Backyard blitz advice sought

Can I suggest you stay away from Prestige Pattern Concrete to help out with your pavers? They caused us nothing but grief and left our yard in a much worse state than it started out in! Including damage to existing items such as the clothes line and colour bond fence!!!

Just got back pavers done by Verity at Dimension Gardenscape. We were very happy with the personalised, quick service and the professional finish was excellent.

Agree with getting mates to help. Professional landscapers fees are exhorbitant. Also agree with getting the plan right – put in a watering system now, and choose native/drought tolerant plants if you are not into spending every weekend in the yard.

You can organise a round of working bees with some friends who also need work done. That way you can help each other out and have a fun time doing it together.

Grr… work was SMALLISH in scale.

I agree Jason is great. He didn’t do any work at our place, but turned up when he said he was going to turn up to have a look. He was busy and the work was greatmallish in scale so he put us onto a mate of his called Andrew who has done two lots of work at our place last year and the one before.

We did the plan ourselves but got Andrew to do hard landscaping like jackhammering out old concrete, concreting, digging over the front yard, rockery, lawn edging etc. He was happy to give out some advice on plants while he was here, and have an enthusiastic 3-4yo jabbering at him practically non-stop.

Mulching was done by mates/neighbours + bbq and/or beer. The rest has been one-woman DIY.

The trick to getting it right IMO is getting the plan right, especially in Canberra where we have to cater for hot and cold extremes.

Jason from Jason’s Gardening is good. He did my whole yard after the fires wiped it out. I have a dog in the yard too and made sure she was OK and put her inside when he needed to leave the gate open or was using heavy machinery.

Whatever you do don’t think about Jims Gardening. I got a voucher for them so wanted a bit of work done. Have rung about 5 times. Didn’t turn up twice. Then he finally turned up, said he would send me the quote, but never did. I live in Weston Creek so it’s the dude that does that area. Maybe others are better?

I can agree with all of above re mates and beer. THats what I ended up doing and its been a hell of a lot cheaper.

yeah, nothing like an email that says “free beer” to entice people to come out and have a dig. Thats my plan once I get this baby out and have the ability to bend at the waist again.

Exactly what Special G says. Our landscaping looks a million bucks. The reality was it took 2 guys 2 weekends and a few beers, with all the heavy lifting done by a mini bobcat for cash from a bloke at a building site down the road.

Cost us materials

Develop a plan yourself – add beers, meat and mates.

Save yourself thousands, have a great day with friends and get the satisfaction of developing your own garden.

Hire a bobcat to come in and do the big lifting work.

I’d separate the weeding/removal part from the landscaping part of the job – or you’ll be wasting “supervision” time.

On that side of the job, I’d go country. Get a rural worker to do the heavy lifting – they charge less (rural wages being atrocious, I’ve paid $30 an hour where an urban “sophisticate” charges $45-50) Make sure it’s clear whether tip fees are included in the quote …