Renovating and Landscaping our House in Pascoe Vale South

The ball is rolling again

2008-07-20T14:07:00.015+10:00

We've been slowly getting back into the garden. We took a well deserved break for a while. In mid-June we got some soil/compost delivered and topped up the garden beds.

Porch Garden Bed

Porch garden bed before the new soil was added:

After the soil was added:

And now today we planted some society garlic and laimium plants:
And this is how it looks from another angle:
East-end Garden Bed
East end garden bed before we added the extra soil:
East end garden bed after we added the new soil. Nice:
And last weekend we planted in some Star Jasmine and Lilly Pilly plants:
and from another angle:

Bedroom Garden Bed

We are now half way through transplanting all plants from the bedroom garden, so we can top up that garden bed with fresh soil/compost.

This is what the bedroom garden looked like at the start of March 2008:

This is how it looks after today's transplanting efforts:

We'll need to add a 20cm layer all across this bed so it is filled to the height of the new brick pavers.

So there has actually been alot of changes in the garden recently. Progress feels so slow though. Next Saturday in between packing to go to Fiji, we'll be:

installing some irrigation to the east-end garden bed
putting in some garden edging around the bedroom garden

Yes, progress is slow but every little step is actually getting us closer to the end.

What do you think? Do you ever feel discouraged because progress in the garden seems too slow? Leave me a comment with your thoughts.

And next on the list is...

2008-03-30T11:44:00.000+11:00

I need to rethink what needs to come next. A couple of weeks back, I wrote down a little schedule…but now I’m not sure it’s the best.

For starters…I was planning to get the new compost and soil delivered next weekend and then to shovel it into the new garden beds. But I don’t think I’ll have the time to do that (am going to a wedding and an engagement party next weekend) and also I don’t think things will be ready for the soil by next weekend.

Even though we dug out all the garden beds this weekend, we still need to loosen the bed of soil that is there now, so the new compost and soil can be thrown on top. If we don’t loosen the existing bed of soil, drainage in the garden bed will be really bad.

So that means using the pitchfork to dig and turn the soil. Hmmm I wonder how long this will take me. I should probably allow half a day.

Also, before the new compost and soil is delivered, I need to work out what to do with the existing plants already growing in some of the garden beds. All of the existing garden beds need to be topped up with new soil so they can be 5 – 10 cm above the level of the adjacent paving. I don’t know enough about gardening to know if I can top up a garden bed with 5 – 10cm of soil without having to removed the plants, then replant them once the soil is on. Regardless of this, many of the current plants are in a layout that suits the old garden beds, not the new ones!

So I will probably have to move at least half of the existing plants. How do I do that? Dig them out, set them aside, add the new top soil, then replant them? Sounds like the most logical thing, but I’m not sure I will have time to do all the plants and top soil in the one weekend. So should I split it across a few weekends? I guess so.

Wow! Thanks for staying with me while I worked all that out.

So, this means my schedule for the next couple of weeks will need to change…and be extended.

29 & 30 March

Pull out any plants that won't be staying.
Loosen soil at bottom of all garden beds
Tidy up all garden beds (get rid of sand and clods left by the paving guys)
Measure garden bed volume (to work out how much compost and soil to order)

5 & 6th April

Nothing. We'll be in Adelaide.

12 & 13 April

Get compost and soil delivered.
Dig up plants that will need to be moved
Shovel compost and soil into garden beds.
Replant

19 & 20 April

Finish shoveling and replanting
Paint inside of yard fence

26 & 27 April

Nothing. Anzac long weekend. Visiting mum and dad

3 & 4 May

Start planting!

10 & 11 May

Nothing. In Sydney.

Digging new garden beds

2008-03-24T20:20:00.016+11:00

Happy Easter! I’ve had a very busy 4 days – digging and painting. My sister and I struck a deal: if I helped her paint some furniture, then she’d help me dig out the rubble from the new garden beds.

