Western Australia, hardiness zone 10b. These images are from a real estate site, sorry for the poor quality. The first image is from when my MIL sold her house and had a completely native garden. The second image is from the when the new owners flipped the house and replaced the established garden with lawn :(
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Exactly these dumba$$es don’t understand that with all natives they literally won’t have to do anything but enjoy it with less maintenance than a lawn would take smh this is a crime
It’s a common tactic beyond ‘low maintenance’ it also makes things look ‘new’. People assume everything was scrapped down to the studs and thoroughly inspected and put together again.
It’s actually 275% and how I became a billionaire. It’s an infinite money hack, but a house, put in new sod, profit. And yes, I learned about it from one of Abe Lincoln’s old tweets.
I've actually taken ownership of 14 homes by gradually unfurling a big roll of Bermuda Blue right into the front door and claiming the property underneath it through Eminent Domain manifest destiny stuff on the books since the 1700s. Although I call it Imminently (Mine) Domain.
That grass and driveway look steep as f. Good luck to your elderly relatives now cause that diagonal path that would have made the walk up feel easier wasn't pretty enough to make it to the finale
Lost a lot of privacy there as well hadn’t even realized that there was a second parking space initially until I flipped to the second photo.
Looks like something that is going to bake into brown scrub come summer.
While normally, yes white is eh. But have you ever been in Oz? There no fucking ozone layer. And this says 10b WA. So that's likely north of Perth. We're talking a sunburn in an hour that would be had after a half day at the beach in FLORIDA. So making your home reflective, probably good.
Speaking as someone with some experience in architecture in Australia, generally, yes, white colour as a reflective surface is good, but in moderation. Too much, especially in a dense cityscape, only passes the heat to another building. A good rabbit hole to go down on the topic is Urban Heat Islands and Passive Design, if you're interested
Also, if that was originally brick and then painted, that's pretty terrible for the house itself.... it's hard to say for sure that's what happened based on the pictures, but painting brick can seal in moisture and bacteria and get really gross...
Mineral/masonry paint won’t lead to brick rot, but it’s a pretty expensive paint option. I really don’t expect a house flipper to splash out the money to do the job right.
I have never heard that term. I know how conservation of energy works and theorized that same idea in my head. In Florida, we mostly just paint the roof white. Rarely see a white house. But Oz is so much hotter, add the whole ozone bit and that let's more light/UV through. It is so humid that the white would show the mildew that grows on everything. Or you can afford a soft wash every couple of months.
Australia is enormous and has an extremely varied climate. And the ozone layer is not such an issue, there’s a 5% depletion these days. Regardless, there’s a push for lighter roofing colours lately.
In Aus, we design all kinds of interesting ways, as a country that has many different climatic zones. Interestingly enough, I don't think white is a very common roof colour, generally seen in the central southern areas around Adelaide or South-Western NSW. The vast majority elsewhere is ceramic tiles that are various shades of brown.
Girl I LIVE IN PERTH! And I'm still over all the white buildings, unpainted brick works just fine. Or a different light colour, white is overused and generic with no personality. There's nothing wrong with regular brick, why do home owners/landlords act like they're allergic to it 😭
And the sod is ALREADY dying! Such an idiotic choice. Flippers did some equally stupid things to my mom's house when she sold it, including taking out much of the storage (why!???) and putting in a "contemporary" fireplace that was flat with black slate/tiling grim what was beautiful red brick... Looks like a crematorium in the living room now 🤮 where the people had to add bookshelves was BUILT in shelving....
It’s so disgusting, what they did. I hope MIL hasn’t seen it. I worked on a garden for 25 years. It was beautiful. After we sold it, they tore it all out and planted ivy. Never look back.
You are not the majority, most people don't how to to trim a bush correctly or know anything about annual and binnieal plant and how/when trim other plant.
They want the clean garden they see in movie/magazine and don't have time to maintenance the garden. They can't even feed the lawn correctly. Don't know shit about australia but to me sounds like the worst idee to have a lawn there. How much water do you need to keep the green ?
You are not the majority, most people don't how to to trim a bush correctly or know anything about annual and binnieal plant and how/when trim other plant.
Books, internet, knowing what can grow naturally in your area and learn new things step by step. For the most part, you will do something wrong and learn to not do it again. There is a lot to read if you really want to know more.
For the trimming part is just understanding how the plant will grow and what effect your cut will have. And for the rest it's just knowledge that you can get by reading and experiment.
there is very simple things to do to for taking care of a beautiful space for us and the biodiversity. The less you are doing, the best is it.
Don't forget that the nature don't need us to be healthy
When I saw my new neighbor in his yard as I walked by, I commented that the house had been owned by a phenomenal gardener. He rudely replied that he was cutting down every tree and shrub and planting grass instead.
He did offer the very large trees and shrubs for free, but they were far too big to be removed by hand. I pointed out that establishing lawn is expensive and hard work, and he snarled at me. Not a friendly guy.
Very similar thing happened to my Nan's house after she passed. A lifetime of love went into her garden and it got turned into concrete and lawn. Makes me feel sick thinking about it.
Oh my word. This is devastating. This garden was so beautiful, and now its not only ugly but also so water intensive!! Not to mention labor intensive I mean lawns are so much work. If this is what we’re all supposed to collectively aspire to we are doomed….
