Landscaper Drouin: Building a Yard From Bare Ground Up

You get the keys to a new house in Drouin and the yard behind it is graded builder’s fill: clay, rubble, barely any topsoil. A landscaper starts underneath all that, with levels and drainage, because the paving, the deck and the lawn all sit on top of it. Big Fella Landscapes has been building yards out of bare ground since 2007, through Drouin and across West Gippsland. We build retaining walls, paving, concreting, decking, pergolas, instant turf, screens and planting. Every job opens with a free on-site visit and a no-obligation quote, so the scope comes off your ground rather than off a photo. Phone Kane on 0412 881 728.

Bare Ground, and the Order the Work Happens In

If you have just taken handover in one of the newer estates, Ferntree Ridge and The Fairways among them, the yard arrived as a by-product of building the house. Fill got pushed around to get the slab in. Whatever topsoil the paddock once had went years before that.

So the first job is not planting. It is working out where water goes, cutting levels that drain away from the house rather than toward it, and bringing in soil that will grow something. Winter out here is wet. Annual rainfall across West Gippsland sits well above Melbourne’s and clay fill sheds none of it, so a yard that has not been graded properly stays soft from autumn through to spring.

Run that order backwards and you pay for the same ground twice. Turf laid straight onto unimproved fill goes yellow in its first summer and boggy in its first winter. Paving over ground that was never compacted moves and needs lifting. The falls, the drainage and the finished levels get worked out together at the on-site visit, before a single figure goes on the quote.

Booking the Free On-Site Visit

Start with a phone call, an email or the enquiry form. We come to you, at no cost and with nothing owing afterwards, and if a weekday visit will not fit around a commute we arrange one after hours.

Kane Dalman does the site visit himself. He will want to know what you want the space to do, what is already there, and where water sits after a heavy week, and the quote is written from what he sees rather than from a phone description. You are not locked into that first design or that first number either. Being flexible on both is something we are known for, so if the scope shifts, say so.

Accept the quote and the job gets a start date and a named crew, with Kane as the one person you deal with the whole way through. We finish on time and on budget, and the workmanship carries a 12-month guarantee.

The Crew Behind Big Fella Landscapes

Big Fella Landscapes is Kane Dalman’s business. He set it up in 2007 and has kept the same habit ever since: he sees the block himself before anyone quotes it. Thousands of residential and commercial projects have gone through the team since then, for homeowners, businesses, builders and developers, with qualified tradesmen and apprentices working side by side in team uniform. The full range of what we build, along with our qualifications and guarantees, sits on our general landscaping page.

If Your Place Is Not a New Estate Lot

Plenty of the work around Drouin is nothing to do with a fresh lot. Lifestyle blocks and small acreage on the edges of town bring their own list: an entrance track firm enough for a delivery truck, retaining along a boundary instead of around a garden bed, shelter planting on an exposed fence line, a level pad for a shed. Closer in, older homes come with trees worth keeping, which means levels and retaining get designed around them instead of through them. It is the same work we take on as a landscaper in Warragul.

Get Us Out to Look at the Block

A bare block is easier to quote than most people expect, because there is nothing to work around yet. Ring 0412 881 728 or send the details through the enquiry form on this site, and we will arrange a time to walk it with you, evenings included if the weekday hours do not suit.