Building a Green Wall - Part 2

So in the last part 1 entry I'd created a quite significantly large and quite ugly looking black and blue wall. Well now in part 2 we're going to make it spectacularly beautiful!

The right hand large blanket added and setting up for the top middle

The greenwall blankets were dead easy to put up. In the photo above you can see the right hand blanket attached, and I'm setting up for the middle one. To attach it I first clamp the blanket to the top of the wall using quick-grip clamps so I can line up the blanket. You need to take care here to ensure that it's stretched tautly otherwise when you load it up with soil it will bow out from the wall.

Once clamped I then drilled a small pilot hole into each eyelet. Remember blue-board is effectively a sheet of concrete, so you need to use a masonry bit to get through it! I then finally drive in a 50mm hex-head screw with washer to secure the blanket to the wall, again making sure that everything is stretched nice and tight before finally tightening up all the screws.

For the large blanket there are 5 fittings across the top, 3 in the middle, and then 3 at the top of the bottom row, which all lined up with the 70x45 battens I had put in when making the frame.

Right and middle completed

Above shows the two middle medium blankets fixed in place in the centre panel. That leaves the large one on the left to be done next!

The large blanket

Above shows a closer view of the large blanket and it's really quite an ingenious design. The kit comes with drip feeder tubes and connections that slide into the fabric above each row of planter pockets. The water from the drippers soak the blanket (remembering it's rubber backed) which in turn waters the pockets. Very clever.

All blankets mounted

This shows the completion of putting up the blankets. Once they were finished I then painted over any of the blue that was still visible to give it a uniform look.

Nice job

Here's the view down the side of the yard. The next job is to fit on the Holman Greenwall planters at the bottom of the large blankets. There's 3 for each side, 6 in total, and luckily for me 3 of the units is pretty much the exact width of the large blanket! Anyone would think I'd planned it that way!

Mounting the planter pots

This shot shows the planter pots fitted on to the bottom under the large right hand blanket. To fit them you have to fix a mounting bracket to the wall that the unit then hangs from. Each unit then clicks into the next one like kids building blocks. For watering you just run a pipe in the bottom of one with a standard snap-on hose connector. If one unit is connected to water, they're all connected, and then there's then an individual dripper for each pot. Another clever design.

Build finished. Now onto the plants

Above is the completed wall with all the blankets and pots in and plumbed. I also added some 12v up and down lighting on either side of the middle section to highlight the plants at night. When everything is done I'll also hook some spots on the ground in front of each panel.

So all that is left now is to plant the plants! There's 44 needed for the large blankets, and 20 for the two medium blankets, and 48 for all the pots. That's 112 plants (and then some as I was to find out) to buy and plant, so I'd better get cracking!

Centre section planted

Above shows the completed and planted centre section. The wall faces due south and is pretty shaded for much of the day, so I picked some sun loving cascading plants for the top level, and then worked my way down the wall until I got down to very shade tolerant ferns at the bottom. I brought the plants in pairs so it would give the wall a nice even look. I also ended up buying more than 112 as some of the bigger pockets can accommodate two or three medium plants, just to give more variety.

The guys at Jamie Durie emailed me a planting guide on request which was pretty handy, but it was mostly for a Sydney climate, not a Melbourne one. So I took it down to the local nursery at Bulleen Art and Garden who helped me pick the kinds of species from the list that I should be planting. 

After the first section it was pretty easy, I just used a good quality general purpose potting mix to fill the pockets to plant into.

Starting to plant the right side

Above you can see I am getting ready to plant out one of the large blankets. For the bottom row small pots I just bought a few trays of Petunia and Impatiens which were super cheap, and allowed me to plant all the pots. I also spot planted the leftover ones randomly in amongst the bigger plants to give that burst of colour in all the green.

For the placement of the bigger plants, as you can see in the picture, I would just drop the whole pot (or pots) into the pockets to see how it would look when planted. The big pockets can hold a large pot or two medium pots. Doing this first allows you to mix and move things about before taking the plunge and planting the plants permanently.

