I am getting in early here. I know it is still summer in Sydney at the moment but give it just a few more weeks and it will start to get cold. It won’t be too long until I can have my dream backyard and one of the items I wanted included in the garden design was an awesome fire pit. The only problem is I haven’t been able to make my mind up about which one I would like. So, I thought I would try something new and reach out to you to get your opinion. For those that have been reading this blog regularly you would have discovered by now that I am an internet research warrior. I love researching the various options available and then presenting a summary to you of what I find so if you are ever looking for something similar you won’t have to spend the hours researching. That is one of the main reasons I started this blog, plus I want to reach out to people with similar interests and start a mini community of sorts, but I digress.

I found that most fire pits come in sizes of between 20 inches and 50 inches. This may not be entirely accurate but I did find that most of the smaller pits came in a bowl type shape. I would like to have a medium sized fire pit and I need to be wary that I can’t place it too close to my fence or any plants. I’m not sure exactly how far the heat travels from the fire pit itself but I assume I will want chairs to be around 2 metres way which should allow for comfortable heat. There will be a small hard surface area in my new backyard design for entertaining purposes so I hope to place the fire pit on it. Given the surface will likely be made of hard stone or tile, it will be fire resistant which is great.

Upon reading up on fire pits I discovered there were actually many different types available. A google search for fire pits yields results for sort of built in, or bricked type large pits with seats and then a fireplace in the middle. Unfortunately I don’t have the room in my townhouse backyard for something that big so I am after free-standing fire pits.

My pre-requisites are as follows:

Without further ado, here are the options I settled on. Which one do you like the most? Let me know in the comments below.

Option 1 and 2 are available from outdoorfirepits.com.au whilst Option 3 is available from thefirepitgallery.com.au

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Trees, plants, the smell of freshly cut grass in the morning, I love it all! I keep dreaming about having the ultimate backyard landscape, a place I can sit and relax with a nice cup of tea and/or entertain friends for lunches and dinners. Unfortunately, whilst I love all things outdoors and I consider myself a green thumb, I am not great with all of the manual labour needed to complete landscaping which doesn’t look DIY but looks like it was done by professionals. I also feel there is a real skill to landscape design and whilst I definitely have an interest in it, it is something that you can tell when it has been done by a professional.

I have been thinking about my backyard for months, do I want to redo it myself? Or do I want to engage a professional to do it? If I do it myself it would probably take months and to be honest I know I would make mistakes so the cost would probably end up exceeding what I would pay someone to do it anyway. If I brought someone in to do the work, it would get done fairly quickly and would no doubt look terrific providing I chose the right company. I went back and forth between both options before deciding to get a professional to redo my backyard.

Let me set the scene. I live in a small townhouse like complex in Sydney. I have a smallish backyard which still has enough room for some plants, grass etc. I love spending time outdoors and I currently have a fairly good garden in my current backyard. The problem is, it doesn’t look fantastic like the many examples you see on the internet such as these from Houzz.

I started to scour the web to try and find some examples of what I would like my backyard to look like. There were a heap of different landscaping companies available but I wanted to see photo examples of work done in backyards similar to mind. I stumbled across this company called Sand and Stone Landscapes. What I liked about their photos was that I could see two which were too dissimilar to what I was dealing with such as this:

Example One

Example Two

Judging from their website the first example is from a townhouse in Balmain, whilst I love the look of what they have done I don’t need somewhere to park the car (I have a garage to the side of my townhouse) so would prefer to use my space for more grass and plants.

The second example I have attached is fantastic! I love how they have a perfect mix of entertaining area plus garden space, plus lawn. Having something similar to this in my backyard will allow me to maintain my green thumb (plus I want to share all my success and failure with you here on my blog).

I will be giving Luke a buzz to sort out a price and to discuss the work I want to have completed. This also got me thinking, I want my blog to be a good resource for people who share common interests such as myself. I found myself working through a checklist of sorts when choosing which landscape company I wanted to go with so I figured I should share it with you here.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to provide a forum for my thoughts on views on services/products available to everyone. This article will focus on the two big hardware stores, Bunnings and Masters, and which one I find provides a better shopping experience when searching for garden, landscape, and/or outdoor related products.

I am sure you have all heard of the recent news that Masters is for sale. It has been estimated that Woolworths could earn $1 billion dollars from the sale of the hardware giant. Whilst the sale goes through Masters will be operating business as usual.

Whilst every Bunnings and Masters store is slightly different they all share the same type of physical layout design so I wont focus too much on that. I will begin with the outdoor furniture section. This is where I have personally found Bunnings to be a step ahead. They refer to it as their Outdoor Living section. They stock a huge range of quality outdoor furniture in a variety of styles such as country living and contemporary. The prices are excellent and the build quality should mean that everyone receives years of use from the product they choose.

