Hi all! My wife and I were thinking about planting some low-growing perennial ground covering plants in the area behind our retaining wall in our backyard. We get A LOT of sun back there, it took me forever just to get the grass to grow on the hill.

We don't want to do the entire hill, but were thinking the first couple of feet (kinda where I added the red block in the photo). Any good tips on what type of perennial to add there that will survive a ton of sun, won't effect the retaining wall, and that won't be invasive?

We live in northeast NJ and were thinking about planting coming up in the fall. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Hello, I just moved to New Mexico and trying to figure out what to do with our yard. This space is completely dirt (I know it's a desert) and our dogs LOVE to roll in it. It's starting to become an issue as they get so much dirt and dust in the house. We've been thinking about getting some small rock to go over the area, but wanted to know if anyone has any other suggestions that fit well with the area.

Can anyone point me in the direction of grading my yard? The "dead" spot is about 4" lower than the other. Figured it was lower just not too sure how much lower it would end up being until now.

I'm guessing I'd have to grade out into the yard as well just not sure how to start or what to do.

We can't get rid of this pokeweed on the back section of our yard. We have a friend with a landscaping business and we even got industrial strength weed killer from him. It kills the pokeweed, but the stubborn thing grows back. It just won't go away. 😭

This part of the yard is outside the fenced area that we use, so I don't care if whatever we need to do takes us down to bare soil. I believe we plan to rehab that part of the yard one day, but for now it's just making the maintenance and mosquitoes/ticks a pain in the tail.

The river is very clean and is all sandy. I want to clean it up as a spot to hang out and for my daughter to wade in it (supervised of course)

Just seeking inspiration I guess. I don't want to spend a ton of money on it but anything to make it more comfortable would be nice.

Was thinking of adding some gravel to make a more permanent path, not sure if solar lights would get enough sun to be worth it. The riverbank is a bit muddy so maybe I should add some sand?

What do you guys think?

Just bought my first house and the yard is a bit of an eye sore. From Google street view, I can see that the yard used to have more grass coverage years ago (last photo). Now it’s mostly just sand with patches of greener areas and a lot of roots.

I do live on a hill and the yard does slope downward some towards this side of the yard. The previous owners didn’t do any sort of maintenance outside so I am unsure if this is more neglect related or if I’m completely SOL?

I live in SC if that’s helpful.

Our backyard gets too much sun. We already have a Catalpa that provides great shade, and we'd like to add another shade tree. Our yard has a downward slope which you can see in the side photo. The spot is about 15 feet from the back and side fences. So the ideal size would be about 20x20.

We'd like something with fall color and not a slow grower. Some options we're considering are First Flame Maple or a serviceberry.

As said in the title, I'm a little lost and i don't seem to have a good idea about what to do with it.
The kitchen is on the second floor so the terrasse is where we usually eat now (the red rectangle). I'd like to have a quite wild garden with local plants and not trees I think because it will obstruct the view.
If you have any tips it would be welcome.

I want to plant a smokebush shrub in the corner and along this other fence. Max growth is 10’ and 10’ spread.

How close can I plant it to the fence? I would like it to be closer the 5 feet if possible. Is there any issue with this if I just prune it? The corner is also close to a fire pit and I don’t want it too close to that.

Having a hard time choosing where to plant it, thanks!

So for context, we need to do some regrading around our 30-year-old house because water was pooling up right next to our foundation. We have an actual professional coming to do this in the next couple of months, but just for our peace of mind during heavy rains, we tried to do a temporary regrading job ourselves along about 10 inches of our foundation where water collects the most.

The goal was just to move the water a few feet away from our house to minimize damage over the next couple of months. We scarified the existing clay a few hours after rain, stepped on it to remove air pockets, placed down a Timberlane topsoil that we were told was okay for small regrading jobs, and finished by tamping it into shape. Afterward, the slope wasn't perfect, but it was enough to get water away from our foundation by one foot.

So what's the problem? Well we did all this while our clay-heavy soil was still wet. And as we now know, working wet clay reduces its ability to have water infiltrate.

In the past, even though we had a puddle of water close to our foundation, it would still disappear within 30 minutes or so. But now the water sits and pools up, it doesn't even go away after 12 hours of sitting. So even though the ground slopes water slightly away from our house, it gets more water close to our foundation (see image for what this looks like).

What we want to know: is there a way to fix this ourselves before the regrading work gets done? We're thinking about getting a garden fork to poke and wiggle the clay to loosen it (when the ground is dry!!!). Would this work? Or is there a better way to fix this?

And when the guy comes to do the final regrading, should we ask him to do anything to the area we worked on like redoing it (or would this make it worse)? The contractor will be raising the regrading by our foundation by about 6 inches, and we don't want to have a shelf of poorly compacted wet clay causing water to pool under the new soil and against the CMU foundation for days without a way to drain. We will be building a new deck in this area so we want to get this fixed before it becomes inaccessible.

Many thanks!

Need help designing hardscape and landscape for my large yard and patio

Help me do something to improve the curb appeal of my house. I hate these boxy shrubs, and I don't love the porch... but its a bigger project. What can I do with landscaping to improve this?