It is the last full day on site, the last Sunday judging of the season and, as of tonight, the last time anyone has to hear Dave Franklin’s thoughts on a Virginia creeper. Bunnings has $50,000 off a reserve on the line, and Chantel and Wyatt are one room reveal away from a very unwelcome piece of Block history.
Here is how the final gardens and front yards reveal played out, and what came after: buyers’ day, a brand new reserve-price law, and an auction order nobody wanted to talk about.
Final Score Card: Gardens and Front Yards
| Rank | Team | Score | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | Rick & Tayla (House 5) | 27.5 | “We’ve never seen anything like this on The Block ever.” |
| 🥈 2nd | Adam & Jolene (House 1) | 26.5 | “It’s going to look like a million dollars and then some on auction day.” |
| 🥉 3rd (tie) | Chantel & Wyatt (House 2) | 26 | “It feels like home and I have not said that about any of their spaces.” |
| 🥉 3rd (tie) | Lisa & Rosco (House 3) | 26 | “To me, this space here is every family’s dream.” |
| 5th | Courtney & Sev (House 4) | 22 | “This is the first time the girls have not sold the dream.” |
Key Moments This Episode
- DRAMARick and Tayla win the final week by one point (27.5) and take $50,000 off their reserve: “Week 12 and we’re finally the winners.”
- ARGUMENTThe House One access gate finally closes, and one half of House One is “this close” to driving back to the sharehouse over how long it took.
- DISASTERHouse Four’s front yard is called “the most disappointing front I’ve seen”, and Courtney and Sev finish on 22 points.
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEA buyers’ day visitor is told House One’s fireplace contains 100 grams of fine gold: “It’ll be worth a bit of money.”
- DRAMAChantel and Wyatt tie for third and finish the season without a single room reveal win, a first in 22 seasons by the show’s own count.
- ARGUMENTHouse Four’s rooftop terrace plan is dead after objections from Houses 1, 2, 3 and 5. “Why is that surprising?”
- DRAMAA new Victorian law forces The Block to publish reserve prices a week before auction, with price guides of $3.6 to $3.9 million.
- DISASTERThe auction order chat goes exactly as badly as predicted: “This is where relationships could end.”
1st: Rick and Tayla (House 5), 27.5 Points
Rick and Tayla finally finished a space, and it turned out to be the one worth finishing. The judges arrived to a 30-year-old buxus cloud tree trucked overnight from Adelaide, a lime lava planting scheme Dave Franklin had never seen before, and a bespoke concrete water feature from Modern Concrete Co that stopped the room.
“This is my wow moment.”
Dave Franklin
Darren Palmer called the colour scheme against the PGH stone “yum, yum, yum”, and Shaynna admitted this might be the only space Rick and Tayla had actually finished. Their only quibbles were a missing fence for kids and pets, and a missing handrail on the stairs. It was not enough to dent the lead.
Rick pointed out the water feature is shaped like a V, which is the Roman numeral for House 5. The moonwalk came later, as promised.
2nd: Adam and Jolene (House 1), 26.5 Points
House One lost most of the week to the access gate, and by the time it shut, they had about an hour and a half to work with. They admitted on camera they would not finish, but the judges were kinder than the clock. Shaynna loved the basalt rock water feature (cut by hand with gaps between the slices), and Darren loved the colour and materials palette at the entrance.
Dave Franklin’s elephant in the room was the circular arbours, which he said would drip on you once the Virginia creeper took hold, and which Shaynna agreed would “get rid of a million-dollar view”. The granitic sand at the front door “looks like mud”. Even so, Shaynna said her mind was blown by what they had done in a week.
“The entrance appeal of all this colour palette, materials palette is just heaven.”
Darren Palmer
Equal 3rd: Chantel and Wyatt (House 2), 26 Points
The bridesmaids did not get married. Chantel and Wyatt walked in hoping to dodge being the first couple in 22 seasons without a room win, and the judges gave them their best-liked space of the season: a 4.6-million-year-old stone bath, a sauna Shaynna called “the absolute best place for the sauna on this block hands down, full stop”, and a borrowed fireplace clad in PGH stone.
The notes were small. The Fatsia is going to crowd the Japanese maple, the Magnolia will get suffocated, and one judge hated the “division line” between the house and the white tile. Shaynna’s closing verdict was the sweetest line they heard all season.
“This feels really homely.”
Shaynna Blaze
Equal 3rd: Lisa and Rosco (House 3), 26 Points
House Three put a family yard in a front yard: a long lawn, native planting, a Stratco Umbra shed fitted out with a beer tap, a TV and a spit roast. A judge declared it “definitely dude ranch”. Darren called the olive tree, Martina, “a feature tree”, and Dave Franklin called it the most usable garden he had seen so far.
Not everything survived scrutiny. The white cladding stone “does stick out a bit”, the shed placement needed explaining, and a late-addition birdbath “looks like something that should be at my nan’s house”. The planting only needed screening trees along the House Two fence.
Darren apologised for giving them a hard time the week before: “They knew what they were doing and we didn’t.”
5th: Courtney and Sev (House 4), 22 Points
The wine cellar was fabulous. The front yard was a casualty. Troy’s $45,000 plan was always going to run into a $25,000 budget, and the judges did not hold back: no handrail on the steep stairs, an unfinished concrete top on the retaining wall, a water feature with visible plastic, and a front entrance that “should make you feel something”.
The best of the pack was the caravan and Bar Crusher landing bay, which Dave Franklin called “really sensible”, and the custom Brenchley brick from Littlehamptons, named in honour of the architect. Their reaction to the scores: “We got pummelled.”
“It’s a bit meh.”
The judges, on House 4’s front yard
Buyers’ Day, a New Law and a Fight About Who Goes First
About 2,000 people turned up to inspect, and Scott told the teams they only need two buyers for a good auction. Then he dropped the news: Victoria has passed a first-of-its-kind law, and The Block must now publish reserve prices a week before the auction. The agent told the teams price guides sit between $3.6 and $3.9 million, the highest in about four years.
House Four got the day’s best and worst news in one sitting. Their rooftop terrace is dead after objections from the other houses (all from the same address, which Scott helpfully noted), but BMT’s depreciation schedule gave them a sweetener: just over $6 million of construction, the highest of any house, and about $280,000 in first-year deductions for an investor.
- Prize pool: $500,000 after a final $20,000 Titanium top-up and a stay at Trentham Waters Resort for the winners.
- Reserves: revealed to the teams the next day, then published a week before auction.
- Auction order: “No-one’s coming together today. I think it’s going to be an all-out war.”
The Wrap-Up
Twelve weeks, five houses and one very long gate saga later, Rick and Tayla finish the season with the biggest win of their Block. Shelley’s summary was the right one: the houses are the best the show has produced. Now they just have to sell.
Grab a coffee, brace for the reserves, and we will see you back here for auction day.
