowd it out? Keep in mind big goldfish need deep water and space to swim. To help you in your choice of plants,look around your immediate neighbourhood. What purple, blue and scented plants are thriving in your immediate area? Who has the best garden in your street in your opinion - and why do you think that? Do you always see a particular neighbour passionately working outside in their garden? That's the person you should strike up a conversation with to get advise about suitable plants for your immediate area. Chances are they will not only give you heaps of free advise but they will probably give you plants and cuttings as well. Markets are another source of perennial plants that grow well in the local area. Plant these smaller plants into large plastic pots and garden bags and allow them to grow for a year or so. Consider herbs as filler plants - many are highly scented, can be used in cooking and often have interesting foliage e.g. choc mint, fennel, rosemary etc. After you've been using your backyard for at least a year and you've experienced all of the seasons, then invest in your big ticket items like your gazebo. Buy or build a structure that's truly practical for your local microclimate - incorporate glass, windbreak fencing, shadecloth, mozzie mesh or whatever you need to make your hammock shelter ultra comfortable. Build this structure where you've tested it and know it will work - not where a stranger who designs gardens thinks it should go. Spend the remaining money on the things you know you need and want - the stones, plants, irrigation, a birdbath, etc...See MoreCan someone please help me find a design for my backyard
Comments (4)Some comments, I hope they are helpful. Create a gravelled area for your fire pit. Laying a some sand, levelling off, a weed barrier and raking gravel is within the skill set of most handy people. Use treated timber for an edging to keep it neat. Buy a nice ready made steel fire pit. Buy some seating. Your planting lacks a scheme. Without a scheme your yard will not look put together the way professional landscaping does. Every plant has to be chosen for a purpose (texture, height, colour, privacy etc). You also have all your garden beds in a perimeter against the fence. That's fine for a starting point. But to make the place look inviting you need some garden beds in the yard too. Please avoid the common habit of putting shrubs in the middle of the lawn. It doesn't work well and also makes maintaining your lawn difficult. If you want to make say the entertaining area private from the kids play area a full garden bed is usually a better bet than just a shrub or two. By putting multiple shrubs of varying heights and a creeper in a larger section you create outdoor zones and properly define the area. What you really need to do is measure your yard, draw in your house and all paths and then start drawing in the entertaining area, the kids play area, the veggie patch etc. You will probably have to play around with the layout for a while to come up with something you like and works. Trust me, doing this first will save you a lot off $$ on plantings that don't work and you want to remove later. When you create garden beds do it with three heights. So something under 6" tall, something under 2ft tall and then something over 3ft. Not a definite rule but a good rule of thumb. By having multiple levels in your garden beds you create a more impactful and interesting garden. When gardens are meh, its usually because all the plantings are the same height and it looks flat. Take a look at these gardens to see what I mean.... Alright this fire pit is obviously professionally done, but what you need to look at is how the fire pit is clearly separated from the rest of the yard. The seating creates an outdoor room feel. But also if you look behind the seating there is also a large garden bed behind it. Although the scheme isn't finished my bet is that some tall screening plants are likely to be planted there to create a more intimate mood and shade from summer sun. Having garden beds define a feature really works. This is what I mean about having layers in your garden beds. If this yard was just a row of trees along the fence and then say a low hedge in this front bed it would look okay but not great. They have used different colours, textures and heights all in the same bed here to create something much more interesting. The planters in that corner also create height with the strappy plants. This is why you need to plan our your whole garden so you know that all the plants across the yard work together coherently....See MoreNicole Tottle
3 years agooklouise
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3 years agoNicole Tottle
3 years agojulie herbert
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