The Roundabout

Our first attempt at taming the barren muddy wilderness that was our front yard at our Next House became affectionately known as 'The Roundabout'. We first came up with the idea for it when the house was being constructed and we were taking a lovely long walk with Allie in my mother's neighbourhood (full of expensive, lovely homes).

We spotted this front yard at a house we walked past, did a double take, and decided then and there that we had just discovered our garden's front entrance.

We both loved the look instantly, although I was afraid of the amount of pruning involved. Tom assured me that he would take care of all hedge trimming. Come to think of it, he still hasn't come through on that promise. Somehow, all garden maintenance has fallen on my shoulders!

So, we did a lot of research and decided on an Aspenstone paver that would complement the colour of our house bricks (instead of concreting in the path), and I set to work on a landscaping plan.

Again the in-progress photos are very lacking, but here was what we managed firstly.

Unfortunately the Mini Murraya plants and Bay Tree that we planted didn't survive, because we had forgotten to put any drainage out of that little square. Therefore when it rained, that centre area would simply fill up to the brim with water, and all of the plants drowned.

 

It stayed like that for quite some time while we worked on other projects, but eventually we started concreting in a little left-over-house-brick garden edging.

And we installed some much needed drainage running through that centre section (unfortunately had to lift up some of the pavers on either side to do it). We also raised the garden up a bit more to allow more soil above the drainage, by concreting in full bricks standing upright instead of just half bricks like everywhere else.

And then we could fill the little centre section up with dirt and plants and mulch again. This time we opted for a dwarf mandarin tree, and little Japanese Box hedge plants.

 

We concreted in some stairs MUCH later. Here are the front steps.

And here are the side steps up to the driveway (still not completely concreted in at that stage.

Tom and I both spent a great deal of time cutting pavers (an acquaintance who owned a paver saw very kindly lent it to us), although these main pathway pavers were pretty darn heavy, so Tom had to take a lot of that responsibility on.

All the paving offcuts sitting in the trailer.

And then we had completed the roundabout!

Here it is much later in life, with our fancy front gate and fence in the background.

The view sitting at the front door.

While the plants are still quite young the trimming is pretty easy, but once they become a hedge, it will certainly be a lot of work to look after them!