What are you doing to help wildlife into the garden?
Sonia
3 years ago
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embzop
3 years agonmlondon
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Deciding what colour to do the concrete stenciled driway and concrete garden beds?
Comments (3)Need a photo of the area. Search stamped concrete driveway photos on Houzz and you can see how some look....See MoreWhat do you enjoy most about your garden?
Comments (8)@midesign0401, Hi Megan, yes it is heaven, I take a look at it all and sigh in happiness!!! As for the house, there's a bit of money to go ahead but this is now our busy time of the year, as we are hay contractors spending many many hours in tractors. However, I intend to get onto the next job ASAP which is laying the sill tiles around the veranda. It's a bit of an old fashioned look but these tiles will protect our limestone bricks from water stain when it's raining constantly in winter. The water will run off the sill tile and drop just a little shy of the bricks. Limestone is not only rough in our case but very porous and we also plan to have these tiles on all the window sills too, like the old tan brick houses from the 50's and the chocolate brown sill they had on their windows,only ours are cream not chocolate. It will be easy to wipe the sills from time to time and keep the house neat and clean. Once these tiles ar in place, 80mtrs of tiles, then we can concrete the veranda and then the roof iron can go on hopefully before Christmas. We have all the bricks for the home but need to find another $16,000 for all the rest of the windows. We are only using our own income, not borrowing at all so we have to do a budget and see if we can allow the money for the windows as the income we earn from Sept to Dec, is about 90% of our income for the entire year. It's taken 7 years now to get to this point having spent more that $80,000 already as I'm keeping a diary of spending. Goodness knows how much a 30+ square home with pool would cost if we had to pay a builder!!! We are owner builders and we've done everything ourselves including digging all the foundation and laying over 5000 standard bricks and digging the hole for the pool and fitting the pool including all the plumbing. We put in all the concrete stumps, layed the floor and fitted all the underfloor plumbing with a plumber friend guiding us along. We also put up all the framing and roof trusses, so we are absolutely chuffed with our abilities and progress....See MoreWhat are you prioritising in the garden this autumn?
Comments (31)Thank you ,Anne. Our average rainfall over 12 months is 6 - 700 mls. Usually we get it in Autumn and Spring. The last 12 months we have had 400 mls, and a lot of that has fallen as showers, so it doesn't soak into the soil. It is simply heartbreaking. And it makes me grind my teeth when the Sydney newspeople talk about lovely sunny weather! Even if it rains now, it is too cold for much to grow. This area is prime agricultural land - and our local member, Mr Joyce, blathers on about supporting the coal industry....See MoreHow do I plan a random garden?
Comments (13)I only have 2.5 acres but have drawn an entire garden plan using the basic paint program on your pc. Start by drawing all the boundaries to scale then add the house and any existing trees or structures driveways etc. Then add a perimeter garden all around the fence lines if that is what you wish. These do not have to follow a straight line but can curve in and out to accommodate larger trees. For the rest of the space I drew a combination of large circles and amoeba like shapes. These represent the lawn areas. Connect all these lawn areas together with pathways at leas 2 metres wide. All the odd shapes left in between the lawn areas then become the gardens. Using the paint program you can then fill up these spaces with a variety of different diameter circles to represent the final size shrubs trees and perennials that you will grow. You now have a complete plan to follow when you begin planting. When you buy a plant, look at its size and height and see where it would fit on your plan taking into consideration whether is will get sun or shade where you position it. This method makes for easy mowing as all your grass areas follow easy curves. It also gives you a garden with many garden 'rooms'. You can adopt different themes for each room eg a white garden, a cottage garden, a tropical look garden etc. Also it is some thing that you can develop over time and easily keep track of on your pc. It also helps to keep a spreadsheet of all your plant purchases that shows their height, width, sun requirement bloom time etc. If this sounds like a lot of work then maybe it is not for you but I love planning my garden this way....See MoreSonia
3 years agoJonathan
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3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoRibena Drinker
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3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoSonia
3 years agoSam Potter
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3 years agoGarden Design Guru
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3 years agoGarden Design Guru
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3 years agonmlondon
3 years agoLynn Hill Garden Design
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