Your dream backyard....

Hit me with your ideas! I am just sketching up ours because we have renovated the house, and now with the weather improving we are concentrating on outside which right now looks like a hovel!

SO far I have on my wish list
Cubby/sandpit ara
Decking area decorated
ANother deck area to cover up the ugly concrete we can't get rid of
Vegie patches (they are in) with picket fence around them to cordon them off
A fairy/butterfly garden area
A frog bog/pond (DH will say no because of mozzies but I can dream plus won't the fish/frogs eat the larvae?? ;) )
Lots of natives

Anyone else got any good ideas/web site recommendations?

Personally, my dream backyard would include an inbuilt outdoor kitchen with a really cool (or should that be hot??) woodfire oven built in.

OOohhhhhh wood fired oven would be ace! We have a kitchen going in - well massive bbq and sink thing with storage and benches but DH just needs to install it, but no pizza oven - am thinking maybe fire pit would be cool? Or hot ;)

A day bed, or at least a bench/chair, that is tucked away in a corner or surrounded by plants to chill out/read a book/catch some sun/lazily watch the little ones play.

My dream garden is in the making.But to add to it -

An undercover BBQ decked area over our well, a cubby house, swings and slide for kidlets, old garden tidied up, orchard re planted, raised veggie patch near chook coup and grand plan chook coup completed. I would also LOVE to see an old blackwood stump converted to a fountain with a pond and some fairy ornaments and a dark part of the garden planted with some winter blooming weeping wattle trees and a garden bench to over look the entire garden as well as another water ffeature but I want a naked lady thats washing her hair surrounded by bright coloured/ tropical style plants .....

So yeah, once that money tree grows we'll be set!

I was just out the back thinking about this the other day- we rent though and have no money so it was all dreams.. BUT...

A huge sandpit/cubby house kids area
A pool with lush plants all around it
A huge gazebo thingy over the top of our water tank so we can take advantage of the excellent views- the BBQ and outdoor seating can go there!!
a nice solid wooden fence all around the house to make it child escape proof
A really good chicken coop with chooks!!

a ha-ha
a croquet pitch
a water feature
veges
chooks

Dare I ask Onyx?!? I know what a hoo haa is but no idea what a ha ha is!!!! :rofl:

It's where instead of having a fence at the end of your garden you have a drop-off or a trench so it blends in with the landscape.

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=ha...w=1237&bih=643

A-ha! ;) That is cool -would love to be on land where you can do that!

Definitely go the fire pit Tan. Its brilliant!

Also fruit trees/bushes. The girls have apple, orange and mandarin trees in "their" garden, as well as strawberry plants. There is also an almond tree - I have amazing memories of my grandparents' almond tree and I hope I can get ours like theirs was eventually. Their garden is filled with daisy bushes and similar that are really hardy, so the girls can pick flowers without me getting upset about what they pick, and they pick fruit whenever they're hungry outside playing. Also a beautiful seat that converts to a day bed out under the trees so I can pretend to be watching them while relaxing with a book.

Gas fired pizza oven instead of a wood fired one. If you burn hickory chips it still has the woodfired taste, but takes no time at all to heat up.

Last but definitely not least, a dog - nothing like watching your kids running around frolicking with a furry friend.

No weeds. And no dog poo. And no corrugated iron fences.

What MD said. Poop scooping sucks but not as much as stepping in it

Sunken lounge area
Gazebo area secluded from rest of garden with spa
bbq area, fully kitted out
Vegetable gardens
frog/fish pond
Fae friendly areas
kids play area (cubby, sandpit, climbing apparatus)
walkways and deckings, surrounded by lush vegetation
gorgeous grass area
would love a maze or labyrinth
memorial garden
lap pool
little quiet areas for meditation

then another garden area for the chooks & assorted animals

Jamie Durie has some great outdoor room books around

My dream garden would include: (this is based on what i want for our garden area and our land :) )

Front Yard / Kids Area
1. Cubby house with sandpit
2. Trampoline & Swing Area
3. Kids Fruit & Veggie Garden - strawberries, carrots, cucumber etc
4. On 1 wall of the house near the clothesline i want DP to put up a big decorated board with clips (like on the easels) for the kids to have a stand up painting area outside.
5. Fairy Garden - i would like some little painted mushrooms and fairy garden things setup near their cubby
6 We have a wooden picnic table outside i'd love to repaint it with the kids and hang fairy lights off the fence behind it :)
7. We have an undercover area that's basically blank space - i'd like to get a cute little kitchen setup for the girls or find a way to put their train track outside without it getting all gross and dirty.

Our Patio - off our lounge we have a patio opening up to a view of the creek, were in the middle of putting in new lawn seed, it has 2 very big trees in view and DP has connected lights to shine on them, i'd love to get one of those little fire pits or somethign smilar to go on the deck or just below it for cool nights to sit outside and relax.

Land - we want to run some more fruit trees along the fence line and setup a BIG veggie patch, we have 'native' sections already done by the previous owners as part of a clean rivers scheme so we would love to build a walking track around the property walking through these areas.
We also want to build in a motorbike track for the girls, get our dam fixed so it doesn't leak and our yabby's wont need to run away.
Down near the creek we want to clear a lot of the overgrown stuff and put in a small gazebo (probably removable) so in summer we can take some chairs and things down and the girls can swim in the creek.
I would love to plant a heap of pines along the road side of the property to block out passing traffic, whenever were on the bikes people toot and wave and stare - i'd like a bit of privacy :)
Theres an old shed down below the 2 big trees that the deck overlooks, i'd love to convert it for some sheep or possibly even some chickens but would need to find a way to de-fox it really well.
It would look great havign chickens run around in the paddock down there with their own massive shed/house.

Yeah so thats my dream garden :redface: not sure if theres anything there that you can use :)
To do all of this we need to rip out a massive garden the old owners took quite some time to put in

Awesome ideas! Love the clip idea ZF! Some awesome ideas! Am making a list today to show DH and start sketching!

I'm paving in a chessboard with black and white pavers. The boys can play BIG chess (just like Harry Potter lol) with 30cm high chess pieces. Or draughts.

The clip idea came about after DD1 always wanted to paint inside, we have bricks outside so i asked DP if there was any way we can make up a massive board and attach those clips, then we can hang butchers paper and just let them go at it outside ;)
Would be great for birthday parties etc aswell.
All mine are just big dreams, i would love a water feature/pond somewhere too but with a dam and a creek i know DP will say no, although the one idea we did have was to buy an or furphy, basically cut it in half, hang half near our sliding door (we have a ractangular rocked area that has an old bathtub for frogs) and turn it into a nice water feature with lighting etc :)

We did a wall of the patio, painted in blackboard paint, to about shoulder height, with clips along the top. Nowdays I'd do it with magnetic paint, I think you can get undercoat that is magnetic and then blackboard paint over the top.