Once I was satisfied with the look I'd then start at the top row and half fill the pocket with potting mix, then de-pot and drop the plant in, and finally fill in around the plant with more mix. When it was filled I'd then give the pocket a bit of a bash with my fist just to settle the soil and plant in, water it in well, and then move onto the next pocket.

Planting done

Pretty soon the whole wall was done! In terms of costs it was around $600 - $700 per panel to plant them out, but the final product was worth every cent! I'm really happy with the result.

Job done. Time for a beer

This is now my number one favourite spot, and thanks to the beautiful new green wall we have some privacy while still being able to say hi to the neighbours, and we're doing the planet a favour to boot! 

With the trailing plants on the top row I have begun training some of them to go over the back of the wall as well, so that it will eventually soften the look on the other side too.

The lunch table is set and the BBQ is on!

So that's it for the green wall project, I hope you enjoyed the journey as much as I enjoy the result on an almost daily basis. Until next time, stay green!

Building a Green Wall - Part 1

Remember the neighbours trampoline after finishing the deck? Well I love the neighbours kids and all, but them bouncing up and down, and in turn watching us having lunch on the deck (or me trying to sleep!) wasn't the best, so I resolved to have a go at doing something about it. 

Like Hadrian in England and the Chinese with the Great Wall, I also chose to build a wall, but in this instance a GREEN one!

So after discussing with the neighbours and getting the OK it was full steam ahead with the green-wall construction project.

I must do something about the view

Now there's a number of different options available in a wide, wide, range from the really cheap, to the very, very expensive commercial/industrial models. So as always I hit up Google with a few searches on "building a green wall" and "building a vertical garden", from which you'll find lots of options available as well as plenty of DIY information.

You'll find there's a lot of "pot planter" options available on the market which you can pick up from various distributors or even your local hardware supplier. These have the advantage of maximum flexibility. With the area I was dealing with, and the size of the wall I wanted to build, cost was probably going to be an issue though. The whole thing it's 6m long and nearly 3.5m high at the highest point!

Holman Greenwall

So looking further into pot kits I came across the Holman GreenWall. It's a great product with snap in irrigation and pots, that allow you to change the pots (and hence the plants) in and out at will.  The limitation for my use is that it only has 8 pots per $69 unit (priced from Bunnings) and to cover the entire wall was going to take quite a few thousand dollars worth of units, not to mention all the plants needed to then fill all those pots!

After further investigation and emailing, I finally settled on a local product that comes courtesy of Australian celebrity gardener Jamie Dury. He has a product called the Greenwall Blanket, and it was going to fit the requirement just nicely, and without breaking the bank. 

The blankets come in three sizes; small 600x600, medium 1200x1100, and large at 1800x1800. They're hung up by eyelets built into the fabric, they're rubber backed for waterproofing, and they have an inbuilt drip watering system. Each blanket comes with varying size pockets for planting in, so you can have a variety of plant sizes across the blanket (as opposed to the pot systems where generally they're all the same size).

The area I want the wall to cover is 6m long and runs right along the edge of the fence. One of the things I also want to include in the wall is that it won't be a 100% solid wall (I do actually quite like the neighbours!) so I planned to leave some semi-transparent sections as part of the build.

Here's the plan I came up with:

The Green Wall Plan

The wall will be divided into three sections, 2 wide sections on either side, and a narrower one in the middle. These sections will be divided up by four 600 mm wide OutDeco Panels (you may remember I used them when screening the side deck and the garden utility area), using the "Bungalow" pattern, which will give me 80% block out/privacy while still allowing me to still say hi to the neighbours!

For the Greenwall blankets, I will use two large blankets for the left and right outside panels, and two medium blankets mounted vertically for the centre panel. Because the large blankets aren't quite as long as two medium blankets, I plan to fill out the bottom of the large blankets with the Holman Greenwall units, which I'll plant out with seasonal annuals or herbs in the smaller pots, giving me the flexibility to easily change them around. I'll need 3 units each side, 6 in total, which shouldn't break the bank.

So that's the plan, but first things first, is to put 8 posts into the ground to support the wall using 125x75 rough-sawn cypress. There's a 50 cm drop along the fence line, so the last post will be longer than the first.

