Beginner Gardening: Thailand - new house surrounded by dirt - how to landscape!, 2 by robsamui

robsamui wrote:
Where to start! The house is a year old. Thai people don't go in for landscaping - or even borders or boundaries. Their culture expects everything to be open, public and accessible. (Old grannies wandering about hacking at your bushes with machetes because it's what they've been doing for for the last 50 years etc).

The concession at least is that I've got a boundary of some scraggy shrubs. But essentially I have a rectangular patch of sand, in front of the house, which is about 100 feet (frontage) by 40, bordering onto a side section with a huge, shady, mature fruit tree.

First, I want something that's a more substantial boundary between the front 'patch' and the dirt track outside. Not a wall or a fence, but something that's growing.

Second, I'd like to stagger this with different levels, somehow linking it into the side part with the big tree.

BUT - every single landscaped garden I've looked at online and tried to get ideas from - every one of them is bounded by high walls or fences, making a firm boundary for a raised ground level inside. I can't do this!

I'd like to incorporate a water feature - a cascade and/or pond. Plus have a contrast between decking, stones/pebbles and/or ornamental slabs.

So - any ideas as to how to raise the ground level at part of the boundary without using a retaining wall? Can it be done?

Plus - I'm going to need to add topsoil - the ground here is 90% sand. Should I think about starting with some kind of foundation-work using stones and mortar to create raised 'beds' and in-fill with topsoil?

At the age of 66 this is my first landscaping project and I don't know where to begin!

Help!

Rob