Finally, the cold weather has arrived in northern NSW, and my trees are sporting beautiful colours. Still no frosts here, although an Inverell patient reported their first frost yesterday morning. We usually have frosts here by Anzac Day, so they are very delayed.

We have star jasmine out front covering a trellis. Also in Victoria with clay soil. It has grown well in just over 2 years. We have 2 plants covering a little over 2m wide span (maybe 1.3m tall?) Just encourage it to grow out sideways and not always up to give a nice dense coverage from low down. It doesn't flower for very long each year but if healthy then the foliage is attractive. Sorry about odd shaped photo but needed to crop it to just show the plant ;) previous experience with ornamental grape was that it was hardy and could come back from harsh treatment. It really does have a bare look for a large portion of the year though. Great for over a pergola but not so much for disguising a fence/neighbours.

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/

Suggest rather than hanging g plants that you plant climbers eg a grapevine or bougainvillea into a half wine barrel or into other large pots or elsebreak up the concrete around the car port posts so plant a climber. A pandorea would be nice.Re earlier comment : forget nasturtiums unless for pots of annual colour as they are short living annuals only. You need sturdy perennial climbers to grow over and around the car port to soften it. Replace the white balustrade with something modern and place some lArge modern pot plants with large greenery on the balcony also to soften it. I would suggest a warm cream in place of the stark white to blend with the red brick. They greys and charcoals eg monument are verycookie cutter and a current trend that we are all heartily sick of. Using them will date the house very quickly.