A row of posts to start

Above you can see the posts dropped in and concreted with the tops levelled off. Let me tell you it was far from an easy job! 

As you might remember there's a significantly large tree in the yard (you can see it in the top photo) and when the neighbours property was completed they put in what is called a "root block". This is essentially a large and deep excavation filled with concrete, designed to stop the roots from the tree entering their property. Well this root block chunk of concrete was sitting pretty much right where I needed to drop the posts in!

It wasn't all bad news though, as there was luckily a 60cm gap between the block and the side fence which was just enough space to drop in the post hole digger with a 50 cm auger attached. JUST enough! Believe me it was a VERY tight fit! 

The block trench wasn't in a straight line either, and as I worked my way down the row of holes that 60cm gap got narrower until it was down to under 50cm. At that point there was no choice left but to head down the hire shop to get a large electric jack-hammer to cut into the root block concrete.

This should do the trick nicely

Eventually after all screwing around with the post-hole digger, the jackhammer, and after a lot of blood, sweat, and swearing, I ended up with eight 70 cm deep holes and all posts in and set down in concrete. Phew!

I can see it already

Above clearly shows the outline of how the wall will look in terms of cover-up. I levelled off the top of the posts by running a stringline, then constructed a wooden jig to support the circular saw. With the jig fitted to each post I then ran the saw around to make them all nice and even.

Once the posts were finalised I then laid some 70 x 45 horizontal timber battens to brace the structure, and importantly to support the greenwall blankets. I notched in one across the top, and then further horizontal members to line up with the eyelets on the blankets in each of the three sections.

Outta sight!

Once the frame was completed, you can see above that I then covered the larger sections in HardieTex blue-board and then fitted in the Outdeco screen panels. Harditex is water and rot resistant, so was going to serve as an excellent backing for the blankets. 

You can also see I got busy with a paint tin and brush, painting the entire structure to match the neighbours fence colour which is charcoal black (you can see their fence in the background top right of the photo above). Thinking ahead I'd painted all the posts, railings and the back of the HardieTex before mounting so I didn't need to go next door to paint the fence!

That's a tall wall

I didn't need to paint the front of the blue board as it was going to have the blankets mounted onto it so I left them blue, but painted around the edge anywhere the board might have been visible under the blanket. 

Why is the middle one painted black you may ask? Because I painted it on the wrong side when I was painting them! You'll have to trust me it's black in the other side as well!

Getting ready to mount the planting blankets

So that's the wall structure completed! It's certainly ugly, but just wait until the plants go up!.

Next time we'll mount the blankets and pots, fit the drip watering system, and lastly plant the plants all in part 2!

Insights of Japan and Japanese Gardens

As some of you already know I take a lot of my inspiration from Japanese gardens, and have had the good fortune to visit Japan on a number of occasions. I just returned from my most recent trip to Tokyo where I went looking for further influence on what I can apply in my own backyard.

What I am going to try to do in this post is talk about the things I observed, and the lessons I learnt in looking at Japanese gardens within Japan. 

The "Spirit" of Japan

Mount Fuji, symbol of Japan

The serenity of a Japanese landscape and the simple but deliberate structures of the Japanese gardens are what make the gardens unique. The two main principles incorporated in a Japanese garden are scaled reduction and symbolisation. In terms of symbolisation, there's no better place to start than Mount Fuji. Fujisan as it is called in Japanese is Japan's highest Mountain at 3,776 meters. It has long inspired awe and worship, as it was believed to be inhabited by deities, and is an object of faith for Japanese people and a place that their hearts draw support from. This is expressed by the official description as a Cultural World Heritage Site stating: 

"Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration" 

I took this picture out the window of a speeding Shinkansen train heading down to Kyoto from Tokyo. Fujisan also inspires the principals around gardening in Japan by using it as artistic inspiration.

The garden is a three dimensional thing

Mysterious forest.

