Landscaping week. The one every single contestant on this show insists, with the confidence of a man who has never once landscaped anything, “wins you The Block.” Five teams, five backyards over 1,000 square metres each, and a ticking clock that didn’t care that half of them hadn’t even started turfing by Saturday lunchtime. Somewhere between a $20,000 concrete slab getting jackhammered back out of the ground and a fireplace flue installed at 7am on judging morning, Daylesford stopped being a sleepy spa town and turned into a demolition derby with better lighting.
By the time tools went down, there were wine cellars, dry creek beds, a Pilates studio that made Marty Fox furious, and a secret gnome deployed with the tactical precision of a Cold War spy drop. Someone won by half a point. Someone found out their pool had no water in it hours before judging. Let’s get into it.
Final Score Card
| Rank | Team | Score | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | Emma & Ben | 34.5/40 | “You’re gonna have a fantastic garden here and it’s gonna be hard to beat.” |
| 🥈 2nd | Robby & Mat | 34/40 | “This is some of the best landscapes I’ve ever seen.” |
| 🥉 3rd | Britt & Taz | 33.5/40 | “They’re building something that you didn’t know you wanted”, versus “it could be the only thing that turns a buyer off.” |
| 4th | Sonny & Alicia | 32/40 | “Everything I look at looks like an elevation of the perfect Aussie garden.” |
| 5th | Han & Can | 28.5/40 | “I don’t really like what I’m looking at.” |
Half a point. That’s the entire margin between first and second place, which means Ben’s mid-tally panic (“we’re half a point behind”) turned out to be exactly backwards, they were half a point ahead, and it took the judges reading out five backyards’ worth of feedback before anyone worked that out. Meanwhile at the other end of the table, Han and Can turned up to their own judging with an empty pool and wet grout, and the judges noticed. Landscaping week: allegedly the great equaliser, actually just as brutal as every other week.
Key Moments This Episode
- DISASTEREmma and Ben’s $20,000 concrete slab gets jackhammered out because it was five times over the legal steepness limit. “This slab cost me 20 grand.”
- ARGUMENTLandscaper Colin tells Ben to rip out the retaining wall he’d just spent four days building. “Are you serious? Like, we’ve just spent four days putting this in.”
- DRAMAHouse three’s landscaper tries to scout Ben and Emma’s yard under the guise of being “mates with Paal.” Ben shuts it down: “That is a snake move.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEHan and Can blow their entire $15,000 furniture budget in one Freedom sitting, ordering five sun lounges on the spot. “One, two, three, four, five.” (Cash register sound effect included, free of charge.)
- DISASTERHan and Can’s pool is still empty when judging starts. “That’s why you can see that there’s no water in the pool.”
- ARGUMENTMarty Fox declares Britt and Taz’s cabana Pilates studio a fatal error. “I think this is a massive, massive error.” He goes further: “They could lose this competition because of that Pilates studio.”
- DRAMAEmma and Ben cash in a secret gnome on the Domain buyers’ jury, ambushing the group. “You looked me in the eyes… Lied to our faces.”
- DRAMABritt and Taz’s fireplace flue is only compliant thanks to a 7am scaffold job on the morning of judging, cutting it fine on “the biggest week of our lives.”
Emma & Ben: The Wine Cellar Winners Who Also Deployed a Gnome Like a War Crime
House one walked into landscaping week already carrying a Cursio-tiled wine cellar, an 18-weeks-pregnant Emma, and a slab disaster that cost them two days and twenty grand before Saturday had even properly started. Landscaper Colin Hyatt wanted a “borrowed landscape” reading straight off the Daylesford hills, which sounded lovely right up until he told the team to rip out a retaining wall they’d just spent four days building and let the grass roll over it instead.
“Are you serious? Like, we’ve just spent four days putting this in.”
Somehow it all came together, dry-jointed PGH stone, a she-oak-lined amphitheatre, and a pool cabana with a solar-panel roof, a printed Steam Saunas Australia sauna and wallpaper the judges mistook for tiles. The wine cellar, fully stocked, wine decanted for styling, got Shaynna Blaze reaching for superlatives she usually reserves for kitchens.
“You know what, you’re gonna have a fantastic garden here and it’s gonna be hard to beat.”
Then, mid-judging deliberation, Emma and Ben cashed in a secret gnome they’d won on the Domain buyers’ jury and detonated it on Robby, Mat, Sonny and Alicia, who had all been assured no such gnome existed. “You looked me in the eyes,” Alicia fumed, while Robby promised revenge “in the last week.” By the time the half-point margin was read out, Em and Ben had somehow won the room and started a blood feud in the same ten minutes.
“Oh, you’re going down in the last week, I tell you.”
Han & Can: A Zen Garden That Ran Out of Water, Time, and Everyone’s Patience
Han and Can went in wanting “the most idyllic, beautiful Japanese Zen garden,” designed by Christian Jenkins, with Han’s dad Lee drafted in for grouting duty. What they got was the tightest week of anyone’s season: torii gates going up hours before judging, a pool fencing crew still working at 8am, and, the killer detail, an empty pool when the judges walked through.