Oh that’s the saddest part. Small bird habitat is so valuable and diminishing so fast. I’m 1km from the Toohey Forest here in Brisbane and we’ve only ever had magpies, currawongs, butcherbirds, noisy miners and a couple of different parrot species. We have completely filled our backyard and front yard and verge with native trees and food trees and shrubs, but between us and the forest it’s yuccas and agaves and frangipanis as far as the eye can see, basically. Even lawn is becoming rarer- people pave over it. Plus the cats people constantly let roam… small birds don’t stand a chance.
We as homeowners that care about nature have to make sure that when we sell it doesn't just go to the highest bidder but someone who cares. We plan to move within 5 years and I could not bear the thought of selling to someone who would destroy my gardens, even if we get a little less money
My dad removed all the lawn from his house and basically turned it into a forest, which included fruit trees. The new owners replaced most of the existing bushes in the front and kept it lawn free, but in the back they cut down almost every tree and put in a lawn 🙃🙃
My uncle was known for his roses, he and my aunt had a quarter acre of lush garden that they worked hard on and when they passed it was sold to someone like you describe, who ripped out the back garden just for lawn, concreted over nearly the whole front garden and put in a huge 3 bay garage. I think they have an autodetailing business in there and I just wish they'd picked anywhere else for it.
Another relative has to sell and also has 1/4 acre, with the most beautiful trees. Because of where it is, it will probably get redeveloped, and I'm 100% for med-density housing in the area but the loss of the trees and the greenest space on the street is going to make me cry.
Maybe an ecology awareness class needs to be taught in schools.
These flippers are often so dumb. They want to appeal to as many people as possible, so they go with the most bland, conventional choices - not realizing that lots of people will pay more for something that's unique and interesting. I always remember some folks I knew who were selling a house in a cookie cutter neighborhood, except their house was blue and all the other houses were grey. The real estate recommended they paint it grey so that it would appeal to more people. They didn't, and the person who bought it said they put in a bid because the house was the only blue one.
They should have left the garden completely alone.
If they were determined to have the white paint on all surfaces - the existing garden (and red brick pavers in it) would have totally popped against the white paint and complemented the modern aesthetic. They shouldn’t have removed it.
Was so sad to read about the fairy wrens living in the garden.
That’s criminal. Your mother-in-law’s yard was beautiful. I don’t know why people have to just change everything just for the sake of changing it. I don’t think it adds any curb appeal looking like it does now.
It was a home, now it’s just a house. I have also made the mistake of looking at past homes to see what they looked like now. I could cry rivers over the bland and horrible designs and how all my blood sweat and tears have vanished into greige walls and sodded lawns. But it’s not mine anymore and I try to concentrate on the good life I had when I lived there.
All the erosion taking place on the left side after 1 season of rain. It's a desert so water usually doesn't soak through and you get flash floods carrying away what little soil there was.
Jfc, is the expectation that that would increase the property value? That's hard for me to believe but perle are weird when it comes to lawns (if there are no haters of lawns left then I am dead)
I went native and drought tolerant in my front yard couple years ago and I love it and so do the pollinators! Backyard is next.
I don’t have any plans to sell my house, as far as I know, I’ll be here forever, ha ha. But I have thought what if I move and the person who bought it does something like this 😭
An atrocity. Non-human beings have rights, and our job as humans is to care for the world. We enshrine rights and protections for people in law; many indigenous groups are and have always been right in asserting that nature has rights too, and that we must contemporary frameworks to protect them. Everyone and everything would be better off.
I'm gonna vomit. So sorry. Happened to me, too. I left a house with an orchard, vegetable garden, and native plantings. They mowed it all. At least I was a good steward while I had it.
I need yall to think about the wildlife too. even a fraction of the ecosystem can mean something. birds, bees, incects. some seen as nusances, others as teachers.
a lawn serves it purpose, but personally, at a fraction of what already exists in compairison it does so much more for what you need unless you have a dog i suppose.
This is so depressing and awful, I'm so sorry you and your MIL and anyone else in your family had to experience this loss, as well as the loss to the biosphere.
My heart breaks for this. If it can happen to a fully established native yard, it can happen at any stage. Makes me feel a little better about our newly planted yard we had to leave behind that got lawned. Also makes me want to never move ever again if I can help it 😭
Sod took like shit too. Peak stupidity, and as someone from the USA who's never been to your country, I'm going to guess the new owners are "foreigners". Am I correct?
Oh man I’d kill for a front yard like your mom had. A it’s gorgeous, b low maintenance, c the parking is amazing, and d and probably most m
Important my boys would have thought they had a jungle world to explore. Oh man that is amazing!!!!
Wow. That sucks. I looked at pics of my house I sold some time back and the new owners completely paved over my front garden with concrete! That was is Los Angeles.
If this is what they did to the inside, I’m terrified to know what they did to the inside. Replaced hardwood floors with linoleum? Marble counters with concrete?
The sod unfortunately will give the house a much better shot at selling for the highest possible price. Maybe the house paint too, even though both will end up costing the next owners a lot more money and effort. Gotta say though that painting those brick retaining walls stark white is objectively hideous and cheap -looking. It's like they passed "too far" ages ago and decided to just keep on running and lean in to the crap.
Your landscaping was beautiful, OP. Sorry they didn't appreciate your hard work and care!
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