New Home Landscape Design - Kensington WA

This is my first crack at our landscape design. I have no idea how much something like this will cost us though!

I'm considering swapping the fire pit location for the below ground trampoline to move the fire further away from the house.

Looks great! I'd leave the fire pit there but think that you need seating on all three sides, Murphy's law with fires is that the smoke will always blow where you're sitting and if you only have one option you may be stuffed

Yeah I was planning on putting seating on all sides. Just hadn't gotten around to drawing it up in Google sketchup yet. .. I'm still a bit slow.

Thanks for the feedback

I think that looks great. One question, are those piers there to hold glass up or is that your alfresco with the roof removed? One would assume its the afresco, but I wanted to double check.

At the moment I'm drafting a 2D landscape plan in a mapping program called ArcGIS. 3D on the other hand would be much more useful. I'll have to give this google sketch up a go. Is it free to download? I see a trial version only. I'm guessing it's 30 days, which would suffice.

Yes, it's the alfresco with the roof removed.

I know ArcGIS well (sounds like we might be in the same line of business).

The basic version of Sketchup is free as far as I know (athough I downloaded mine a while ago now). The functionality is amazing for a free software package. It was a bit of a learning curve as I'd never done 3D before, but it's very cool and very fun.

My other half was just reminding me how we're chewing through the budget. Might have to replace the raised garden beds with simple grass edges

I wonder if it would be more comfortable to leave a spot for a couch near the fire pit like this

couch near fire pit looks amazing.

I think I might remove the seat behind the fire pit so I can install a blackboard for the kids. Might even get it to double as a location to hang an outdoor movie screen. I wonder if I could mount a projector from the ceiling of the alfresco. We've already planned the pre wiring for speakers in the alfresco ceiling. Hey I don't think it would be too hard to setup since we've got conduits running to where the bluray player will be just inside.

Sketchup is free but the pro version is around $700. The best thing about SU is that you have access to the vast library of 3D objects that have been uploaded by users to the Google warehouse
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/
I've even pinched some myself and imported them into my Cad program.

Stewie

I really love the colour combination of this landscape. Although we have two big dogs and I think walls that colour would get so dirty!



Our exterior colours are the same as the long island display

I'm thinking about bluestone pavers for the backyard. Has anyone laid them and approximately how much should I budget per square metre? Also wondering if we need to lay them on a concrete pad.

Something like this...

From a sustainable point of view solid paved areas, especially with a concrete pad underneath are a bad idea. It won't be permeable to water and will be extremely hot. You'd then need to over water any plants around to keep them cool. You can space them apart and put a light colored granite stone/gravel in between to drain water. Bluestone absorbs heat very well. Being in WA maybe a light colored paver would be good. I have just had a sustainable advocate and horticulturist design my garden and she really opened my eyes to all the problems we create for ourselves. I do love bluestone though. It is good at absorbing heat and releasing it at night which is good in cold climates.

Yes, I was wondering if bluestone would be too hot. Unfortunately we have two large dogs and the light coloured pavers in our last place always got muddy paw prints all over them and looked really dirty. I might have a look for a mid toned paver.

Regarding the watering - most of the paving is under the alfresco and away from the main garden beds. I've tried to keep the beds a decent size too and plan to keep them full with plants which should hopefully help with keeping beds moist.

I've redesigned the yard to make a squarer look. My other half prefers this one and I think I still like the curved design.

Square


Curved

Square for me!

Squares +1 for me too. I like curves in any aspect of building - internal, external, walls, benchtops etc but they have to be optically correct. If you don't get them right they can look odd.

Stewie

I like curves as I think they are more natutural. But I don't like really angular gardens!

While the block is vacant and there's easy access I was thinking of arranging a truck load of soil conditioner. The soil is currently quite sandy. What would people recommend. And should we work it in now or leave it in a big pile. I guess we could also get a truck load of mulch too. There's an existing lemon tree and a fire wheel tree.

When the house is built the only access will be through the garage 1m wide roller door.

I just remembered that we still haven't cleared the last load from mulchnet that's still sitting on our verge! It was huge! Maybe we should just get another load of that then get a small machine in to spread it around. I wonder though when we do the landscaping because of the change of levels it might just get mixed through the soil. Would that be a problem.

Hello, Just saw your thread so posting to follow. Your design looks great, though I do prefer the square version too. I'm using google sketchup for my design too.