On Friday, we had the help of C before he headed off to Adelaide. He did the grunty, manly work and used a jack hammer to cut up the concrete in the garden beds.

On Saturday and Sunday, Sister Sal and I spent most of the days painting her furniture (apart from heading out to a Comedy Festival gig on Sunday night).

So Monday, we did a little bit more painting and then got stuck into the digging. We shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled, and then shoveled a bit more. I also took out the angle grinder to cut through some reinforced wire that was set into the concrete.

So after 6 or so hours work over the weekend, we had cut through the concrete and shoveled all the rubble out of the garden beds. Now we have nice, clear garden beds ready for nice, fresh compost and soil in a couple of weeks time.

I've posted a whole stack of photos below. They show before and after (but unfortunately, this weekend, the afters don't look that much different to the befores...)

Bedroom Garden - before

Bedroom Garden...After!

RP South garden bed - before

RP South garden bed...after!

RP North garden bed - before

RP South garden bed...after!

PT garden bed - before

PT garden bed...after!

PT garden bed - before

PT garden bed...after!

Porch garden bed - before

Porch garden bed...after!

Another non-garden weekend

2008-03-16T21:27:00.006+11:00

For a second weekend in a row (or is it a third!) we did very little in the garden. The tempreture was way too hot (in the high 30s) plus we had a wedding on Saturday and I had to do some work on Sunday.

But I've mapped out a little plan for us for the next few weeks so that we can get things done.

Next weekend (Easter weekend)

jackhammer out all the concert
clear the rubble that will be left.

29 & 30 March

Pull out any plants that won't be staying.
Get soil delivered.
Shovell soil into garden beds.

(Hmmm this could be a bit too much to do - we have a wedding and an engagement party on that weekend...I'll get back to you).

5 & 6th April

Nothing. We'll be in Adelaide.

12 & 13 April

Start planting!!!!

This week I'll call the landscaping guys to see if they can help me to source the plants and soil.

Hmmm, quite alot to do over the next month or so. Drop me a comment below - would love to hear some words of support!! I think we need them.

Installing a Drip Irrigation System

2008-03-10T21:03:00.007+11:00

So this weekend we didn't achieve very much in the way of gardening or renovating (but we did go camping, watch a couple of DVDs, and catch up with C's cousin, Lucia). By 4pm Monday afternoon (it was a long weekend) I was starting to feel a bit antsy about it. So I decided to try installing some drip irrigation piping in the courtyard garden. Turned out much easier than I had predicted.

The tap is on the right hand side of this photo (out of shot). And the garden is on the left hand side. So I had to work out a way to cross the divide elegantly. I thought about running it underneath the paving (but that would have meant lifting the pavers, laying the irrigation pipes, then re-laying the pavers - too much work!) or simply laying it around the perimeter, but that meant I would still have to lay it on the ground in front of the deck and it would have been visible and ugly. I noticed that the timber slats of the deck hung over the edge joists (is that what they're called?) by a couple of centimetres - just the right amount to hide the irrigation piping. Solution! I just had to convince C that nailing into the edge of the deck would be a good idea (he's a bit protective of the deck). Anyway, after my assurances that it would look fine, he agreed, and I laid the pipe and the connectors from the tap, along the base of the chimney, around the little corner, along the underside of the deck slats, and into the courtyard garden. Success!

Once I'd laid it all round, I turned on the tap, and sure enough, it worked! A few minutes later though the connectors started to spurt off because of the pressure of the water. So I put on those little collar thingys (whatever they're called) and they did the trick. So that's my no. 1 big tip when installing drip irrigation: Make sure you use those collar thingys on EVERY connector.

The piping is nicely camouflaged - can you see it in this photo?

Or this photo?

So I've had the dripper running now for a few hours! And I feel a bit weird about it. I follow the water restriction rules, but I'm not sure if there is a different set of rules for using drip irrigation - I hope there is because they are so much slower at watering than a hose/sprinker so I need more time to water the garden. I'm going to check the Melbourne Water website tomorrow.

