The Great Landscaping Challenge

It has began....our landscaping challenge to grass our backyard. The previous owner of our house loved pebbles - the front porch; pebbles, in front of the fireplace; pebbles and the backyard; pebbles.

Needless to say pebbles in the backyard renders it completely unusable. Every time I hang out the washing I either slip or twist an ankle on a damn pebble - it is time to go PEBBLES!

We have lived here for about 5 months now, the only pebbles to have gone are from the front porch. Other jobs have gotten in the way of the backyard; connecting stormwater, painting, sanding doors, more painting, fixing windows and my brother has been playing hockey. You see my brother used to be a landscaper so is the most important part of our landscaping challenge.

He came over last weekend and the planning began. So our landscaping challenge will be a staged approach;

• Stage 1 - Move the shed, which is in the middle of the backyard, to a more unobtrusive position behind the house. This stage involves rebuilding a retaining wall, laying concrete pavers for the shed floor and having an olive tree (which I never knew could be so massive) pruned.
• Stage 2 - Add another down pipe at the side of the house to connect to the stormwater. It seems the previous owner did not have a love of a stormwater solution, as there was none!
• Stage 3 - Remove all pebbles from the backyard - thankfully one of our great friends is a builder and he is claiming them.
• Stage 4 - Lay a path from the front gate to the back door and build a retaining wall half way up the backyard. I have been researching this week - so if you ever need to know about bricky sand, paving sand, Sydney Sand, or road base, just let me know.
• Stage 5 - Lay the grass!!! I am now a grass expert and know that Buffalo comes in many varieties; Palmetto, Sir Walter, Sapphire, Shademaster and Kings Pride to name but a few. I think we will get Sapphire, as it is a good grower and has a thin soft leaf (good attributes if you have kids).

Stage 1 kicked off today with just myself, Hubby and Little Miss 4. Mostly my Hubby really, what can a 4 year old and a pregnant women really achieve when it comes to digging holes in clay and dirt, we did give it a good go though. The copper logs have been cemented in place, ready for the planks and dirt to be put back in place tomorrow - retaining wall for shed area done.

I never thought I would be so excited about grass or landscaping, my brother keeps telling me "Take it easy, it will take a while". And I know it will, it is a big job and it will be done on weekends only. But I am excited thinking about Little Miss 4 running around on grass in her own backyard - which is the reason we bought a house!

Have you done a landscaping challenge? How did it work out?

Image from here