Maybe plant out that lower section with native plants such as kangaroo paws etc. They are hardy plants and would be suitable for your back garden as well. Natives can give you height and wonderful colour. A hedge doesn’t seem to be suited to the environment shown in your photos.

I'm not exactly sure of the purpose of the hedge at the rear of that front garden bed. It looks as though you'll create a fairly inaccessible patch.

Good point re top . What would you suggest for a sloped garden bed like that?

Thanks for the Natjve suggestions. How high would a kangaroo paw plant grow to?

Also what width would you need to plant them?

Love to see some pictures of ideas or a very rough sketch even.

I have heard that the latest idea is to try experimenting with growing lettuces on the roof!

@Boulevard3630

Haha thanks but nah not keen sutho haha 😋

We have a sloped area in our front yard which was always a bother to maintain grass. Planted rosemary about 10 years ago and it is hardy and requires minimal attention. It has lots of small purple flowers and great for the bees. We have a muraya hedge along border for privacy from a busy road. The hedge has been in about 10 years - about 3m high, and lovely white flowers just before it rains.

There are full size kangaroo paws and miniatures, I think the dimensions are similar to full-size and miniature agapanthus, keeping in mind there's the foliage and the flower heads above. Originating in WA they are fussier about soil, they need good drainage. Best to source them from a specialist native nursery as there are many different colours and also different types which vary in their tolerance to less than ideal conditions.

Rosemary is a great suggestion, it's very hardy. It's an economical solution for a large area too as you can use cheap tubers or even grow cuttings.

What's happening with the back? How far away are the gum trees? They can be difficult to grow right under but those don't look so close? Do you want to pretty up the fence while waiting for the hedge to grow taller? Or are you thinking of trying something else? How long since the hedge was planted? Do you know what plant it is? Sometimes plants can be so frustrating, especially if there is something about the location, root competition or more sun or shade than they prefer, and you wonder if they'll ever amount to anything and should you replace them and then suddenly they take off and you have the opposite problem of pruning them to keep them under control.

@LizInteresting re rosemary will have to look into that. Would that be suited to a fairly wet area/the front slope?

@macyjeanIn terms of the hedges, they are a Japanese Buxus hedge. They were planted a couple of years ago, but have only just had drippers and consistent water on them every day in the last 2months so we have noticed a fair amount of new growth on them and are just starting to grow! The ones out the front are a bit slow though as they get too much water from up the top bank and we have never really done anything to them, not knowing what to plant there. Ultimately a retaining wall would be here but that's not on the cards for the near future!

The gumtrees out the back are less than a metre away and in some parts, the roots about 20cm dia are cms away from the hedge (closer to the right side where the gaps are, the hedges have been pulled out because of this).

I would love to hear your ideas for the fence. We would love some height to distract from the fence or even some form of a creeper?

Thanks again! V.much appreciated

Are you wedded to the hedge? They aren’t really working. You need to make a decision on the retaining wall now. Hard landscaping comes first. Otherwise you waste your resources on growing plants that will be damaged or removed at a later date. I don’t think you need one as it’s your front yard and you don’t need to create a flat area for entertaining or trampolines etc. I like concept of the tree is that pic (smaller for you) and the limit of three types of plants for the under planting. I’d substitute the wall with a row of rocks or a densely planted shrub. It also suits your house style as it’s not formal, cottagey or super modern. This is a US pic. If you like the concept I’ll find some Australian plants that will work. If you’d like to have a go at researching yourself the Gardening with Angus site has a great plant selector.

Great ideas from bigreader, a retaining wall would look beautiful, corten can be shaped to whatever suits your site, you can buy this at Bunnings or Form boss have a great range, or you could go traditional with stone or timber, a water feature would look gorgeous, it doesn’t have to be a running one, a still water bowl is beautiful also, , you could replant your hedge in front and along top of retaining wall and add structural and textured foliage plants for a lush look.

@macyjean that's great. I looked up the star jasmine and we are going to go with that to cover the back wall. May cut into the grass about 40cm and add a ground cover as a boarder with a bit of colour down the track a bit. The hedges have got alot of new growth on them just in the last couple of weeks even days since we have had wet weather and hot sunny days in-between!

@bigreader thanks for your comments. I think we may as well forget the retaining wall anyway! That's not going to be for a good number of years yet! I'm inclined to keep the top hedge as it flows on from the rest of the hedge bordering the lawn (see image below) on the top bank. But the bottom line of hedges get too much water so would be happy to replace them.

With the tree, what height are you suggesting under? I am wondering if it would it be too close to the tree on the other side of the path? There is also the tree to the far left of the garden bed? Would some larger plants be more suited to here like a QLD Spear Lily with a few different types of smaller plants as you suggest to fill out the garden bed?

But what would you suggest as a border/edging for the front of the garden bed? Rocks or a hardy wet soil loving plant?

@Julie Herbert I really like that corten. Would look great with some creeper/trailing plants too. Will put this in archive for now though as just doesn't seem to be on the cards for a few years!!!

With this picture here, what is the ground creeper and the spike plant to the left of that called? Really like them. 👍

Find some star jasmine in flower and check that you don't mind the smell before you plant any.

Is a DIY modular or concrete sleeper retaining wall not a possibility?

We planted on lots of slopes around our garden and ended up redoing a lot with terracing because of the problems with slopes. The worst was the west facing slope where it was difficult to keep anything adequately watered in summer, but that sounds like it's not the case with you? Your front garden is well watered?

The corten would look wonderful, check for specials like on gumtree, Ebay or Bunnings , pittosporum’ golf ball’ is a naturally rounded shrub that would look great in the hedge area, blend this with loropetulum, beautiful dark foliage , pink fan shaped flower, with your fence, add reo so that the star jasmine can climb, you then will have a fence with shiny lush leaves and flowers with a divine perfume.

Where Corten is used as retaining as opposed to simple low edging, as in that first photo, which I love by the way, how is it installed?

I recognise that cascading plant, dichondra 'Silver Falls'.

Another nice cascading plant is convolvulus. mauritanicus, not to be confused with convolulus cneorum which is more shrubby.

Pittosporum 'Golf Ball' is a great small rounded shrub, for about a decade, then it starts to get big and need regular pruning. I still think it's a good plant but I wish I'd started the pruning a little sooner. Plants can go from perfect size to blocking the path so quickly, the trick is to do a light prune just before they're perfect size.

Convolvulus

It comes in a range of colours, mostly blues to white I think.

Jardin du Littoral · More Info

Agree all plants need a trim to keep the new growth lush, the corten edging is a flexible edge that you can install either straight or curved using the steel pegs to a shape to suit, I love dichondra’silver falls’ looks beautiful against corten, or any other silver foliage, silver bush is fabulous also

@macyjean I found some star jasmine yesterday. Love the smell! Do you have any tips or good websites to go to on pruning and training it?

We are considering drawing up a corten wall to see what this would look like. Would you suggest having 2 smaller walls, creating 3 garden beds, so that there is not such a high corten wall? 3 garden beds may be something like this... Hedges currently there at the top, middle garden bed with some silver trailing plants, and perhaps Philodendron Xanadu and another plant to make it interesting (suggestions?), bottom row either replant the hedges to save $$ or plant out with another taller plant like agapanthus or similar width and height plant.

Will use Rio for the back fence! Thanks for the ideas!

Sounds beautiful, the corten in layers would look stunning, love Xanadu it would look beautiful with agapanthus or the purple loropetulum, sounds gorgeous

With your star jasmine you could always get creative , on wire, trellis or a full wall using reo, it’s very easy to look after , it’s a little slow to start but once it takes off it makes a fabulous display