Gardening / Landscaping

[Tasmaniak]

Oil, stain, not great with the terminology. It's the one you apply to a wet deck do it absorbs into the timber.

Yeah Kikuyu is the go-to grass for hardest wearing. I also prefer it's shade of green over the darker buffalo.

I tend to use Kikuyu as well. I used to be one for hating all grasses with fast growing runners as they invade beds... but then I'd see the results of the two and came to the conclusion that if I took the energy invested in maintaining a nice even spread of grass and swapped to fast growing runner but used the energy on keeping it out of the beds... well... the grass now looks awesome.

It is interesting how different areas of suburbia tackle landscaping. I look at you guys with all your neatly pruned hedges and edges and sculptured beds and they all look amazing. I think to myself I should do something similar with mine. But then I look at our garden and all the other gardens up here in the Dandenong Ranges and out overflowing beds of natives and indigenous plants, overgrown hidden areas of yards where when you sneak through to you'll find a couple of sunbeds and an outdoor setting.... you just end up thinking, nah... this is awesome too. Perhaps I need to throw up some photos. So the vast contrast can be seen...

Edit: to give you an idea, a friend of ours down the road had a 25 metre gum tree come down in his property last summer, destroyed a lot of his existing garden. The end result was a large amount of it was cut up and stored away for firewood but between us both we attacked a 4M long section with chains saws, axes and an old cross cut saw to turn it into a massive garden bench shaped like a goanna! I couldn't do the design but I did the vast majority of the carving with the chainsaws with his "artistic" eye. Personally I think it looks more like a anorexic elephant than a goanna... but he loves it.

 

[Rajesh Koothrappali]

I LOVE some of those huge yards with big trees, bushes and hidden parts etc. Throw up pics!

 

[VS 5.0]

Perhaps I need to throw up some photos. So the vast contrast can be seen...

Absolutely !!! The great thing with this medium is that we can all express ourselves so differently. I need to throw some pics up of our new place as well. Far less clipped and trimmed than the old place with a great stand of gumtrees out the front.

a massive garden bench shaped like a goanna!

Must load pics of this as well.

 

[Wongy295]

Well, unfortunately Ido not have the luxury of a large backyard at my place, as my partner and I live in a townhouse. But I guess we make do with what we have

Here's a few quick pictures of the raised garden beds, we whipped up the other weekend!

Just a heads up with the yukka, Raj. We used to have 2 nice ones when we moved in, but they got destroyed somehow...:rofl2:

 

[Rajesh Koothrappali]

Nice one Wongy! Those beds look great... Exactly the sort of thing for a townhouse... Before we moved where we are now, about a year ago, this was the townhouse we had. We'd have changed them to raised and square to give us more space, rather than the angled and low garden beds, if we had have stayed there. Along with a proper gate down the side. Even though we rented we knew the owner - he paid for everything and we did it. Except the paving - the dude he got to do that should never have been paid!

What happened to your yuccas? The pic didn't load for me... EDIT: OH THERE IT IS! LOL!!! Pets that became dinner?

Well, 9 days on and I have to say I'm happy with the lawn! VERY happy. It's still quite moist which has been deliberate and I haven't lost as much as I thought I would. Looks to me like where I did lose some it's already shooting up some new green. It's rooting down nicely too - can't pull it up any more. As much as this is a fairly simple thing, it's actually my greatest gardening project of my life to date - as in the one that's had the best affect/result compared to what was there.

Here's the main pic...

And some shots of the small patches I've ended up with, that should repair on their own.

 

[VS 5.0]

How long before you can give it its first mow Raj ?

 

[Rajesh Koothrappali]

I'm gonna wait a while. Mow it high for the first one and then let it recover and slowly take it back to the length it was when I first laid it.

 

[Tasmaniak]

Not sure how many times you've dealt with turf Raj but what you got there is pretty common and yeah, with the proper care during it's establishment it'll bounce back ricky tick.

I'm trying to find some photos of our yard and I just don't seem to have any! If I step outside with the camera now all I'll get is the rain shower going on lol...

Honestly... this is the closest I could find right now. As you walk out on to our patio and turn left to head to the back yard... you must first head down through this tunnel...!

EDIT: To put it in a bit more perspective... go to the end of the table, through the lattice gate and thats when your hit with the tunnel.

 

[VS 5.0]

Ooooh nice big table Tas.

Did you make that yourself ?

Love the lushness you've got going there.

I also love the Dandenongs. Growing up in Melbourne, as a kid we would do the occassional trip up there. It was a completely different world. I have vivid memories of deep dense forrest (not bush).

I also remember Black Wenesday. We had a view of the Dandenongs from the front of our home in Glen Waverley and that night the range was aglow. Going up there afterwards was devastating. All the lush was gone

 

[Tasmaniak]

Thanks mate... yeah I built the table. It was one of those things that you attempt without really being confident about it... next thing I know, I pulled a rabbit out of my arse and built that. I've got a handful of photos my wife took through the process. Been awhile since I boasted about my table actually. Might just have to post them up. Hahaha