Backyard and Garage Week ended the way it began: with the whole street asking “Where’s Rick?”. Dirt, mulch, a wine cellar row and a record-breaking Macca’s order later, the judges (plus guest landscaper Dave Franklin) delivered the Gardens verdict, and it was the first tie of the series.
Only the tie was announced on air, so here is the result card, followed by the moments that mattered.
| Placing | Team | Result | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 Tied 1st | House One: Adam and Jolene | $5,000 and a Chery getaway | “It looks like an installation in an art gallery.” |
| 🥇 Tied 1st | House Four: Courtney and Sev | $5,000 and a Chery getaway | “One of the best wine cellars I’ve seen.” |
| Not placed on air | House Two: Chantel and Wyatt | Score not announced | “Minimalism and then there’s empty-ism.” |
| Not placed on air | House Three: Lisa and Rosco | Score not announced; CommBank $10,000 | “There is no sizzle. This is a letdown.” |
| Not placed on air | House Five: Rick and Tayla | Score not announced | “If that was all screwed in… my favourite space.” |
Key Moments This Episode
- DRAMAHouses One and Four tie for the week, splitting the Chery prize: “Our first tie of the series.”
- ARGUMENTHouse Three confronts House Four about the wine cellar, and House Four calls it a loophole: “I’m sorry, but there is a loophole there.” House Three’s reaction: “It’s horse(BLEEP), man.”
- DISASTERHouse Three finds cracks in the garage floor and chooses to repair them properly, skipping the epoxy reveal.
- DISASTERHouse Five runs out of time again: a half-finished deck, unfinished pool cladding and no skirting. “Not one week have we finished a room.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEHouse Five’s Macca’s run: 80 nuggets, ten cheeseburgers, seven Happy Meals, three apple pies, $253.
- DRAMARick is still avoiding his own backyard: “I’ve been too scared to go down there.”
- ARGUMENTHouse One finds out the girls are getting the same Blahst car wash: “They have absolutely tried to copy every single thing we’ve tried to do in the garage.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEScott adds a $60,000 Chery Tiggo 9 to the prize pool, and Bunnings Landscaping Week will take $50,000 off the winner’s reserve.
House One: Adam and Jolene, Tied 1st
House One’s Matt Hill sculpture charmed Dave (“striking, actually”), but the front garden drew a privacy warning. One judge would not want “myself or my friends in their bathers here swimming with how exposed that is”.
The garage turned the mood around: moody walls, a premium epoxy floor, two solar batteries and a Blahst car wash station. Darren’s only grumble was layout, since you need six metres for a car. Then came the 475-bottle wine cellar from Cellar Creations, which Marty said buyers “will not forget”.
“It looks like an installation in an art gallery.”
Darren Palmer, on the wine cellar
The side garden arbour earned Dave’s “Home Beautiful shot” praise and Darren’s “I see money”. Not a bad result for a team who started the week sending Jolene off with a trolley for the heavy pots.
House Four: Courtney and Sev, Tied 1st
The week’s biggest feud started in House Four’s garage. Rumours put the wine cellar at upwards of $100,000, and with the rule requiring contestants to pay 50 per cent of RRP, House Three wanted a number. Courtney and Sev classed the cellar as bespoke artwork with no retail price, a position the other houses called a loophole.
The judges stayed out of the argument and loved the result. Dave called it “one of the best wine cellars I’ve seen” and described the girls’ work as “pure, bespoke luxury”, and Marty was won over by the arbour out to the beach.
- Outdoor shower: Dave’s “one of the best outdoor showers”.
- Fireplace zone: stonework delivered to standard in a single week.
- Marty’s niggle: steppers through the lawn mean “all I see is cracked heads”, and not much lawn for kids.
“This is lifestyle at 100.”
Marty Fox, on the beach gate arbour
House Two: Chantel and Wyatt
The Cursio brothers turned out to be landscapers as well as tilers. The front garden was called practical rather than exciting, and the garage was summed up as “minimalism and then there’s empty-ism”, with the Ampd Bros e-bikes the only real talking point. The storage room drew “bin room” and “janitor’s closet”.
Then the judges walked into the back, and the mood flipped. A Stratco louvre roof, a Smeg barbecue, a pizza oven and lush planting against CSR Ledgestone. Shaynna’s verdict: “Now you see where the money’s gone.” The judges praised the “millimetre-perfect” execution.
House Three: Lisa and Rosco
A fence for privacy, olive trees and a Trendz fireplace with an ocean view went down well. The big miss was lawn: the judges felt the team had “literally taken away their X-factor” by mulching 75 per cent of a north-facing yard.
The garage was a story of its own. After cracks appeared in the floor, the team chose a proper repair over a rushed epoxy finish, saying “we can’t sacrifice quality just to win the week”. The judges called the garage a “Jackson Pollock” and the storage room a “nothing room”, though Darren said the team had “time-managed themselves” onto the right things, including the sauna courtyard.
“This is a letdown.”
Marty Fox, on the sauna courtyard
The consolation: the CommBank Better Budgeting award and $10,000. “You went over budget, but you went over the least.”
House Five: Rick and Tayla
The biggest block on The Block, a brand new Chery Stockman ute behind the 4D garage door, and Lilydale turf everywhere. The judges liked the lawn, the Littlehamptons bricks and the Boxing Day cricket pitch, where Dave missed Marty’s delivery by a mile.
Then the usual: no skirting in the garage, a curved wall nobody could justify, unfinished cladding on the pool surround, and a deck still missing boards. One judge summed it up: “They bite off more than they can chew”. Marty’s backhanded compliment hurt most: “If that was all screwed in, if the skirtings were on… this is probably my favourite space for today.”
The Wrap-Up
A tie between the two houses at the centre of the wine cellar row is exactly what The Block ordered. Houses One and Four now share the Chery prize at $5,000 each, plus a Chery getaway together, and one voice suggested it might be a chance to “clear the air properly”.
What’s Next
Next week is the final build week, renamed Bunnings Landscaping Week, and the winner takes $50,000 off their reserve. With a Chery Tiggo 9 and roughly half a million dollars in prizes on the line, Bunnings is about to matter a lot.
