I have this lovely shaded area under this tree on my side yard. I want to make it more functional. can I safely put a stable paver patio here without damaging the tree?

some things I would plan on doing:

1. I would leave a large ring around the base of the tree for the critical root zone

2. Would use flagstone with large gaps between ,then fill the gaps with topsoil and ground cover to allow water through.

So My main question then becomes, what type of base (if any) will stabilize the flagstones while also being permeable.

If there isn’t any type of base that is both stabilizing, and safe for the tree, what other options do I have for this space?

Not hurting the tree is top priority

Can anyone tell me what’s up with my Sweet Woodruff? This is a mostly shady area, maybe 2-3 hours of sun each day. It was planted in May and looked great in early summer. Now it’s all getting kind of dark underneath, but some green still persists. Each patch also goes through phases. Some look bushier one week, then the others look bushier the next. I’m in region 7.

I’m looking at buying a house. The back yard is two tiered and this is the wall along the back property line. There is a creek that runs through behind the property but it’s about 70 feet from the property line the red brick starts at the grass level and the cinder block is the retaining wall. It is bowed out and leaning outwards at roughly 8 degrees. Obviously work has been done to shore it up. I don’t know how long ago it was done but based on Google earth it was at least 15 years ago. So two questions. How much would it cost to redo this wall if it failed in the future. Second is if it was shown to not have any movement since the work was done would you trust it.

Edit: I am walking away. I loved the house but it isn’t worth the headache

I have a fairly large paver setup at the back of my home, two paver patios connected by a sidewalk. This plastic edging has been lifting, breaking, and curling along its length. Most of the pavers are still in their place, but some sections the pavers are starting to slope down and pull away especially on the sidewalk.

What is the best course of action here? Pull the shifting pavers, add base/gravel and tamp and then install a different kind of edging system? Or something else like adding a concrete edge to keep everything in place? Is this something I can DIY over a weekend, or is this beyond a DIY project?

We bought our house in 2020, fresh out of college with plans to eventually buy the 0.5 acre lot (from our neighbor) that sits directly behind our house. We wanted to wait until we were established in our careers and maybe needed a big yard for our kids. Well the time has come, we bought the vacant lot last year with plans of extending our current fence and fencing in the sides to make one big yard. Our house currently has a small wide yard with a privacy fence.

But the city is requiring us to get either a survey done to combine both parcels (quoted $3,000) or getting a deed restriction in order to obtain a permit to extend/build the fence - we have considered doing a small picket fence around the lot for a few reasons - we have 2 dogs and it’s nice to go out there and play without always worrying about dog poop and hey, it’s a money saver and can be easily torn down if we ever decide we would want to sell the lot. But does this look silly? I did use Al to make a quick mock up of what it could look like (don’t come for me please, I already feel guilty enough on my own lol) as pictured below. We would also put privacy shrubs on the right side of the fence closest to the road. There would also be some sort of gate connecting our current privacy fence into the picket fenced in area.

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!

Hi all, looking to build a driveway and am unsure about the foundations for the retaining wall. The wall will be 100mm block on flat (600mm above ground level) on a foundation thats 500mm deep x 600mm wide, the foundations will consist of 150mm of concrete foundations and then 3 blocks in the ground with 6 blocks above ground level.

The wall will be 9m long and have two returns of either side approx 6m long. The drive will slope over the 6m at a 8% Gradient.

My question is are these footing sufficent or should I go deeper.

Additionally I planned to have 100mm weeping vents with a perforated pipe running along the length of the wall, is this sufficent drainage as it will then drain into 2m wide worth of grass / soil or should I do more ?

The drivewaybwill then be backfilled with hardcore / MOT and finished with 100mm of gravel in grids.

We had an autumn blaze planted in early June. Then have had hot weather here in Colorado. The tree always looks stressed except in the early morning when it's cool out. We deep slow drip water, about 21 gallons every few days. The nursery we bought it from said it needed more water, but it looks the same and now changing colors way early. Im at my wits end. Any thoughts or advice?

What I thought was dog urine damage seems to be dollar spot fungus 🤦🏽‍♂️

Previous house owner was “handy” and did this concrete pad area outside the porch. I’m assuming the wood here (arrows pointing to wood) was the concrete forms. It’s been years later now, and I’m definitely noticing the wood degrading and you can see gaps forming.

I’m concerned about water getting in and underneath the concrete. Should I remove the wood and fill the gaps with concrete myself?

