My Water Wise Plants + Pebbles Courtyard Garden

I have been dreaming about our courtyard garden for many, many years now and it's almost surreal that my gardening dreams are now becoming a reality!

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the front of our house 

BEFORE the courtyard renovation .... 

Now let's look at its progress today!

The Courtyard isn't completely finished yet but we don't have much left to do ..... We need to install our new shade sail to the poles, build a screen to hide the rubbish bins, seal the limestone pavers and then add furniture and pot plants and it will be an outdoor living space that we will want to spend time in all year round!

Over the last few weekends we've been planting a garden straight from my Pinterest inspiration boards with hardy plants that are perfect for the front of the house which gets a lot of sun and will need to survive a hot Aussie summer.

As the Rain Chain feature is part of this garden bed and it's close to the house foundations we also wanted plants that don't need to be watered very often so water wise plants were on the wish list.

The yukkas we grew from cuttings given to us from a friend and when we removed them from their pots we noticed some were growing extra plants and so we split them into more plants.

I'm so amazed that these yukkas cost us nothing as they are such a good looking plant and make a real statement in the garden too!

Next we planted some Cordyline black knight plants which are a red/purple plant and compliment the timber look fence perfectly. 

I love the spiky plants and the way they look architectural and modern. 

We add a few succulent plants to fill the gaps and we're hoping they'll grow and spread a little more to cover the ground.

I love succulents they are my favourite plants and this is a nice sunny spot for them to thrive in.

Instead of mulch we decided to add pebbles as a top layer to create contrast around the plants and in the garden bed. We shopped around for pebbles and found Masters had the best value - 20kg bags for $10 and we used 22 bags in total.

As the Rain Chain feature pot is in this garden bed we also wanted a solid base for any rain that may overflow down the Rain Chain in heavy downpours. Pebbles would keep the area a lot cleaner than mulch or soil would which will wash away and make a mess if it gets too wet.

I love how the black pebbles look against the limestone pavers and it makes the plants really pop as well. We just hope the pebbles won't heat up too much in the sun and that the plants will be tough enough to handle it if they do! 

We had to finish the reticulation in this part of the garden so that it's on its own watering program (we have separate zones for the lawn, the front verge area, the herb/veggie garden and this pebble garden because they all have different watering needs and need to be watered at different times).

Mr P fitted sprinklers around each plant so they will be watered automatically because my black thumb cannot be held accountable for keeping the plants alive!

Around the front of the garden to balance out the Rain Chain feature pot we added a similar feature pot that is slightly smaller with a large yukka planted in it.

Then we planted some yukkas and cordylines in between.

The courtyard garden is really coming along nicely.

I love how this garden design was easy to plant out and with the hardy plants it should be easy to take care of (or better yet it takes care of itself!).

The next gardening project for the courtyard is to plant a vegetable and herb garden and I have already sown some seeds which I've watched sprout and I can't wait to grow my own fresh veggies and herbs!

What are you growing in the garden?

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[All images my own]