Yes please, we have a retaining wall dilemma & have bought 2 round tanks but yours are ace! I saw you website a while back & put it in the too hard basket case, lol! Message on my profile works fine thanks David, cheers LouieT

It is hard to see from your pic wether your wall out front is actually holding up any soil. This is how we rectified our retaining wall.it was showing cracking to the right hand end/side of pic and we questioned how much support work the previous owners had put into the soil. You can see in bottom left corner the painted concrete wall. We built a treated timber wall in front which rises more than half the way up the concrete one and supports it. Problem solved. With the added row of Lilly Pillies we now have a dust barrier from our dirt street.

The leveled area that you propose has not considered drainage. Looking at the photos, there is an existing swale that is catching excess moisture and then enabling a percolation effect. If this was my site, I would leave as it presents - this is the sustainable way. You can plant into the slope down to the swale. But use plants here that will tolerate wet and dry. And do not bring in extra soil - use what is on site. This is the sustainable way, and your garden will last. The area adjacent to the house (1.2 meters wide min) I would put down a base with fine aggregate over the top. You may not even need garden edging if managed right. The slope can have plants with a mixture of heights - avoid the Acacia recommended; the A implexa suckers and the Hakea salicifolia will get far too big for the space. Better choices are some of the smaller shrubby bottlebrush and maybe grevilleas. A couple of smaller trees could be considered but not lumped at the top. Finish with a few native lomandras all the same variety to add a textural contrast. Clean up the concrete mess left by the builders - this is extremely alkaline. The aim of the planting should be to hide the fences - and the roofline over the back fence and provide diversity of plants for birds. Remember the obligatory bird bath.

HU-624382943's comment about speaker placement is important. As far as quality listening goes (whether you like listening to music seriously or want to enjoy fantastic sound when watching movies, you want the speakers on the narrow wall (pointing towards the set of paned windows), not on a long wall. The challenge, of course, will be to get them sufficiently spaced, since you have the bookcase on the right and the cupboard (with or without doors) on the left, as well as the door to the room itself. (That door looks uncomfortably close to the cupboard doors, incidentally.) Unless you choose to suspend your directional speakers from the ceiling – which could be an option – you'll probably be limited to the width of that central section of wall, i.e. immediately to each side of the TV.