If you've read through this post and are now reading this paragraph, I think you should leave a comment. You deserve it. You've done the hard yards. Leave me a comment. Go on, say a quick hello. Thanks! ;)

Drum Roll Please - Photos of the Completed Paving

2008-03-08T11:25:00.006+11:00

The paving is all done - and I've got the photos to prove it!

So it's taken me 10 days or so to get the time do do this, but I've taken photos of the finished paving and "stitched" them together in Photoshop so they are panoramic views of the paving. Here goes:

View from the front gate

View from the porch

View from the driveway

What do you think? Leave me a comment, please.

Not Much Action this Weekend

2008-03-02T19:29:00.007+11:00

C and I went to Adelaide first thing on Saturday morning (and I mean FIRST thing...we were up at 4.45am) and arrived back at 10am on Sunday morning. So that didn't leave much time for action in the garden. But we did manage to do 2 small things:

I shoveled this sand and dirt from an area where we will soon be creating a garden bed. Impressive, I know.

C did a fantastic job re-staining the timber deck. It's something you should do every 6 months or so. The deck was bulit in Septmber, so that's about 6 months ago.

C did a great job and even did the edges. Only took 45mins. I thought it might have been one of those things that took half a day!

The re-stained deck! Noice one bruvva.

Some Valuable Tips for Working with a Tradesman

2008-03-02T19:12:00.003+11:00

Hooray the paving is all done. It ended up taking 8 days to finish - because of rain and some other delays.

My relationship with the paving guy on the last couple of days was a bit strained. He was feeling the pressure, i think, because he was running overtime and had other clients waiting on him. I was feeling a bit tense because some of what they had done didn't match the plan like it shoud. Now, I know a plan is a plan (and what do they say about "the best laid plans...") but there was just a couple of things done that was a bit off - nothing too serious and stuff that I could easily live with (like the main circle being about 60cm too far to the south), but when the paving guy started to push back a bit about some changes I had requested, that's when things became a little tense.

I had asked for two changes and he was looking a bit miffed about it, he said a couple of times "I just followed what was on your plan". I let that comment slide initially, but when he said it for a third time, I took a stand. I told him: "actually, what you have done is slightly different to the plan and that's why we need to make these changes now". I pointed out how the main circle was slightly in the wrong spot meaning the porch garden bed wasn't going to be a symmetrical shape, like i had planned. Once I pointed that out to him, he understood and was more cooperative. He even offered to move the whole thing so the big circle was is it's planned position. I thanked him but said don't worry about it. So, all up, both the paver and I had to cooperate and make some compromises to get the job done.

I have learned some important lessons which I will definitely remember next time we engage a tradie:

Don't feel intimidated. Tell them exactly what you have planned/want done. Down to the most minute detail you can imagine. You might not consciouly realise it at the time, but you do have ideas about how the job should be finished off.
Try to be on site for the first two days of the job. This way you can keep an eye on things and make sure they are sticking to your plans. I really struggle with this one because I don't want them to think that I'm spying on them or don't trust what they are doing.
Don't be scared to question what they have done very early on. I always hestiate and think "oh maybe they have just done it like that for the time being and it will change later on".
You're paying for the job, so do everything you can to get it exactly as you want it. you're the one that will have to live with it.

It's Started!

2008-02-20T20:56:00.014+11:00

The paving has begun! Hoooooooray! Andrew (and his apprentice) started on Monday morning. This is what it looked like before they made a start:
By the time I got home at 1pm (I was working from home that afternoon) this is what they had done:Andrew + crew left after getting this far because the bricks didn't arrive on time for them. The bricks didn't arrive until just as I was arriving home.

