back yard

One of the novelties of the house is that it has a back yard, with some garden beds, some lawn and an outdoor space - not just a concrete balcony space.

I am already spending more time in the back yard than I ever did on the balcony and we haven’t even started thinking about improvements. There are some tomato plants to tend, a couple of trees to water, cobwebs to sweep, a lawn to weed and mow - plus a family of European wasps I keep trying to evict.

One thing that is becoming clear is that there’s a lot more work to be done to make the back yard into a pleasant space with a garden.

the space

The back yard is currently split into four main areas.

First, at the very back of the yard, there is a small garden bed (what size?) with a low sandstone block retaining wall. This bed has one lonely shrub (what sort?) placed rakishly off-centre. We suspect that there were up to five or six of these in a row along the back fence at some point and this hardy specimen is the sole survivor. (There was previously a three or four meter-high hedge of Photinias on the neighbour’s side of the fence, though it was recently cut back to the fence height.) There is also some sewage infrastructure, somewhere in that retained bed.

A second area of the yard is covered in tambark, about 3-4 cm deep, which appears to have been placed on top of a woollen or synthetic mat covering plastic frames. This is slightly retained from the next area by some wooden retaining. There is a pile of these frames abandoned in the corner. We haven’t pulled any of these mats up, yet, though it’s likely that whatever is underneath has healthy proportions of builders sand, concrete rubble, clay, or some combination. I have picked a good couple of kilograms of pebbles and concrete pieces out of the tambark already.

Thirdly, there is an L-shaped lawn area, which runs along the feence lince. Some early weeding shows the turf itself appears to have been grown around green plastic netting, as a substitute root system to limit erosion and speed up growth to a saleable state. The netting is still in the lawn, which might be about limiting erosion, because there’s a slight slope in the block. A few extra bits of retaining wall might have been a good option, but as it is, there’s plastic everywhere. There is also one additional tree (what type?) planted in the lawn.

The remaining part of the back yard is adjacent to the house, accessed through sliding doors and covered by ceramic tiles. The tiles are kept level and joined together by some sort of floating frame system, which suspends the tiles about the level of the lawn and the tambark area. As well as the hot water system, a rain water tank and a miniature washing line, we have some wooden garden furniture. As it faces West, the area gets quite warm in the early-afternoon.

plans

For the first area, we’ll need to plant some hedges to give us some privacy. The soil looks like it will need a bit of building up and we’ll likely need an automated watering system of some description, using the already-installed water tank.

We have ambitions to establish some vegetable gardens, probably on the second area. The exact form and shape of these is to be worked out, but they will probably need to be raised beds. For now, there are some small raised beds (from our previous balcony) and a compost bin.

The lawn is probably going to stay lawn - probably.

We are also likely to need a pergola to create a covered outdoors space, a shed of some sort, and ideally a gate to access the back yard.

back lawn

On the topic of lawn, the back lawn has certainly been struggling a bit. To be fair, after an initial period of prodding at the lawn occasionally, it had a period of lengthy neglect during a busy period including leaving town over Christmas and some delays while necessary tools (like a lawnmower) were acquired. The weeds largely took over during this lull and some hot weather also tested the lawn. (The main weeds were X and Y).

So began a burst of weeding in February and March 2025. By late-March 2025, the result was a lawn without too many weeds but plenty of bare patches. It’s also evident that the lawn that is shaded by the fence for much of the day is growing much more quickly than the lawn in full sun for most of the day. After a mow (with the new mower), it became clear that the soil underneath all the lawn was basically just clay, so a pair of ’lawn aeration sandals’, 2 bags of gypsum were acquired and distributed with help from a visitor (AH). Then, A LOT of water later, the lawn was left to rest overnight, before applying some (awful) ‘weed and feed’ to help it along.

I disappeared for a couple of weeks and came back in early April 2025 to find the lawn still very patchy - but largely free of weeds - and the soil still very clay-like but, in some parts, decidedly better at retaining moisture. After a quick weed, earlier, the plan from here is to aerate again (this time with a garden fork - the sandals were worth all $AU 8.00), work some more soil improver into parts of the lawn, then wet it in. The following day I’ll mow the lawn, then top dress, re-seed and fertilize the gaps.

2025-04-10 The lawn was mowed.

2025-04-12 Top dreasing applied, seeded, fertilizer and watered.

lots of watering …

2025-04-21 It rained for the first time in quite some time. A tot of about 10mm in 24 hours.

2025-04-22 The first sign of sprouting seed in the lawn.

2025-08-30 The lawn was mowed, as it started to put on a growth spurt for the start of Spring. Quite a few of the seeds sown in Autumn have taken and needed a trim. The lawn nearest the tree is looking a bit dry and dead.

back hedge and fence

We can see over our back fence into a neighbouring complex and probably both overlook one another. So we need a hedge to gently screen the view.

The back fence is a bit older than the other two fences. It is also facing the other property, so the supporting posts and beams are on our side. It hadnt had much attention, but was in fair shape.

One, lone pitosrporum stands in the middle at the back of the yard, with a small patch of earth retained by a 30cm sandstone wall. Six or seven more would provide coverage in a hedge across the back.

After digging out the earth at the bottom if the fence, we painted the fence in Woodland Grey. this matches the colour used on parts of the house and the house behind. it is darker than the foliage we’re hoping to grow in front of it, ao hopefully that will help it to fade into the background. the capping along the top of the fenxe is a stark white. That might stay - or it might change in future.

the other challenge is now that painting has begun, there seem to be lots more things that could be painted: Another, shorter north-facing fenxe; a much longer, south-facing fenxe, some edging, etc. Maybe we’ll end up with a light-coloured feature wall facing North and a couple or interesting panels on the long, south-facing fence line.