Looking through these trees you see these strange tangled shadows that peek through to a small wall and beyond. It has that mysterious haunted look. From the opposite sunny side (see Ground Cover below) they're just trees, but the path has been created in such a way that you can see two completely different vistas of the same garden. One side is a lush green patch of trees, the other is a mysterious spooky garden. 

We sometimes forget that a garden is essentially a three dimensional sculpture of plants, and that needs to be taken into consideration when planning. It's something that Japanese gardeners excel at.

Ground cover everywhere! 

Ground cover everywhere you look

You won't often see a blank patch of anything in a Japanese garden. Above you can see the extensive cover that was under those shadowed trees. It was some kind of bamboo related bramble that just took off everywhere. 

In fact I don't think I have ever seen any mulch (other than natural fallen leaves) purposely put anywhere in a Japanese garden. There's stones or gravel, or plants, or even manicured dirt that is daily swept to within an inch of its life. In the garden every inch seems devoted to having a plant of some kind that is perfectly suited to a purpose.

Think of the future of the garden, not just the present

A blend of all the elements

I was pondering this view above for quite a while, trying to fathom the thoughts of the original designer when this garden was planted. 

The configuration of this garden was completed in 1906, and although destroyed by air-raids during the war, it was rebuilt and reopened in 1949 to what stands today. The balance in symmetry is astounding to look at and is obviously well maintained to keep it looking that way. The vision of the original designers 110 years ago astounds me.

Everything is important

"Wow look at that fish!" "What fish?"

The materials used, the plants selected, the placement, the gravel type, the water, even the fish, all combine to make this a wonderful harmonious whole that is a Japanese garden. I think we can only hope to emulate this in some way. 

So when are you creating, you need to think where it's going and what it will look like later, not just now, and how it will look in balance with everything else. A hard ask.

Look beyond your borders at shakkei

I there is one thing I have really picked up in Japan it's that your garden doesn't stop at the back fence. Take a look at what's "over there" and incorporate it into the garden. If you look at the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in the background of the park, it looks like it is part of the park landscape as if it's always been there.

In Japanese gardening this is called "borrowed scenery" (借景; Japanese: shakkei) and is the principle of "incorporating background landscape into the composition of a garden" which is found in traditional East Asian garden design. 

The Japanese really take their aesthetics as far as they can go, so if you notice, the blinds in the building are drawn to match the shape of the building, completing the picture. Now that's what I call fussy!

Balance and harmony needs maintenance

Balance and Harmony in a Landscape

This tree has no doubt been trimmed to within an inch of it's life, as has all its surrounding brothers and sisters, in keeping with the principal of "scaled reduction". 

The lesson here is that if you want to keep everything looking beautiful and balanced, it requires maintenance to keep it that way. Think of the patience required to maintain a Japanese Bonsai tree, and then apply it to a whole garden.

Think big and make a statement, it's all in the perspective

Think BIG

Japanese gardening isn't only just about "scale reduction", it can also be about increasing the scale! When I saw this Japanese stone lantern (known as a tōrō or dai-dōrō specifically) the first thing that struck me was its size. It stands about 2m high and is roughly 1.5m in diameter, and stands on an island in the middle of a lake connected by two bridges. This thing is enormous, but as with anything it all depends on your perspective. 

If you are standing in front of the lantern it's monstrously big, however from across the lake it's the perfect size in relation to everything around it as you can see below. So remember perspectives when selecting plants or ornaments as you don't want things to disappear.

Remember your perspective

Framing the view

A gorgeous view

Take a look at these two pictures above and below. It might look like two different views but they were actually taken from the same location looking at the same garden, the difference is the frame in the bottom picture. I just took ten paces backwards and suddenly the view completely changes as the eye is drawn to specific highlights and views.

So I take away that it's a great idea to frame a view, after all sometimes you can't see the trees because of the forest!. Perhaps you don't need to build a pavilion like the one below, but I have seen plenty of examples of framing using internal windows to the house as an example, or even raising up a frame in the garden.

A framed view

Nothing is random, it's only the appearance of randomness

Beautiful natural scene or well planned garden?

