In this episode

Garden Design

This week we cover an area homeowners often don’t budget for, the garden! Jen and Dunc chat about their own garden design and execution journeys including Jen’s experience working with today’s guest Kerry from DIY Designs, who completes garden designs for homeowners online to help keep the cost down and make a professional garden design more accessible to those on a budget who are happy to do the work themselves.

 We also cover:

• The difference between garden design and landscaping
• Different design styles and how to marry them up between front and back gardens if not the same
• The most important thing to look at when designing your garden: where does the water go
• “If you take care of the problems, the problems take care of themselves” - the relevance of this saying on your design process
• Why you should reuse what you can
• The impact of Council rules (fence height, where your shed can go, amount of permeable area allowed etc)
• Some of the challenges with volume building and their small cookie cutter gardens that come with covenants
• The issue with tall hedges versus alternatives
• Why a trip to your local Botanic Gardens is better than a trip to a garden store when making your plant selections
• The value of Facebook groups for different design styles
• A budget guideline for DIY versus turnkey
• What the easiest style of garden is to maintain, and why it’s the most expensive
• What you get for low cost budgets versus budgets starting from $80k+ up to several hundred thousand
• How to stage your design execution to spread out the cost
• Why you should stain or paint your fence instead of replacing it
• The benefit of a black fence
• What it means to “put a 50c plant in a $5 hole” (but with inflation!)
• How to deal with weedy lawns, especially when turning parts of your lawn into garden beds
• The rule of thumb for getting new plants in the ground (for the size of the hole and depth of the plant)
• Why irrigation is worth it if you have the budget
• The minimum deck size you should aim for if you have the space
• The ideal height for a raised garden for it to be a bench seat too
• Ideal distances for pavers; same for step rises
• How to use only two plants in your garden if you’re wanting to keep it simple
• Why you should or shouldn’t use natives in your garden
• The best fruit trees to choose, if any
• Understanding the difference between low maintenance and easy care
• Why using weed mat won’t actually solve your weed problems