Savage Garden

When we moved into our house - some three and a half years ago - our back court yard looked like this.

Since then we have been saying that we would 'do it up'. Our vision for it seemed to change with the weather, lets get a lawn down, but friends and family would say that we would then need to mow it and tend to it. So we then decided to pave it all - that way it would be maintenance free. Over time, the court yard was left to its own devices, at times turning into a jungle which even the cats were too scared to venture into - and which required me to attack it with the whipper snipper.

And then Romilly was born and the decision was made. We need a lawn! A nice lawn for Romilly to play on when she got a little older. And so the decision was made. The plan was that when I started my stint as a stay at home dad then I would have all of this free time to tend to my tasks - redoing the court yard was top of the list. Little did I know. There is no free time when you have a 9 month on your hands. So we did what any sensible couple of senior public servants would do - we threw money at the problem and engaged the services of a professional to do our dirty work.

Enter James the Landscaper. How we came about James is a story in itself - best left for another telling. If James the Landscaper had a website then I would list it - this is also another story. Eitherway, he truly is a professional and I couldnt recommend him higher. Look for The Butchart Garden in the white pages folks.

After talking things through with James, he took our ideas - melded them with his and fate was sealed. Of course all of these projects happen in stages, stage 1 was removing all traces of the court yard as we used to know it and lay down 4 square metres of paving.

We then went about looking for a water feature. What a nightmare, most of all we saw just wasnt 'us'. It would have looked good in someone else's back garden but not ours - lion's heads and cherubs just dont do it for us. We then had a brain wave - why dont we get our very own standing stone? Yes! Thats it! Belle and I both have a bit of a fascination with the standing stones in the UK - having traveled far and wide in the UK to see them. So it seemed pretty obvious.

That in itself presented some additional challenges. Where do you find a standing stone? Not as easy as one would initially predict. But after some investigative work by Belle we happened upon some Basalt Pillars from Stoned Decorative Pebble Supplies.

The solving of where to get the standing stone, simply presented the additional problem of how do we get it over our back wall as we dont have any direct access except through the house - and the stone we wanted weighted in at a hefty 350kg!

What else but hire a crane/palfinger :)

Whilst it took us some weeks (or years considering when we first said we would do the back yard up) to get to this stage due to some dodgy Sydney weather over the last month or so, today the plants went in.. and tomorrow the turf goes down.

I cant wait until I can finally lay on the grass with the rest of the family (cats included) and look up and watch the clouds going by as you try and make out images from their shapes. Didnt you use to do that as a kid?