Masters on the other hand also has a large range of quality outdoor furniture. Ive never found the range styles to be as impressive as Bunnings but the good thing about Masters is that they stock Webber products! No Australian backyard is complete without a Webber BBQ. I guess this leads us onto one of the main differences between Bunnings and Masters, the brand of products they stock. Whilst one will stock Ryobi (in this case Bunnings) the other wont. This is no doubt to prevent needing to compete directly on price and also allows them to establish exclusive relationships with some of their suppliers.

Moving now to the gardening section. Different brands of products isnt really a concern here. Do you honestly care where your compost mix comes from? I dont, as long as it is good quality. In the back of my mind if I want a large range of plants, flowers and supplies to choose from, my mind automatically moves to Bunnings. I have never seen the range to be as extensive at Masters or perhaps it is just the layout of each store. Dont get me wrong, each are both fantastic but there is just something about Bunnings which is better. If you ever need a pot or even some nifty garden accessories Bunnings is the place to go. When I was there the other week my daughter feel in love with little owl on a metal rod, every time she is outside at home she now goes up to the owl and says Hello Owl hence where I got the name for this blog. They even had these cool make your own scarecrow kits for children but I am sidetracked so I will come back to topic. If I want the largest range of flowers and plants I will go to a nursery such as Flower Power however if I want some popular plants and flowers at excellent prices I will head to Bunnings.

Having considered all of the above factors I get to the last section, customer service. I dont know about you but I always find the customer service at Masters to be better than Bunnings. Maybe it is because of more staff? Or are there just more staff available because there are less customers in the store? Im not sure but I know whenever I need a helping hand it is always much easier to find someone to assist at Masters than it is at Bunnings.

Hopefully this article has been of use to you and please drop a comment below on your thoughts.

Yep, you read the headline right, today I started searching around for gifts for people with similar interests in the great outdoors such as myself. I wanted to find something for a garden lover, something they probably dont already, something that is minimal maintenance and most importantly something that has some garden elements. What did my search discover? Terrariums! And not just any sort of terrarium, really cool style terrariums!

My mind was blown with exactly what is possible with these modern day terrariums. Did you know that people now put little miniature figurines in them and create scenes? Maybe I have been hiding under a rock for not knowing about this but to me it looks like an awesome gift idea. Check out some of these awesome terrariums that I found:

As with everything this got me thinking, could I make one of these myself? I wouldnt want it to look homemade and cheap, I want one of the good ones like shown above but nonetheless a quick internet search discovered a heap of material and how to guides on how to build your own terrarium if you are so inclined, here are some of my favourites:

I know some of you prefer video instructions to so here is a video guide that is somewhat easy to follow:

These look like a great activity for a weekend which can result in an awesome gift for family/friends. Some of the tutorials online have even been simplified for children for a rainy day type activity. Which leads me to my question, why arent terrariums more popular? They must have some negatives that I am missing. I know they need some maintenance but based on what I have read it is minimal, or are I missing something? Geez I have asked a lot of question in this post

If you decide to build your own please let me know if the comments section how you went.

On a Friday, it isnt unusual for me to start to think of outdoor activities to do on the weekend. Given we are still experiencing good long Australian Summer days at the moment I am finding that the kids like heading into the backyard for a play later in the afternoon/evening when it is a bit cooler. That got me thinking.I wonder if there is anyway I could have our backyard garden glow in the dark. My daughter especially would love it as it would create a fairy land type atmosphere. So, like everything, once I had the idea I hit the internet to see what I could find. To save you hours of research I have compiled a best of of all the things I found. I hope you enjoy.

GLOW IN THE DARK PLANTERS

Ok I have to admit these things look cool. Once I discovered glow in the dark planters I found that there were a heap of different ready to use products available that you could simply purchase and use straight away once they arrived in the post. I do tend to like to make things myself if I can (it has to be simple and look as good as a normal product once finished). I stumbled across a great DIY article that shows you how to make these. Give it a go! Hint: using glow in the dark spray paint alone wont work, you need to add a small light to the pot.

GLOW IN THE DARK PEBBLES

Do you currently have pebbles on a walkway or even laid on top of your garden bed? If so, you could replace them with glow in the dark pebbles. There are heaps of different options available, many can be purchased easily off ebay, you may just need a heap to do a whole walkway or garden bed, they are about the size of a cooked lima bean. Maybe just use them around potted plants or in a dedicated area. The pebbles glow a yellow green type colour in the dark for approx two to three hours after a day in the sun. During normal daylight they turn a light green colour.

GLOW IN THE DARK ORNAMENTS

These are by far the best thing I found during all of my internet research. I have even seen them for sale at Bunnings so you can pick some up today if you wanted to give them a go, they are glow in the dark ornaments and they come in different shapes and sizes. My favourite one so far is the earth type shape which naturally glow in the dark (pictured below). The lady beetles look pretty good too. A full range can be found on this website.

So there you have it. With a combination of some glow in the dark planters, glow in the dark pebbles and glow in the dark ornaments you can turn your garden into a nighttime visual extravaganza! What? Too dramatic Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments section below.