Obviously a lot of thought goes into these gardens. This is Tamamo Ike pond, part of the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo. There's a philosophy that goes with Japanese gardening that is well outside of my shallow understanding, but the impact is striking, and I can only hope to achieve a similar effect by tinkering around the edges and what i can find on Google!.

According to Wikipedia Japanese gardens have their roots in the Japanese religion of Shinto, with its story of the creation of eight perfect islands, and of the shinchi, the lakes of the gods. In traditional gardens, the ponds and streams are carefully placed according to Buddhist geomancy, the art and science of putting things in the place most likely to attract good fortune.

The rules for the placement of water were laid out in the first manual of Japanese gardens, the Sakuteiki, or "The Creation of Gardens", in the 11th century. According to the Sakuteiki, the water should enter the garden from the east or southeast, and flow toward the west, because the east is the home of the Green Dragon (seiryu), an ancient Chinese divinity adapted in Japan, and the west is the home of the White Tiger, the divinity of the east. Water flowing from east to west will carry away evil, and the owner of the garden will be healthy and have a long life.

Also according to the Sakuteiki, another favorable arrangement is for the water to flow from north, which represents water in Buddhist cosmology, to the south, which represents fire, which are opposites (yin and yang), and therefore will bring good luck.

I wonder if my local council planning permits have space for all that?

Soften the hard landscaping

Soften the hard

I don't know if this was a deliberate act to fill the crevices in this wall with plants, or if it was a naturally occurring phenomenon, but the outcome was a terrific look that I think should be easily achievable. I have the great stone wall in my side garden and this effect would soften and integrate it nicely with some plants put into the cracks.

My only problem is watering them. I took this photo up in the mountains of Nikko National Park which is about 3 and 1/2 hours north of Tokyo by train. Up there it's always wet and moist with a lot of water flowing (hence the size of the guttering), but in Melbourne it's only like that in winter, so I'll have to give some thought to irrigating the wall somehow during the warm summer period, but this is definitely on my garden to-do list now.

Anything is possible

You can do a lot with a single tree

The picture above is of a purple Japanese Wisteria (wisteria floribunda) tree at the Ashikaga Flower Park north of Tokyo that I has the pleasure of visiting in May during the flowering season.

IT IS ONE SINGLE TREE! This is Japan’s largest wisteria plant and while certainly not the largest in the world, it still comes in at an impressive 1,990 square meters (or half an acre) and dates back to around 1870.  Although wisterias can look like trees, they’re actually vines. Because its vines have the potential to get very heavy, this plant’s entire structure is held up on steel supports, allowing visitors to walk below its canopy and bask in the pink and purple light cast by its beautiful hanging blossoms.

That is one tree that shows that really anything is possible.

What appears simple can be very complex

Simplicity belies complexity at Ryoan-ji

This was one of my favourite gardens in Japan, the zen garden at Ryoan-ji Temple. It looks simple on the surface, just some gravel and rocks, so it can't be that complex can it?

(courtesy of Wikipedia) The garden is a rectangle of 248 square meters, twenty-five meters by ten meters. Placed within it are fifteen stones of different sizes, carefully composed into five groups; one group of five stones, two groups of three, and two groups of two stones. The stones are surrounded by white gravel, which is carefully raked each day by the monks. The only vegetation in the garden is some moss around the stones. The garden is meant to be viewed from a seated position on the veranda of the hōjō, the residence of the abbot of the monastery.

I took the shot above from just to the left of the hōjō steps.

The stones are placed so that the entire composition cannot be seen at once from the veranda. They are also arranged so that when looking at the garden from any angle (other than from above) only fourteen of the boulders are visible at one time. It is traditionally said that only through attaining enlightenment would one be able to view the fifteenth boulder.

The wall behind the garden is an important element of the garden. It is made of clay, which has been stained by age with subtle brown and orange tones.

But even after centuries in existence no one has cracked the riddle of these seemingly random rock clusters that seem to float on the sea of gravel. It's been examined both philosophically and scientifically in enormous detail, with no single answer, and it continues to fascinate everyone who sees it, me included.

Now THAT is the essence of a great garden.