So they returned on Tuesday morning and got stuck into it. By the time I got home this is what they had done! (pretty good considering it was a really hot - more than 35 degrees - and they had knocked off early):
I'm really happy with the way it is coming along. C is in Canberra for work this week so I'm watching the work in progress every day on my own. I wish he was here so we could talk about it together. I've had to make some decisions to change some minor things in the paving layout - I really wish C and I could have talked it though first - I'd feel much better about making the decisions. I'll post another update tomorrow.

Porch Garden Bed - Before and After

2008-02-09T15:03:00.001+11:00

Here's a quick before and after for our new garden bed in front of the porch.

This is what we started from.

Minu jackhammered the concrete (27 Jan 2008).

Then we lifted out all the concrete rubble from the bed (28 Jan 2008).

Then we started to till the soil in the garden bed (2 Feb 2008).

We found loads of old "fill" just below the surface. When this house was being built they must have used this area as a dump for broken roof tiles, broken bricks, bits of concrete and broken glass. So we dug all that stuff up so new plant roots can have nice loose soil to grow in (2 Feb 2008).

So we ended up with this huge mound of rubble (9 Feb 2008).

And voila! One brand new garden bed. After the paving is done (in 9 days time) we will get some nice fresh soil and compost delivered to fill the bed (9 Feb 2008).

Isn't so satisfying to look back over the progress you've made.

Saturday Morning Working Bee

2008-02-09T14:35:00.000+11:00

Wow! Yipee! Hooray! We have finished loading all the rubble from the front yard into a skip. We thought it would take two days of serious hard yakka - but it was all done in just a few hours this morning. My lovely sister Sal (props to her) came over to give us a hand and that really helped to speed things along. We got into a production line mood real quick, with Sal and I shovelling rubble into the wheelbarrows (we had two) and Minu emptying the wheelbarrows into the skip on the street.

I'm so happy to have finished early. That means we can enjoy the rest of the weekend. Such a contrast to the last couple of weekends when we have been working ourselves to exhaustion on Saturdays and Sundays. So now begs the question "how are we going to enjoy the rest of the weekend". I think we are just about to head into the city and check out an art gallery and wander around the shops for a bit and then go see Juno at the movies tonight.

Tomorrow I'll do a couple of minor things in the garden (like planting the Chinese Star Jasmine that's been languishing in a pot for a few weeks) but apart from that - i'll do NOTHING.

Wow! I feel so relaxed. Ah the serenity.

Here's some photos from our working bee this morning:

Sal and I were the "shovellers" - we shovelled all the dirt, concrete, mortar, sand , etc etc into the wheel barrows.

This is me.

This is me being a bit silly.

Here's a good Sal-in-action shot. Go lady!

Minu was the pusher - he took the wheelbarrows...

to the skip...

and emptied them.

All done. The skip is filled.

Final touchs to the paving plan

2008-02-08T23:26:00.000+11:00

Sheesh! I'm tired. I've just been putting final touches on the paving plan that we have decided on. Tomorrow morning at 8.30am our paving guy is coming for a chat. I asked him to come around again before he starts next week as I want to go over a few things with him (i.e. provision for irrigation piping, job clean up, filling the storm water trench). So tonight I thought i'd get the paving plan all finished and ready for when he comes in the morning. It's now 11.30pm, way past my bedtime, so i'd better dash off to bed so i'm well rested for our day of shovelling rubble tomorrow (i'll write about that tomorrow). Before I go....here's the plan! What do you think? Add your comments.

click on the picture above to view a bigger version.

I'm feeling quite nervous about it all - excited nervous I guess. What we are planning is a very different layout to what we currently have and very different to anything else i've ever seen. But I've thought in detail about this for months so I do feel really confident that we are headed in a good direction.

This one's for you Mum!

2008-02-04T19:47:00.000+11:00

My mum and I planted some plants in a garden bed infront of our bedroom window back in September. Mum's been asking me almost every week since then "how's it going? Send some photos". S0 Mum, here's some photos! xo

This photo was taken 9th September 2007, the week after we planted.

This was taken 13th October, only a month later!

