Side garden makeover: 98% done!

FINALLY.

Today is a big day.

Today is a happy day!!!

I blogged about the state of the side garden when we moved in 12 months ago.

Refresher:

The day we bought:



I knew when we bought the place we'd totally redo this space. I didn't think the plants were children friendly (or ANY friendly) and wasn't a really nice space to get out to.

I could handle the other half (no trees/shrubs half) myself fairly okay...



But what I hadn't realised is that landscaping costs a motza! And this wasn't work husband and I knew how to do ourselves (let alone complete ourselves!)... what with removing giant lava rocks, giant shrubs, poky palm stubs etc etc...

So last April, we dragged the in laws down from Sydney... and got to work:



Mum-in-law and dad-in-law are seasoned gardeners and in particular, mum-in-law has an inner gardener-drive that scares us me!

At the end of 2 days, we had a nice new canvas:



And in the last few months, we've seeded that area with grass, watched it grow... and we've discovered we got MONSTER GRASS! Husband has to mow that patch every 2.5 weeks!

But over the past week, I was determined to do something about the area... see the patch of earth RIGHT under the gables WILL NOT grow grass despite seeding, watering etc. It's been roughly 5 months and NO grass will grow there. And it looked odd and ugly... Plus the grass that did grow had taken root and it was time to furnish the space :)

Today is the 98% mark!!!



We got some small gardenia plants and some giant concrete pots the same shade as the render on the house (lucky!) and a ton of pebbles. I also moved my little birdbath to the space. I wish the darn giant no-one-wants lava rock would just disappear... but until then, it's part of the landscape. I got some cheapie solar garden lights as well and dotted them around the place.

Still need to plant the climbing star jasmines in yellow and whites against the wall... but otherwise, we're done. Just mowing now.



Happy day.