A beautiful garden is worth having

Even an average Japanese house can have a great garden

The thing that struck me most about the domestic gardens of Japan is the care and attention to detail given, no matter how small the space available. In some way it seems to be a national obsession. In my travels I saw some pretty average houses that had simply sensational gardens, and it seemed that in a lot of cases, even if there was only a postage stamp available to plant on, it would have some fabulously and meticulously sculpted tsuboniwa upon it.

Looking at the house above that I spotted while out walking in a small country north of Tokyo, the house itself isn't much to look at, but the garden was immaculate and well cared for, an obvious symbol of pride for the owner, as it should be for all of us.

Applying a Finish to the Deck

Now when it comes to applying the finish I had two options available to me:

• number 1, get out there, clean the deck, apply a finish, or
• number 2, get someone else to do it for me!

I chose the latter of course.

In the estate where I live we have our own community Facebook page, so I sent out the word for recommendations on a company who could assist in applying a finish to the deck, and a couple of people pointed me to a Melbourne based team called Decks Alive. 

What Decks Alive do is strip back any existing product on the deck, do a deep clean with an industrial cleaner, and then they apply two coats of Intergrain Ultradeck. It was going to work out at about $28 per sq. metre and would be done in a day, which is much easier than me getting out there and doing it!

Graeme from Decks Alive showed up as scheduled, the weather was great, and the whole thing was completed on the day.

Below shows the landing and deck all nicely cleaned and polished with nair a bird poo in sight.

Deck and landing all looking spick and span

The framing on the top of the landing area and the lights look really great as you can see below.

I guess if I could change anything I would have left a larger gap from the top of the door sill to the deck level. I built the landing boards to be level with the sill as you can see below, but in hind sight it would have been better to leave a gap so I could at least fit a door mat under the door! 

A lovely deep colour to the timber matches in with the stair light fittings

No it's not trick photography, the picture below is just a good perspective on the finish with the steps blending into the boards. Looks weird!

It looks like trick photography with the step disappearing into the deck 

The curve came out great with the juxtaposition I was looking for with the decking meeting up with the crazy-pave stonework. Edgy!

The contrast between the stone and wood is perfect

The stairs are a work of art! The effort it look to cut all those little bits and pieces to give the mosaic effect on the outside stair stringer has paid off in spades.

Steps and deck

Below shows the completed deck and stairs. I was so impressed with the photo I made it the new cover for the blog! A few plants and it will be all done.

I was so impressed I made this my new blog cover photo!

Looking up the steps to the side of the house you can see the side deck.

Those stairs are looking good

The side deck that we completed the year previous was also in need of a new coat so we got both decks completed as part of the same deal. 100 sqm in total (1036 sqft) and it's come up a treat.

The side deck is two years old but looks as good as new

The garden beds have really taken off giving the side deck a very tropical feel.

Looking good

Looking down the side yard shows both decks together leading down to the lawn area at the bottom.

The view down the side yard to the bottom deck

Nice clean boards for the moment. I am sure the possums and birds will quickly change that! It's hard when there are so many trees large overhanging, which look beautiful, but you pay the price in maintenance.

Very tropical

Now I really need to do something about that kid's trampoline I can see over the neighbours fence. Hmmm....I wonder...

Neighbours be gone?

Deck Building. Landscaping Around the Deck

So the deck is done at last, at least in terms of construction, now it just needs to "fit" in the back yard. Right back when I started laying the yard out I always had a vision of some kind of stairway to take me up from the paved area and onto the deck. However the other staircase I built already suited that purpose, and I really didn't want two sets of identical stairs off the same deck.

I needed some inspiration to go between the white lines!

Basic steps. What to do?

On a visit to Japan we went to Ōkōchi Sansō (大河内山荘 Ōkōchi Sansō, literally "Okochi Mountain Villa") which is the former home and garden of the Japanese period film actor Denjirō Ōkōchi, and is located on the edge of the famous bamboo forests of Arashiyama in Kyoto. This gorgeous garden is open to the public (for a fee) and served as inspiration for what I decided to do with the alternate path.