This was taken on 18th November 2007.

And now, drum roll please, this is the same garden on 3rd Febrauary 2008:

As you can see the Society Garlic has really shot up (particularly in the last month). The Snow in Summer is also filling in space nicely. The Lamian was much better than this, but over the Christams and New Years period about half of it died in the heat. It's slowly making it's way back.
Along the left side of this picture you can see the three Hebe Buxifolia plants that I have left. I had five, but the dogs got in there one day and did something that killed two of them. I have put in a Lemon Verbena and a Rosemary in their places. R.I.P. Hebe Buxifolia #2 and #3.

Aggies or No Aggies

2008-02-03T08:28:00.000+11:00

At the moment we have about 3 large clumps of Agapanthas in our garden. Like this:

We had been planning to divide and transplant them all throughout the garden (to help proivde greenery while other plants are establishing themsevles for the next 12 months or so). But after transplanting half of one clump to the new East-end garden bed and realising that they look leggy and messy, we are now totally reconsidering that plan. I think we'd prefer to have a barren looking garden then a garden looking like this:

Disaster Zone

2008-02-03T08:13:00.000+11:00

With all the work that C and I have been doing in the garden for the last few weeks, the rubble and fallout is really starting to pile up. So we decided this week that we would get someone to come in, pack it all onto a truck and take it all away from us. Cool.

We found a guy who came around on Wednesday night and had a look, said "Yep I can do it tomorrow. Cost ya $170. Cash". We said "Fine".

Problem was he didn't turn up the following day. We called him, he gave some sort of excuse and said he would be there Friday.

He didn't come.

Called him again, he made some other sort of excuse and said he'd be there Saturday. We kept on the cast during Saturday with a couple of phone calls and he told us we would be coming today. At 6.00pm Saturday night I called again (mightily ticked off by this time) and he said "Na. Won't be doing it". What!!!! Was he even going to call us out of common courtesy to let us know???? THIS IS WHY TRADIES GET SUCH A BAD NAME FOR THEMSELVES.

And also why our front yard is looking like a disaster zone.

And also why next weekend we'll be breaking our backs getting all this stuff into a skip:

Read about the day we loaded all this stuff into a skip.

Preparing the Porch Garden Bed

2008-02-03T07:53:00.000+11:00

This weekend we continued on our journey to get the porch garden bed ready for planting.

We started from this.

There was alot of rubble and fill underneath the surface so there was lots of digging and "crow barring" to get through it all. Some took to lying down on the job.

We dug down about 25 cm.

There ended up being so much rubble and junk mixed in with the soil that we decided to remove it and buy new compost and soil to fill the space. We're hoping to get the compost and soil delivered next weekend.

Preparing the East-end Courtyard Garden Bed

2008-02-03T07:33:00.000+11:00

This weekend we wanted to get the two new garden beds (that we cut out last weekend) properly prepared for plants. This meant more digging, more lifting, and a few more arguments.

During the week I lifted out all the rubble in this garden bed. Today carmine got out the angle grinder and cut out all the reinforced wire that was at the bottom of the bed.

Then there was a alot of digging to till and airate the soil. Tough work but we got there in the end.

Then we decided to transplant a huge clump of Agapanthas from the front yard into the garden bed. It was such hard work and the results were...well...pretty disappointing. They look leggy and unattractive. Our plan had been to transplant the masses of agapathas from the front gardens into other garden bed to help provide greenery for the first 12 months or so until other plants have grown enough to look like something. But after transplanting these yesterday, I think we've changed our mind.

Planting here and there (27 January 2008)

2008-01-28T15:12:00.001+11:00

While I was at mum and dad's for christmas, mum gave me some plants to bring back and plant in my garden beds. She gave me a pot of Arum Lillies, Aspidistras and some sort of fast and easy to grow daisy thingy. So this morning I planted them out.
The Arum Lillies and Aspergas are in the back. Some of the leaves are burned (this happened when I brought them home in the car on a 36 degree summer day). But I can see new shoots forming so they will look lush in time. In the front are the little daisies. These seem to grow really fast (they had almost doubled their size in the pot in the last 3 weeks) so I may have to dig them up and redistribute them again later. But that's OK.

