Starting off our landscaping

Twiggy · Oct 08, 2011 8:29 pm

We moved into our house last week, and from tomorrow I'm on annnual leave, so I plan on getting a start on our landscaping.

My question is in relation to our garden beds. We won't be having much, if any grass out the front, and was planning on mainly doing a garden bed along the front of the house, down the two sides, and a main feature sort of arrangement. I live in Beveridge (Northern Melbourne) and we have a helluva lot of clay type soil in these parts. I'm guessing that the prep i'd do for a garden bed would probably be different to laying lawn, but what sort of steps would I need to take to make sure my plants/trees take off and thrive. I'm assuming there's more to it than just building the frame and dumping some fresh soil in the boxes?

Advice appreciated

Eager · Oct 08, 2011 8:50 pm

G'day,

We also have to put up with clay soils, and I always had the idea of going for spiky/strappy looking plants in front, and thankfully they have all grown well! We also went for a rock garden in front of the house and all the plants there (consisting mainly of grasses, flaxes and cordyline type of plants) contrast very well against the rocks.

Are you on flat ground or is there a fall there that will help drainage? We are flat here but there is a fall away from the house that enables us to pick plants that need a bit of drainage; in any case when you go to pick out plants, read the labels to see if they would be suitable. I normally go for stuff that you could grow in a bog but I've also taken a huge risk with some of the stuff in our back yard (we have a variety of palms, but we placed a lot of new dirt there to assist them) so nothing is out of the question if you can prepare the garden beds properly.

I always think of your neck of the woods as fairly dry and barren (just my impression) so things like Yuccas (as long as you keep them under control), Cycads, Grass Trees (if the budget allows), Pony Tails, and maybe succulents might be the way to go. But like I said, everything I've planted out front has thrived; my back yard is going ok but the jury is still out if it will ever be a raging success! :wink:

Twiggy · Oct 08, 2011 9:31 pm

Heh most of the plants you've listed are all the ones we hate

All good though, some of the things you've mentioned i've taken note of.

Our block is pretty flat on the whole, but there is a real small run off from house to front of property (And from left to right in the back), so I'll look into that.

The rock garden idea could be interesting actually. I'd been wondering what to do with one section of it, and all I could come up with was bark/mulch, and I wasn't sold on that idea.

Our area isn't too bad in the dry sense. I've not been here during summer to pass judgement too much there, but we have the type of ground that if it rains once it usually stays clumpy for several days.

Eager · Oct 09, 2011 7:24 am

Twiggy

Heh most of the plants you've listed are all the ones we hate

All good though, some of the things you've mentioned i've taken note of.

No worries!

I guess the other thing you could do is keep on going back to new display homes for ideas. They are always landscaped professionally so the plant selections they make are normally co-ordinated pretty well with each other, and the suroundings.

If you want I'll send you some before and after pics of our rock garden, even if you feel like ripping out our plants once you see them lol. :lol:

Twiggy · Oct 11, 2011 7:35 am

That'd be great, thanks

Eager · Oct 11, 2011 8:37 pm

PM sent

Twiggy · Oct 15, 2011 10:41 am

Ta I got it. Will have a decent look when I can get to a pc