A family friendly garden design for outdoor entertaining 🌱 Behind the Garden Gate

Behind this front fence is an entertainer's garden. I'm Chloe from Being There Dug That. Let's go behind the garden gate. Well, I can see why it's an entertainer's paradise. Just off the entrance to the house is this stunning pergola, but we've also got a pizza oven, a fire pit, and a gorgeous big table. I'm in Hurstbridge, a leafy outer northeastern suburb of Melbourne. This garden was designed and built by Liam Riley and his team from ID Landscaping. Before this space was made over, this area was pretty uninviting, with no street appeal whatsoever. This space was just a grassy steep slope. There wasn't much to use or much to do out here. Now the family loves it. They entertain 20, 30, 40 people out here quite regularly, and they are total foodies and love using their pizza oven. This garden is actually only two years old, but because of the use of organic materials and rustic reclaimed sleepers and timber used here in the pergola, it looks really settled in the environment. It also ties in really nicely with the mudbrick home and the surrounding bushland area. The view that you've got right now is the owner's favourite. As they exit their house, they're greeted by their pergola and the rest of their garden. Now, this garden is their front garden. It is their main space in the garden to use. It's not a big space by any means, but by using borrowed landscape from the hills and the trees surrounding them, they get to feel like they're in a much bigger space. Another favourite of the owners is this curved stone wall. It serves as a divide between this entertaining space and the veggie garden, fruit trees, and lawn beyond. But it's also a really popular spot. They love sitting down here to enjoy a morning cup of coffee. Their kids hang out here and play with their toys, and you'll often find their dogs sitting out here and sunning themselves. The organic shapes and the curved edge of this crazy paving tie in really nicely with the curved wall over here. This sweet little studio now feels at home, connected with the house and connected with the garden. In the before photos, you can see it looks a little bit out of place, and it doesn't feel like it fits in the environment. Now it's perfect. The owner tells me as well that they love the curved paths that sort of lead you around the garden. This path here, in particular, suggests well, there's something around here that's worth investigating. Come on. These hardened bergia or happy wanderer arches are really majestic. In the middle of winter, they'd be full of purple flowers, and they'd be a real sight to be seen. That little meandering path leads us into the veggie area. They've had to bring in really large mudstone boulders to create the terracing in this space, so that they can put some veggie gardens in. The great thing that Liam tells me about using mudstone like this is it doesn't need any fancy materials. It just needs to be manoeuvred into place. It's solid and it's structural. We've seen some cordon elements throughout other parts of the garden, but here it's a real feature on this side wall, and the contrast of the orange against the green is just glorious. They've also added in some wire to espaliers and pear trees along here, which of course just gives you even more growing space. The great thing about using sawn stone and stone for retaining walls or stairs is that it creates planting pockets. Pop in plants around the sides, and they soften the rocks really nicely. With two young boys, it was really important for the owners that they had a flat lawn space for them to run around and just be kids. I tell you what, though, these boulders are their own nature's playground, and the kids love jumping from rock to rock. The use of the plants in here is mostly natives. The owners told me that they didn't want big, large, strappy lamandras. Instead, they've used softer ground covers that are really gentle, and it means that the kids can comfortably play around them. If you're looking for a ground cover that's really gentle, sweet, and has the nicest little flowers, you can't go past this native violet. Look how well it hugs the rocks, and it works well to keep weeds at bay. Behind us is South, so the owners didn't want large shrubs that would block too much of the sun from this area. Instead, this lovely slat fence has aged with time, and it gives you the privacy that you need from the street. The owners lived in this house for several years with a front yard that was overrun with weeds and really uninviting. And then they met Liam from ID Landscaping, and with their dreams for the space and his design concepts, they were able to come up with a space that was both functional and beautiful. They've also incorporated a number of things that the owners really, really wanted, including these fruit trees along here. There's a plum, an apricot, and two limes just in this space, and they'd nurtured them in pots for years before they got put into the garden. And as you can see, they are thriving and covered in fruit. I hope you've enjoyed exploring this garden with me. Please let me know in the comments below what was your favourite part. I've got plenty more garden tours coming your way, so make sure you like and subscribe.