Below shows a great example of a path that leads up through the garden. The stepping stones are made from large pieces of local stone, and assembled in such a way that they look part of the natural landscape, but still indicate the path to follow.

A natural rock path disappearing around the corner

Periodically along the path you come across these gravelled areas as you can see below, set to resemble flowing water coming down the hillside.

A beautifully landscaped gravel path

From these gravelled areas the path then leads further along, using the natural stone as steps meandering up the side of the hill and throughout the garden.

The mysterious path continues upwards, one way

So using these photos for inspiration I called my favourite landscaper Stefan from Stefan's Landscape Design to have a look at what he could achieve. As always he looked at the photographs and understood exactly what I was after, and set about doing it.

The brief was to build a natural looking rocky outcrop with a stone path snaking up through it, containing a number of gravel landings linking the path to each switchback up the slope.

Two days later with a pile of rocks and a bobcat he achieved exactly what I was after! You can see below the landscaping prior to me enclosing the deck around it.

Now that the landscaping is complete I can enclose the last part of the decking

Once enclosed, the decking was now complete. From the circular paved area at the bottom the path goes up three stone steps to the right to a gravel landing, then switches back four steps to the left to the next landing, and then finally takes three more steps up to the right to meet just below the bottom of the decking, leaving one step up to the deck proper. He'd nailed it completely!

The landscaping and decking completed

He'd also included an extra gravel landing at the top as a lookout across the yard as you can see below with the gravel area to the right shown below.

The steps blend in faultlessly with the decking

Below shows the completed deck and garden area nicely planted with some ferns, mondo and dwarf pine shrubs.

The decking now landscaped in with the rest of the yard

The alternate path is now complete with easy access from the circular paved area up to the deck proper, but not in a obvious staircase manner. Call it a secret short cut if you like, because for all intents and purposes it just looks like a rock garden, but once you recognise the path, it draws you upward (or downward) to explore the trail.

The circular paved area is now linked to the decking via the rockery path

Unfortunately one thing fell victim to the construction, that being the back lawn. The bobcat moving back and forth carrying the heavy rocks and soil destroyed what was left of it. Truth be told it was pretty much dead anyway. Ever since laying in the turf, regardless of it being a shade tolerant species, the large pine tree slowly and surely started a war on the grass by dropping pine detritus upon it every time the wind blew.

I guess if I went out every weekend with a blower I may have kept it alive a little longer, but by the time I realised what was going on, the lawn was dead with the exception of one small area that was free from the tree. The bobcat finished the job and killed the remainder. RIP lawn.

RIP back lawn. You were great while you lasted.

What to do? Should I plant another? It wasn't a prospect I looked forward to. A little investigation and I settled on the artificial option, which would never die, well at least not for 25 years or so.

I went to a few suppliers and finally settled on a company called Synturf that manufactures the product locally. It does cost about 3 times more than instant turf, but they do everything for you. They start by coming in and digging out the old turf; then constructing and compacting a base to put the turf on, and finally lay and settle the turf on top pinning it down into the base and loading it up with sand to hold it firm.

The product is called Everest, and has a brown fleck throughout the grass that gives it a very natural look. Admittedly when some of the detritus from the tree falls onto the grass it looks more natural than ever! Everyone who sees it can't believe it's artificial grass, and it looks a million bucks as you can see.

The new lush green lawn is believe it or not, made of plastic!

So lets now take a trip back in time and as you can see below, this is the very first photo I took of the yard not long after we moved in. How different it looks now compared to back then. I remember we had to plant my son's Totem Tennis he got for Christmas that year in amongst the weeds.

Mowing the yard then was a case of getting out and hacking away with a brush-cutter. Things have changed!

We've come a long way since the beginning and the very first photo

Now you can compare it directly to below which shows the (pretty much) completed back yard. What a difference!

The completed yard sure looks different to how it started!

The new Synturf looks sensational, and the yard is now pretty much completed.

The new artificial turf has come up trumps

Below the deck is now ready for summer with many BBQ's to come.

All set and ready for summer BBQ's

Next time we'll apply a finish to the deck to complete the project.