By the way - this is my Ficus Pumila (Creeping Fig). I LOVE this plant (some people hate it because it can be too vigorous and too invasive - but I love the shapes it makes as it crawls up walls). I planted this back at the start of December 2007 - so it's making pretty good progress. I actually took some cuttings from this and placed them on the ground about a metre away. It's my first attempt at propagation. Fingers crossed that I have some success.

While I was in the planting mood, I also decided to plant out a Lemon Verbena and Rosemary plant that had both been in pots for way too long. The Lemon Verbena smells divine...but only when I planted it out did I read the label properly and found out that it's deciduous!! Bummer. Mum gave me this Rosemary months ago, but I could never decide where to plant it. I decided just to chuck it in the ground (in the space where I lost a Hebe Buxifolia at Christmas time) and then I will move it later on once I know where I want it.

I also planted out a large pot of Italian Parsley that I bought at Poynton's on Saturday morning. I did have some Parsley but it bolted in the hot weather and went to seed. Hopefully I will have great big bunches of Parsley again soon.

At Bunnings in Highpoint I also bought two small Ficus Pumilas (they were cheap - $2.50 each) and four Chinese Star Jasmines. I haven't planted these out yet - that will have to wait until next weekend.

Making the Porch Garden Bed (27 January 2008)

2008-01-28T15:08:00.001+11:00

A New Garden Bed

So our goals in the garden for this weekend were
1) Pull out the Ficus tree
2) Break up the concrete in front of the porch to make a new garden bed.

This is what the porch "garden bed" looked like before yesterday. I pulled up 7 pavers way back in November to see what is underneath them (so we knew how difficult/easy it was going to be to create a garden bed here. Underneath the pavers was an old concrete footpath - making things very difficult for us.

So we went to Kennards Hire and hired a jack hammer for 24 hours. This made the job sooooo much easier - but it still took Carmine a couple of hours to break all the concrete up.

It was hot weather and the jack hammer was heavy

- Carmine did an awesome job!

Once all the concrete was broken up, we had to lift all of it out of the new garden bed (well, it's ALMOST a garden bed)

We're still left with a long pile of rubble. We'll either hire a skip or get someone to come and cart it all away the weekend after next.

East End Garden Bed (28 January 2008)

2008-01-28T14:51:00.000+11:00

New Garden Bed in the Courtyard

While we had the jack hammer hired to cut up the concrete ontop of the porch garden bed, we thought we should make the most out of having it. We had one other area that is currently paved that we wanted to make into a garden bed - at the east end of the courtyard.

This is what the area (at the far end of the deck) looked like before we took to it with the jack hammer.

This is it now! Yay! I've still got to pick all the concrete out of the bed, then dig up and loosen the soil - but hey, it's a start.

Once the soil is prepared, I'll plant a tall hedge (Lillypilly probably) to help screen out the clothes line and shed (we'll put a thin utility shed along the back fence soon).

Pulling up the Ficus Tree (27 January 2008)

2008-01-28T14:17:00.001+11:00

We pulled out the Ficus tree that was in the ground in the Northside garden. Man, it was much more difficult than I thought. I first dug all round it and then tried to use a crow bar to jimmy it out. But it wasn't gonna budge.

So Minu grabbed the trunk and gave it a good push around - then it started to move! Yay. After about 1 hour of shaking, digging, grunting and cursing, it came out!

The Ficus tree before I pruned it and we pulled it out of the ground.

After the tree had been pulled out.

The hole that was left.

The Ficus tree in it's new home. Hopefully it survives - i'd hate to have potted it up only for it to die on me. I've put it in the back corner of the courtyard so it will only get a small bit of sunshine each day.