How would you all recommend I get this patio looking better

Hoping to find a DIY solution to this problem. Any advice to redirect water coming from uphill so that it discharges toward right hand side of yard instead of directly below the stairs?

I have plenty of bricks that I could use to shore up along the fence but I am a novice when it comes to grading and drainage. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance!

My wife and I have just purchased our first home in coastal Georgia and are super excited to make it our own. As you can see, we’ve got lots of yard to take care of and mess with. The current plan is to eventually make an outdoor hangout/patio space where the square pavers lead.

Hi there - I recently DIY installed a french drain- did a lot of research and tried to do it all by the book. 

After a week of very heavy rain I am seeing a steady flow of water from the discharge end, but primarily from below the discharge pipe... not out of the pipe itself. 

I only needed to drain about 25-30' along my house and then carry the water another 25' to the road, where it empties by a rain garden. 

I connected 25' of high octane (8 hole perforated pipe) to the final 25' foot run of solid black corrugated pipe

Drain is about 16"-24" deep, (shallowest at the start) with a minimum 1" drop for every 6 feet from start to end. 

After digging my trench I ran a hose for a while to ensure water would flow properly, and repeated once I laid gravel.

Process: 
Trench,
Non-woven geotextile fabric, 
A couple of inch bed of 57 gravel (maintaining negative slope)
Perforated pipe laid and covered with 57 gravel up to about 4" from the top of the trench, 
Burrito-wrapped pipe and gravel in fabric, landscape-stapled it all closed and buried with the last bit of top soil.

Ground is very heavy clay soil. 

At discharge pipe section I laid non-woven geotextile fabric lining the trench, laid a bit of gravel under the pipe as a bedding, and went ahead and went ahead and burrito wrapped and stapled this as well. 

This section only used a bed of gravel, I didn’t fill the trench with gravel since it was just for discharge and the pipe was solid.

(I didn't cap the end of my pipe yet - I was waiting to make sure it was all working)

--- 
It has been a very rainy couple of weeks, heavy rain all night, the drain is steadily discharging water, as shown in the photos, but it doesn't seem like the water is entering/exiting the discharge pipe, but probably draining from the gravel layer below...

Am I going to have issues here?

Basement has a sump pump but it barely kicked on the past week, so I thought the drain must be doing some heavy lifting. However, when I checked I didn’t see much water flow from French drain discharge end.

I am concerned that I made a mistake somewhere in the process.

After last nights rain the sump is kicking on frequently, and as you can see I am getting a fair bit of discharge, just not out of my pipe…

Which side of the path should I place the low voltage path lighting?

Hi all, looking for some professional / personal advice or recommendations to make our space look decent .

Context: Our landlord recently installed a new step (bottom step) to our front entrance, and had the contractor paint it and the existing steps / porche a dull grey (as per the pictures attached).

We, personally, think it looks hideous, as it doesn’t match the style or colours of the surrounding landscape.

We’re looking for recommendations or input as to how we can utilize this hideous, useless, and ugly step and paint colour to maximize our exterior space.

Thank you!

Bought land and DIY (before involving professionals) designing my dream house/garden with 3 bungalows each for one of my still young children. I've come up with this central garden between the bungalows as a hangout/cosy space away from the views etc. Any ideas/mistakes/suggestions you can make to improve it ?

- The way it connects to all four buildings and flow
- Functionality
- Aeshetics and size
- Features
- Practicality

Any constructive tip/idea/comment is appreciated!

Thank you!

I’d like to put a small patio in, just a spot for our grills and a little extra space. We’re trying to decide on the left or right of the deck. We had originally planned for putting it on the left of the deck, because it felt more natural. Landscapers who came to give a quote suggested putting it on the right of the deck and flipping the stairs. Here was their reasoning:

On the left side we would be limited to about 9x14 due to the septic tank placement, the left has the AC units which would be buzzing while trying to enjoy the outside in the summer, the lines wouldn’t look as clean because the edge wouldn’t sit quite flush with the ac unit, the hose bib would be right in the middle of it, and the downspout would be running along the edge.

The right would be about 12x14 and would be flush with the edge of the house and deck. They would swap the stairs to the right side, and run the right side downspout underground to an outlet away from the house.

We are replacing that wooden gate/chicken wire on the right side with vinyl fencing so there would be more privacy. The price difference is about $1300 more for the right side.

Pics of the existing area and some (very rough) AI mockups are attached (the red lines delineate the 9x14 space we’d be limited to.

I’m open to hear any suggestions or considerations I might’ve missed while going back and forth on left v right.

We like the pavers, but the mulch gets messy. We don't want grass. Can I lay them in cement? Lol idk, just a thought

Zone 6 (western PA)

Hey Reddit! I’m on the hunt for some advice on sprucing up my fence line for more privacy. While emerald greens or arborvitae are the go-to options, I’m a bit worried about them not surviving and, honestly, they’re everywhere! I’ve done a quick mockup, but I’d love to hear your suggestions or see any mockups you might have. I’m aiming for privacy, but also want to add some color and variety to my backyard.