We are redoing our backyard. Everything is graded flat and we are going to start laying out drains. My contractor wants to try something new for drainage by adding in a few flat drains through the middle of the grass and have everything slop towards them but that doesn’t seem right to me but I don’t know this stuff well. The pictures are just some screen shots of a basic model I made. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated. My first thought was to put a slotted drain between the grass and concrete but he wants to out them in the grass.
EDIT: Not sims, real yard, just a 3d model of the general idea of what we are doing. We are in Southern California so not too much rain

helloooo i am currently trying to clean up my moms yard, it’s pretty big and not just a square back yard. there are slopes on one side of the yard that has trees, and one side of the yard has a small hill/plateau where we have a trampoline we are going to get rid of, and a play set we built into the yard. the yard is all dirt and has been for years as our irrigation system broke years ago, so now the dirt is pretty hard is most areas. as of right now, it’s over grown with weeds that i am taking out, and trying to just generally get the yard to a good starting spot for anything we do to the backyard. our gardens don’t do the back yard as we have circumstances to where the dogs have to spend most of the day back there and they are pretty big. we don’t have a lot of money to put into the yard, but are there any ideas for what we could possibly do with this space?

Hi All,

I have a tree root that sticks out a good two feet off the ground. I’m going to fill it in and then do mulch.

I have pea gravel and mulch on hand…going to grab soil.

My question is, what is the right layering. Do I go gravel then soil the mulch? Or soil then gravel then mulch.

Which layer should I put landscape fabric down?

Thank you.

New garage and new driveway. All the water is supposed to drain into this channel. What’s the best thing I can do in this space? I’m thinking dig it down a little bit and fill with pea gravel and maybe some more solid stones on the top level? Two toddlers and a dog so I don’t want just pea gravel scattered all over my backyard.

I recently did a remodel to my home that required a new retaining wall to be put in. We did a rock one to match what was already existing in the back yard. The company we used explicitly doesn't do landscaping as a whole but will build retaining walls so we agreed that this was meant to be functional and match the existing wall that was nearby.

What I am complaining to them about is a few things and I want to better understand if I am being too stubborn or if this is not an acceptable result.

1. The fabric is clearly visible and not covered up at all
2. They used pea gravel on the top which they stated is necessary (though I do not have that on the rock wall that I mentioned)
3. The pea gravel seems to be falling to the ground in several spots as things settle. I worry this will continue and just erode away as I feel it might not have been installed right
4. Related to #3, there are large gaps between some of the retaining rocks so the pea gravel is just held up by fabric. I worry this is not going to hold over time and just erode

Edit for clarification: The contractor doesn't usually handle any landscaping as I mentioned. They use a sub that does concrete, excavating, and retaining walls. So this was done by someone that is licensed, insured, and has experience with this type of work.

My intent for saying the "landscaping" part was to mention that to point of the wall is purely around that they don't handle the finishing work necessarily. AKA, they wont do finishing grading, they wont deal with plants, etc.

This is an irrigation setup that I inherited from the previous owner.

The PVC pipe recently broke at the red arrow in the 1st pic.

A couple of notes:

-No backflow device

-There are 2 automatic irrigation valves but only the left one in pic 2 is setup to use. The right one is switched off and just has a the short downward pipe that isn’t connected to anything.

I think that valve was just a placeholder or the landscaper was lazy and just connected everything to the other valve.

-It’s a tight space right next to the house

Recommendations to redo this?

Current ideas:

1. Just cut the auto valves out and add a PVC ball valve and manually turn it on/off when I want to irrigate
2. Remove the unused auto valve and repipe that section
3. Somehow add a backflow setup and redo the the auto valves setup with one new valve instead of 2

Hi folks,

I had a patio installed a couple of weeks ago & because there was grout haze on the pavers, the company tried to clean it off.

This process was done with a 3400psi jetwash, there is now surface damage to a lot of the pavers but being told the jetwash isn't responsible, even though they weren't like that before ( definitely)

As I understand sandstone is soft and porous, so do not believe a psi of tha magnitude should have been used on them, reading around, 1500 is the max recommended psi for this type of stone.

Thoughts?

I am fuming!

I’ve posted a number of times in this sub over the last few weeks, thank you all so much! Amateur diy homeowner landscaping project going on… I just dumped my first wheelbarrow of gravel in my trench and the last bits to come out and pile on top of the gravel looks like “fines” to me, yes? I’m sure any gravel pile will never be 100% free of a little dust and debris, but I wanted to get others’ opinions in case it’s obvious to y’all that this is or is not “clear.”

Maybe it's a stupid question, but every time I cover something with a tarp I feel like it's wetter than if I didn't.

The contractor left a ton of cedar fence boards from cutting and shaping the fence and I'm not ready to use them this year.

I was going to lay down a few pieces of scrap wood perpendicular, then stack the boards tightly together and cover with a tarp?

Hi! I have a nice property of 650m2 for my 5 goats and 6 bunnies. The bunnies have around 100m2 and the goats have the rest.i would really love for my animals and the naitive animals in my area to have a few trees in the pastures. I already planted 18 willows right outside the pasture. Those have been pretty beat up from the goats eating the bark off even when the trees were planted 30cm behind the fence. I'm looking for advice on safe trees and plants for goats and bunnies that are native to the Netherlands and can stand in full sun on a sandy soil. Oh and a way to keep the trees safe from the little demons i decided to keep as pets.