What we've been doing

Our 3 day front yard working bee in pictures.

When we first moved in.

Creating parking space

New garden bed for screening plants. The space between the garden bed and the front window will be a paved courtyard area. Inspiration pics to come! The brick wall to the left of the house was previously obscured by bamboo that was taking over the front garden. Getting rid of that was the hardest part. We had to do a little bit each weekend because it was so hard to hack out!

 Creating second garden bed and effectively reducing a lot of mowing (hell yeah)! The bamboo has been replaced by a grafted lemon and lime tree. Hopefully it will do better here with a north facing brick wall than the poor thing in out back yard!

 Garden beds edged and mulched. Awaiting plants in spring time. The frosts are a bit too much here already! I can't believe how cold May has been! We will re-sow grass in the area that is still bare, once again, waiting for spring with that.

It is still a bit of a mess but we have made some progress which is always a good feeling!

Here's a bit of a breakdown of costs so far.

Stone for parking space - free, we just had to shovel it out of someone else's driveway ourselves, thank you classifieds!

Sandstone - bargain of the century $30 for a trailer load, thank you again classifieds!

Weed mat - lots $80

Mulch - two metres $100

Topsoil - left over from veggie gardens
Excavating soil for parking space and from in front of retaining wall + spreading of stones - 1 case of beer for our brilliant neighbour who conveniently has a little bobcat!

Total - $210 plus a case of beer. Not too bad really.