When we started our front yard, the aim was to make it a place where our kids could play on the lawn and we could still enjoy some level of gardening. Five years later, the kids have outgrown our postage-stamp sod and choose to play football on the road or at the local reserve.

And, after years of struggling with reticulation pipes, constant mowing, fertilising and aerating we decided to redo our front yard landscaping.

Our intention this time is to create an area that uses water well, has little or no maintenance and produces the effects we want primarily with indigenous species. The large lawn – when I say large, I mean larger than the other small ones – at the very front will remain but all obstacles within it (ie. garden beds) are being removed. This will make maintenance a little simpler and still keep the neighbours happy.

The overall plan is to create a dry creek bed that meanders through the garden dotted with stepping stones and railway sleepers. Grasses, and foliage plants will abound punctuated with succulents and flowering natives. Our two deciduous magnolias are about the only plants remaining and will, apart from the African Box, be the only exotics to survive the front yard makeover.

The challenge will be to try and keep a “cottage style” apparent in a very xeriscape fashion. The cottage style doesn’t normally lend itself too well to pea-gravel, cactus and water-saving initiatives.