A backyard can be bare and boring, a tiny square cut out of suburbia. It can also be a world of its own, with innumerable possibilities, if you use the space productively and with imagination.

This backyard began as you walked out the back door into a paved stone walled courtyard, roofed with glass. One side held a large outdoor pizza oven, though it was more often used to bake bread every couple of days, or several legs of lamb for family feasts.

The other three sides of the courtyard had built-in bench seating, with table, with niches for herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme etc, and potted cherry tomatoes and whatever other frost-tender plants the inhabitants felt like eating each winter. The courtyard blocked cold winds, the sun warmed the stone and radiated it in the evenings as everyone ate large amounts of extremely good pizza, and protected the frost-tender plants. In summer the glass roof was opened, and a "pull out and attach" kind of blind produced shade instead. A small drip irrigation system watered the plants in summer, replaced by sprinklers in summer when the stone walls cooled all down as the water evaporated.

The stone seats had gorgeous cushions, too.

Outside the courtyard the back fences were bordered with fruit tree hedges, mostly apples and olives if I remember correctly, with a terraced vegetable garden that turned 10 square metres of flat space into 50-60 metres of usable vegies, especially as many of them were climbers. Trellised grapes, kiwi fruit and passion fruit were scattered here and there, but the owner's pride and joy was his compost system, fed with the scraps offered by friends, and possibly the odd café, as well as hen manure. Those veg and trees seemed to grin down at you as if saying "we are the best fed and most productive food plants in the Canberra region".

I forgot to mention their "ploughing with chooks" chook yard. The chook house had a run either side of it. Veg grew one on side, the chooks ran in the other. When the first run had cropped, the chooks were let into it instead, leaving the second run well manured, well dug, and scratched free of weeds.

We finally have an outdoor pizza oven and it's fabulous. Outdoor pizza ovens can be bought more or less pre-fabricated, anywhere from $3000 to $15,000 to "I am not even going to look at the prices". A friend built his own for about $200, using second-hand reinforcing mesh, and mixing his own concrete. It's a superb oven, and about twice the size of most prefab models. Allow a full weekend to build one either from scratch or a kit, with a few friends to help.

READ MORE: JACKIE FRENCH

I'd also love a flying fox, to entertain small children but also so I can fly from one end of the garden to the other. We do have three trees that act as a kids' playground, two of them oaks that I planted as a memorial for a lost loved one, and the third a red gum that grew all by itself. These three trees have become "kid central". There's swings of various kinds, including a circular swing big enough for three kids or one adult, and comfortable enough to nap on, and a three-sided ladder. There's a climbing rope, a hammock, a trampoline and a volleyball net that's in shade for part of the day. Swings and hammocks can be home-made, and almost free if made from recycled materials.

Come to think of it, apart from a few hundred fruit trees, most elements of our larger garden could fit in a backyard, including the outdoor spa. The rock pool, complete with garden gnome, frogs, and various animal visitors, is an essential, as is a vegie garden, though in a smaller backyard I think I'd grow most of my veg on vertical house walls and keep the garden for dwarf fruit trees.

And if I won the lottery? I dream of a giant wrought iron Victorian-style glasshouse where I can grow tomatoes all year round, as well as pepper and vanilla. In my dream, a swimming pool is surrounded by beds of orchids; butterflies flutter to the ceiling, a butler brings icy drinks and sometimes a miniature elephant - possibly cloned from the ones that once roamed the island of Flores - sometimes joins me to play.

Okay, skip the elephant. The rest is possible, and much of it in the smallest backyard, which will immediately seem bigger, more fascinating, and add richness to your lives. Also possibly calories each time your mates come round for pizza.

It's worth it.

PS: Have any of you turned your backyards into mini farms, exercise stations, small editions of Versailles, backyard aquaculture, miniature versions of Stone Henge, bird havens, chook paradises or adventure playgrounds? Please send pics.

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