"Geoff & Heather" wrote in message
u...
Kylie,
We were lucky to start with over half an acre of blank sheet - apart from
a two year old "native" garden along one fence where the recycled water
went. We started with a nice square corner for the veggie patch - square
to maximise use of the space and make it easy to fence of our dogs decided
digging veggies was good sport (they didn't). We put a row of fruit trees
as a border to the garden and partial screen from the house - also as a
wind break. Next we looked at screening neighbours views into our yard
(we have 10 neighbours !!) That involved fast growing hedge type plants
and some creepers on wires extending the height of the fences. We wanted
the yard to have an open feel about it but completely block the pool from
neighbours views - saves buying new bathers each year as the chlorine
kills them :-) So we did strategically placed rows of lillypillys
diagonally across the yard that left the view from the house open, but
hindered views across the yard.

Then we went for plant types so that each garden needed the same sort of
conditions. The recycle garden is raised sand and as there are only two
of us here the recycled water does not go far on a garden this size so it
has become drought resistant eucalyptus, and acacia, edged with some tough
1m high reedy stuff. There is another garden that provides the close in
screen for the pool, it is raised clay (the soil that came out where the
pool went in) it is grevilleas. Along one other fence is a thick planting
of callistemon and another is primarily melaleucas. Under big trees out
the front we planted cordylines and bromilleads the other side exposed to
sun and no water is grey and purple lambs ears, buddleias and gaura.

i love gaura (as an aside ;-). i see that you are planting according to
conditions, rather than trying to alter conditions a little...? because i am
entirely mad, i am trying to alter conditions a bit & then design for
aesthetic purposes. :-) (coming up shortly, a frenzy of stone paving &
dry-stone walling for warmer microclimate!!)

If you have Google Earth, go to 32 41 45.16 S and 115 38 54.55 E that is
our house, you can see the shape of the yard - the image is a couple of
years old and the lillypillys and callistemon have gone in since then
there has been lots of growth since then but you can get the idea.

i wouldn't mind a peep! but my slow-dial-up makes it nightmarish so it was
uninstalled posthaste, which is unfortunate, but there you are. i like to
see what people have done, it's always informative. (sometimes horrible
gardens can be even more informative than nice ones which work). i see that
you are using david's method of divining your purpose while planning. i've
been thinking about this a great deal, which is almost as exhausting as
actually doing it. :-) but clearly it needs to be done.
thank you for your input!
kylie