A back-yard in progress

It's been a little while since we updated the blog, so quite a bit has changed. The deck is finished (don't ask how long it took me to pre-drill and then screw in all of the deck screws), we have a pergola (still only half painted and no roof yet) and we've well and truly got the garden underway. So there's plenty happening.

Garden wise, we have just planted our 'big' items - a Japanese maple and a Magnolia 'little-gem'. We wanted to buy these a little bigger so that we wouldn't have to wait as long for them to grow. That also meant we had to wait til Winter before we picked these up, since that's a better time to transplant trees and give them the best chance to establish before the dryer weather comes. We've also put in a couple of big cordylines that Stacey's folks gave to us. Here is how things are looking at the moment:

Back deck area

As you can see from the photo, the cordylines are placed in front of the posts for the pergola and the maple is in the corner. In between are syzygiums - an Australian plant that is often called a lily-pilly and you might see it at Bunnings as an 'orange twist' plant. They grow pretty quickly and will screen out the fence (and the neighbours' satellite dish). We've also put in some bearded iris bulbs along the front edge of the garden, between the cordylines, and a little herb garden along the side fence.

I haven't taken a photo of the front but it's still very much a work in progress. We have planted out some small shrubs and planted the magnolia, but I'm still working on the nature strip. We purchased some pot plants when we picked up the trees, but I'm still getting the garden bed ready. It's hard clay and there's still a bit of builders rubble buried not far beneath the surface, so I've spread some gypsum and started to dig it over, fishing out things like broken bricks and rocks as I go. The plan is to have a garden bed around the tree in the nature strip, filling most of it up, and then just a small patch of lawn either side of the garden in the middle. It will make the nature strip look like a continuation of the front garden. Hopefully the council don't mind...

So I'll do another post shortly with a photo of the front. Stay tuned!

And the "Most Ambitious Use of a Dingo Digger" Award goes to....

 

Well, the photos really tell the story.... we decided to make a start on the front yard, so I hired a Dingo and dug up what was there to make room for some rocks. We just made a little flat area at the front of the garden bed, behind the path. Then we had the rocks delivered. The rocks are 'river mud rocks' and we ordered them from a local supplier called SoilWorx. They're very good... The price was excellent but on the downside, with this type of rock they only do bulk lots (minimum 1 cubic metre) and you can't pick out individual rocks. I described what I was after though and they were able to aim their big front end loader at the side of the pile that had mostly rocks that fitted the description I gave. So there is an element of chance to it, but in our case we did ok.

Once the rocks arrived, we had to put them in place... this was a little more difficult than I anticipated! The rocks were larger than I expected and the poor little Dingo just wasn't qite big enough for the job! But, with the help of a ratchet strap (which, predictably enough, eventually broke), I was able to drag them around and then push them into place. It was very difficult though, and probably not real good for the Dingo either!

It's obviously not finished.... Later today we will have some top soil delivered to fill out the garden bed behind the rocks, which will make it look a lot better! And of course, we need to put plants in there yet....

We've also made a start on the back yard. We've started to build the deck, which will cover pretty much the whole yard, leaving just a garden bed around the edges. Stacey's dad, Mick, is a carpenter by trade, so he's doing the deck for us. I'm helping.... but Mick is the one who knows what he's doing. We're very lucky to have Mick giving us a hand with this. I couldn't do it myself and paying someone to do all of this would cost a fortune!

I'll put up some more pics after this weekend, when more progress has been made, but here's the backyard at the moment:

In by Christmas

Well, we made it! We managed to cajole our builder into finishing the house by the first weekend in December. We moved in, set up, and had the folks over for Christmas lunch!

With so many delays through the construction, we didn't quite have time to complete the garden, but that's no biggy. The week before Christmas I hired a 'dingo' digger (mini skid-steer loader is the technical name), leveled out the back yard, put in a retaining wall with the help of my brother, Jim (who - being a tradie - is more suited to physical labour than I am!) and wheelbarrowed three cubic metres of gravel into the back yard to make it level enough to sit a garden setting on.

We also have a few outstanding items for the builder to come back and fix this month. Minor things, for the most part. The largest is a timber door that was actually damaged when it left the factory, but the damage wasn't evident until it was stained. So the whole door is getting replaced by the builder, and he's making a claim on the manufacturer's warranty. Other than that, there were a few marks in the paintwork which were fixed the day after we moved in; some brickwork that needs to be cleaned again; a problem with the hot water service (again, a manufacturer problem that apparently takes about 5 minutes for them to fix - basically, the problem is the pressure relief valve spurts out water more often than it should); and there's a small dent in the garage door that happened when it was installed (barely noticeable, but the builder will have the whole section replaced to fix it anyway).

Overall, we can't complain too much. The biggest disappointment has been the delays - and they're largely because our builder told us things would be done at a particular time, raised our expectations and then failed to meet his own deadlines. What he should have done is under promise and over deliver. But we've been wandering around our estate each evening and looking at some of the other houses still under construction... and for most of them, the sites are a terrible mess and there's paint, mud, mortar and mess splattered everywhere, left to be cleaned or covered up at some later stage. Our site - even at the times we were complaining to the builder about the messy painters - was never anywhere near as bad. And from speaking to other people who have recently built or renovated, it seems our hiccups have been relatively minor compared to some of the other stories you hear!

And now that we've moved in, it's just AWESOME. We've set about making it our home... shopping sprees at homewares stores... more trips to Bunnings than I can count.... arranging and rearranging the pictures on the walls... Setting up a home together is an indescribable pleasure.

So what's next? The garden of course! Stay tuned....

Photos: these ones were taken just after our floor was installed, before we moved in.

These ones were taken the day we started moving furniture in.

These photos were taken Christmas Day. As you can see, the blinds are in and look great! Note also the AWESOME retaining wall, built by Lance and Jim...