Mini Makeover Two-Story Townhouse in Carrum

Rebecca has a two storey town house in Carrum that she purchased brand new. It had been ‘landscaped’ by the developer prior to her purchase and the turf and most of the plants had passed away prior to her moving into the property, the garden that was left did nothing to enhance her property.

Rebecca in her email said that she wanted modern plants like Yucca, Agave and Flax. When I went over and looked at the property there we were really poor attempts at modern gardens on both sides of her property, and I felt that another modern garden would blend into the poor modern gardens on either side and the overall result would be unspectacular.

I felt that she needed a large tree and I chose a Weeping Pagoda tree to go into the middle of the garden. Although it’s large now, it won’t grow much bigger and also being planted in sand it has a deep tap root and wont require too much water in the future.

I felt that a nice small hedge would define her feature tree and stand out and not blend into the neighbouring gardens, so we planted a hedge of Tom Thumb (Japanese spindle bush) around the perimeter of the garden. Then to make sure Rebecca was happy, we gave the garden a modern accent by putting a few Agave through it. Then we planted Daisy Spray and Silver Bush in a square pattern inside the hedge so that the garden would become full of flowers and vegetation inside the hedge and under the tree within a matter of months.

To complete the job we chipped off the weeds and dug out all the surviving plants from the original garden. I had some employees from the store helping because it was a front yard that we were attempting to complete in 3 hours. To keep down the weeds, we covered it in weedmat, cut holes in the weedmat and planted through the weedmat and then mulched the whole area with pine bark.

Rebecca came home just at the time when we were starting to plant, and she was delighted at how big her simplified front yard looked when we changed it from a two zoned area of a lawn and gardens beds to one zone. She put on a fabulous afternoon tea of chocolate dipped shortbread and lamingtons, which was greatly appreciated by all, as we’d landscaped quite a large area and needed that sugar energy boost.

When it was done Rebecca was really pleased at how her new front garden made her whole property look and she was pleased with the design and choice of plants. Even though what we had done was totally different to what she had visualized, she was particularly thrilled with the pagoda tree as it was well established, with a beautiful artistic weeping shape.