“Maybe just a little bit undercooked with some of the finishes… that’s why you can see that there’s no water in the pool.”
Money was tight too, the whole $15,000 furniture budget went straight through Freedom in one hit, five sun lounges and all, while Britt next door quietly noted the team was “competing in this landscape week in a kind of handicap race.” Marty wasn’t sold on the finished garden, calling the harsh gravel-and-paver combo dangerous for kids and the checkerboard feature tiles “polarising.” The arbours, milled from timber on Scott Cam’s own sawmill, were the one thing everybody agreed on.
“I don’t really like what I’m looking at.”
The silver lining: Han and Can walked away with the $10,000 CommBank budget-management prize for doing most of the work themselves and, in Scott Cam’s words, “paying their dad minimum wage.”
Britt & Taz: A Dream Backyard, a Dry Creek Bed and One Pilates Studio Too Far
Britt and Taz had been planning this week for months with landscaper Troy Lovett of Love It Landscaping, and it showed, a wraparound fireplace re-clad in record time by the Hipages stonemasons, a genuine backyard creek (a Block first), a fruit orchard scored for free, and a chicken coop built in the exact shape of their house. Taz also missed his brother’s wedding to be there, which the show milked for every emotional beat it was worth.
“You know, you go three months without your kids, you miss birthdays, weddings, funerals, all of it for this. You can walk away with nothing.”
The fireplace nearly derailed everything on a compliance technicality, the flue needed to clear the roofline and couldn’t be built from brick that high, so a steel flue went up on scaffold at 7am on judging morning. It held. The judges were split down the middle on the giant dry creek bed: Shaynna called it the stuff of childhood dreams, Marty called it a liability.
“It could be the only thing that turns a buyer off.”
But the real flashpoint was the cabana, where the couch faced away from both the pool and the TV to make room for a Pilates studio the team refused to relocate. Marty was not having it.
“I think this is a massive, massive error… they could lose this competition because of that Pilates studio.”
Sonny & Alicia: Nailed Landscaping Week, Still Can’t Buy a Room Win
Eleven weeks in, Sonny and Alicia are still chasing their first-ever room win, and if there’s any justice they’ll get it next time, because this backyard, built with landscapers Paul Pritchard and Dylan Barker of Jade Landscapes, was close to a clean sweep of praise. Simple lawn, a proper Aussie fire pit from Bunnings, a bocce court, an arbour inspired by their Wombat Park long lunch, and Littlehampton Brick Company pavers that Shaynna gushed felt handmade, “probably because they are.”
“Everything I look at looks like an elevation of the perfect Aussie garden.”
Their cabana stole the show entirely, heating, cooling, a daybed, a hidden microwave, kitchenette and toilet, dubbed by Marty “a little hotel suite” and by Dave Franklin the best pool cabana he’d ever judged.
“This is the highest-spec cabana we’ve seen today… Dave said this is the best pool cabana he’d ever seen.”
And yet, for all that praise, fourth place. The Block giveth glowing feedback and taketh away the actual trophy.
Robby & Mat: The Bottle Tree, the Biggest Fireplace “In the Region,” and Silver Again
Robby and Mat, working with landscaper Paal Grant, quietly assembled arguably the most talked-up garden of the night, twin Plungie pools (a Max for entertaining, a Quad for cold plunging), a fireplace so large it earned its own bit (“one of the biggest outdoor fireplaces in the region”), a pickleball court big enough to seat a hundred people, a 25-year-old bottle tree, and a genuine Michael Parker sculpture from Stony Creek Gallery. Dave Franklin, who has personally built half the gardens on this show, was gobsmacked.
“I’ve been on The Block for a long time, but this is some of the best landscapes I’ve ever seen.”
Even the small stuff landed, a Shadespot shade sail nobody else had thought of, a Swann security camera angled at the pool so parents could watch kids from the couch, and a veggie patch built around Foodcubes for the “grow your own” crowd.
“Technically, it’s wonderful, but it’s so pretty!”
The one blemish: their cabana sauna felt “plonked” in compared to house one’s built-in version, just enough of a wobble to hand the win to Emma and Ben by half a point. Second place. Again.
How It All Wrapped Up
Half a point separated first from second, and it took a secret gnome, a wine cellar and eighteen weeks of pregnancy-fuelled determination to get Emma and Ben over the line ahead of Robby and Mat’s genuinely jaw-dropping landscape. Britt and Taz’s dream backyard came with a Pilates-studio-shaped asterisk that cost them a real shot at the top. Sonny and Alicia built the best pool cabana in Daylesford and still walked away without a room win to their name. And Han and Can, furniture budget blown and pool bone dry, salvaged their week with the $10,000 CommBank prize for managing money they otherwise had none of. One week to go, two MGs and $50,000 off the reserve on the table, the gnome war is only just getting started.
Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here for the next disaster.
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