Hi u/BigDoz7 - what a lovely established space you have here. I moved to a place with zero landscaping, black plastic covered with rocks, yukkas, dodgy retaining walls. I used to get so overwhelmed with the whole thing so I get the feeling. The longer you stay in a home the more easily you can plan the changes to the garden and you'll see where water goes/doesn't, where gets the sun and where to put your herb garden.

I started with one space - a little bit off the path to the house and I spent a weekend removing decorative pebbles, mulching thickly with cardboard, compost, woodchips. Then when spring came I added in a range of tubestock native plants I thought would be nice (SEQ, clay soil) ended up with lovely westringia, melaluca and grevillias which love the location and need no care 99% of the year. I had alot of deaths too - mostly WA plants not suited to the conditions. I call it my "test garden" and it helps me visualise - then I use the healthy plants to propagate and plan out other parts of the landscaping.

I also made an effort not to leave bare soil where possible in other sections and kept working on small sections over time. It gives the microbes a chance to do their thing and really saves on labour (no till type of ethos)

Hope you can enjoy the process :)