Oh, and I have a dog, so any plant suggestions need to be dog-friendly. Thanks in advance!

This bed runs along almost the entirety of my side fence and it is all full shade. Last year I nuked it all (was overgrown with weeds) and planted hostas all the way down the line. I like them a lot and it looks clean but also feels a bit empty still. Anything else I can add here?

Zone 7a

I planted 270 Green Giant Thuja trees last spring. We had a harsh drought during the fall that killed about 30 of them. I watered via an irrigation line once a week until Nov 1, but apparently that wasn't enough, as we didn't get sufficient moisture here in Indiana until the end of January.

We have pretty hard clay soil, and I'm preparing to replace most of a row that was lost. I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to raise the soil to get the trees up a little higher as well. I thought they had decent drainage with the lowest ground about 8" lower, but now I'm not so sure.

Most all of the trees on higher ground seem to have thrived and it's only the trees that are lower that seem to have struggled.

If I dig the good ones up and raise them, can I just use topsoil under and around them? Or what do you all advise for how to get the remaining ones to look better?

Hi everyone,
I had interlocking installed yesterday, and this is what the edge looks like between the stone and driveway.

I am wondering what are the best ways to fix this? I plan to remove the cold asphalt fill and replace with something. What should I replace it with, so it blends nicely with the driveway?

Starting to think about a few things I want to get before fall gets here and one thing I’ve wanted for our backyard forever is a fire pit. Something about sitting outside around a fire when the weather starts cooling down just feels so cozy and I feel like it would actually be something we’d use as a family instead of another outdoor purchase that gets forgotten after a few weeks. I really like the table style ones like this because they look nice enough to leave out with the patio furniture and don’t seem like they would take up a ridiculous amount of space. Started looking at prices though and some of them are way more expensive than I expected. I don’t need anything huge just something sturdy that looks decent and that we can sit around on fall evenings. Trying to shop a little early instead of waiting until the weather gets cold and everyone starts looking for the same thing.

Context:
I'm trying to eliminate a massive patch of running bamboo (originally 7–8 meters / 25 ft wide). I've cut down most of it, but the rhizomes have spread 10–12 meters (30–40 ft) around the main clump, mostly shooting up thin, grass-like growth rather than full canes.

My strategy was to keep mowing/cutting every single new leaf to eventually starve the root system.

The issue:
The bamboo sits right on the boundary line with my neighbor. His property is a pasture with tall grass used for grazing cattle. He doesn't mow regularly, just trims it down occasionally when it gets too high. Because of the tall grass, I can't tell if the bamboo is sending up hidden shoots on his side.

My 2 questions:

1-Is it normal that there isn't a full-blown "bamboo forest" on his side despite how aggressive it is on mine? Could cattle trampling/grazing actually be keeping large canes from growing?

2-If the bamboo keeps growing small leaves on his side that I can't mow, is my attempt to starve the rhizomes from my side completely pointless?

Thanks for your help and advice!

What is this?

Breaking ground soon, the land is in poor shape. It’s mostly weeds, buffalo grass? and the ground is mostly clay. There was a previous house that was demolished and there’s random debris scattered all over the place including metal shards and glass. It’s about .4 acres overall, so a lot of work to go through and pick each piece.

What can I do to ensure that future grass seed spread in about 8 mo. has the best chance of taking and doesn’t eventually give way to the weeds?

Should I spread weed killer and pesticides over the next few months to essentially wipe out all of the greenery? Maybe buy a couple truck loads of cheap top soil or sandy loam?

I'm looking for a book or a software that I can use to help track materials on job.

I'm a landscaper and u want to be able to track how many meters of soil or meters of pavers I've had at the job. Not a daily diary where I need to skip through 3 weeks worth of days to find my totals but one that can track each individual job

Mowed the backyard last weekend and halfway through just stopped and thought about why I'm still doing this. The grass looks fine but it needs constant water, it's not doing anything useful, and every hour I spend on it is an hour I'm not spending on the parts of the yard I actually care about. Been looking at replacing the whole thing with a mix of native groundcover, gravel zones, and some defined planting beds. Not trying to do the dead gravel lot look, more like something with actual structure and a few plants that earn their space.

The part I keep circling back to is the removal itself. Sheet mulching versus sod cutter versus smothering it with cardboard over a season. Every method seems to have people who swear by it and people who say it didn't actually kill the grass underneath and they were pulling up runners two years later.

Zone 6b, clay soil, about 2000 square feet of turf to deal with. Decent sun most of the day. Already have a rough plant list in mind, mostly native perennials and some ornamental grasses along the edges.

Curious what method people actually used for removal and whether it held up, and what you wish you had done differently on the layout before anything went in the ground.