Our Landscaping Story

It looks amazing! Well done!

Thanks, Dollar!

A week ago I gave the deck extension a coat of oil and barricaded it off. Yesterday I gave the wall a second coat and gave the deck 2 more coats, put some LinkEdge in down one side of it for a garden, and bought some plants. Today I intend to clean the rest of the deck and re-coat it. Still to be done is edging and gardens in the area between the deck and the gates which I'll have a fair crack at in the following couple of days.

Here's a tease: I have also painted some pebbles and joined the Bamboo Club. Pics tonight.

Looks great very interested in your feature wall, as we need to do something similar to give more privacy.
Love the paint colour

Pictures pronto please

Yeah, ok!

I didn't quite get as far as I would have liked today in that I wanted to get to the stage of putting all the furniture back on the deck and taking the dog barricades down and taking a heap of pics, but I've decided to let it dry a bit more, although it can be walked on now. I WILL take more pics tomorrow! In the meantime, here is the deck extension yesterday after 3 coats of oil. Don't worry about the oil on the bottom of the wall, it was touched up last thing today.


Here is the bulk of the deck today after the original part of it was cleaned and oiled. It is a terrible pic because of the glare, but somehow awesome too.


This garden, to be largely replicated on the other side of the deck too, consists of a Himalayan Weeping Bamboo, two blue Agapanthas, a white Agapantha between them, and just visible in front of the bricks is a Pony Tail.


Tomorrow I will arrange some furniture and take some pics and rough in some LinkEdge on the other side of the deck.

And here are the pics! Firstly, I placed our outdoor lounge against the wall just to see whow it would look. It will probably never be arranged this way again simply because the water feature that is now there instead, is damn heavy. I love the look of this though:


Furniture put back under cover; water feature in place. Noteb the Deep Ocean/Mountain Blue spray painted pebbles!:


Dining furniture in place. There is plenty of room to put the table across the deck if need be too, which adds to the versatility of the whole area:


Experimenting with LinkEdge. Because our block tapers slightly, and the outdoor wall is square with the deck, if I follow that line to the gates it will line up exactly with the corner at the front of the bins, which I will then screen off. I will also widen the path to and past the kennel so we can get to the bins again too, butb the pavers will be removed from in front of the gate so that area will become just pebbles:

Is the Linkedge good to work with? I'm considering it out the front here..

Yes Dee, it is easy!

You can bend it fairly tightly if need be, and is super quick to install once you have your levels all right. *sigh* I've got a bit of digging to do.

We have two curved garden beds across the front of the house and I think the Linkedge is our best bet at the moment-because there is no way we can currently afford the brick raised edging I'd love!

I'm replacing 3yo jarrah edging, which already looks worse for wear, with LinkEdge. Prices:

75mm high LinkEdge (also available in 50mm and 100mm heights) $36 per 3m length. The spikes are $2.15 each and the joiners and guides, used for stabilising the spikes and keeping the LinkEdge upright around curves, $1.15 each.

BTW- I am somewhat jealous of that whole area! Good job!

Ta! You might recall that I agonised over the decision to extend the deck, but I am absolutely sure that the right decision has been made now. The photos don't actually do it justice.

Eager everything looks great! Well done. With your deck how wide are your boards if you don't mind me asking-they look a bit wider than the norm. We are planning on having the wider boards for our deck.

Thanks mate!

Decking boards are Merbau, 140mm wide.

Top job Eager! Would love to be soaking up some of that sunshine. You may never have to go indoors again- well except to get a cold one

Looks great - very jealous ... I'd love a deck but don't think we'll be having one

Sweet we are getting the same width too.

I've now finished putting the LinkEdge permanently in place. Everything inside of it will be lawn, everything outside of it will be either pebbles or paved path or garden covered in the same pebbles anyway! I also took the easy way out to raise the area where the bins sit by plonking down pavers on top of what was already there (in very wet weather it used to flood there). This has now given me a datum for the rest of that portion of the yard regarding soil and path levels etc. I now have to dig out the grassed area between the Linkedge and the gates; that area will be just pebbles soon - it was difficult to maintain an even slope there with pavers because of the required clearance for the gates to open and the fall of the land and I ended up with steps and it looked sh!th0use - and I have already removed some of the pavers that were there to use under the bins.

Pics! LinkEdge in and rougfhly backfilled. The kennel will also be modified with a new pitched roof to give more clearance past it:


Bins sitting high and mighty, and some pavers removed.


Next, the aforementioned ground will be dug out to make way for pebbles, a frame put up next to the bins for screening to go on which will continue along the fence to the deck (I'm thinking of the flat slat bamboo stuff), installing more pavers to widen the path, soil delivered, plants to go in (thinking of a giant Bird of Paradise with a smaller one next to it, in the corner next to the proposed screen next to the bins, some Lady Palms, not sure what else), a replication of the garden on the other side of the deck to this side of it, and pebbles galore!

Sounds like a plan!

More progress. I have now finished the extra column of pavers, DS has finished the structural mods to the kennel, the pebbles are now spread in front of the gates after the grass was removed and also placed on the deck side gardens, and I also re-laid some other pavers around the place that were a bit low. Many thanks to Glen from local builders KB Living for giving me permission to take a wheelbarrow full of sand from a house being built just around the corner so I could use it as a base for the pavers. Still to do is a frame to screen off the bins, some bamboo screening for the fence, and a garden along there too.

Completed path and a pile of leftover pebbles which will go on the proposed garden:


Pebbles in front of the gate to the bins. This whole area has been effectively raised 40mm which will help tremendously in wet weather. I still have to get rid of the sods:


The deck side gardens:




We’ve utilised the new deck extension to good effect this weekend too. It has given us so much versatility, which was the aim, because we can move the furniture around at will to capture the sun etc. I even had a nap out there today!