I’ve made a mistake and assumed the house was square which it’s not as you can tell by the black pavers it protrudes a little bit. I laid the pavers directly against the stucco so that was my other mistake. Ive only laid about 70 sq feet so should I lift and reset them square or continue as is? I feel like lifting and relaying would be easier the making all those angled cuts. Or am I being to hyper focused

advice? thank you

: so, I had gotten as far along in the job that one side of garage walk was completed but needed improvment and I was working on the other side of the garage while I noticed comments and took advice and so, the update I have to share is both good and disappointing, to me at least. For context, I had to juggle my time between working on one site for this client, and drive the ' boyfriend' around to any sites in town that he took on to work at mowing lawn or spring cleanups etc

He got a DUI ten years ago and hasn't gotten his life together to drive himself. There's alot of other factors but don't want to voice them here, point is, shortly after I posted the pictures and had gone back to the site, there was about four days that I didn't attend to her needs building the patio, and she run into a different contractor that used to live on her street. They made an agreement for him to take over and complete the project to her timeline. He said one week.

Yes I was hurt, disappointed that I was not able to complete the project. After processing this, I understand her thinking and wanting the job done... And the reality is the job come out good. And I love that the vision I had, which I drew into pictures by hand, actually made it into a tangible sight. She's happy and I did get some experience.! Even the sidewalk that I did first was taken out and something different replaced it but it's because of the property line adgacent and had nothing to do with faulty install!

Overall I'm happy she's happy, and it does look nice. Here are some pics.

1. Repeat customer, built in. Plant it, bill it, replant it in five years.
2. Soil moisture early warning system. Too wet, it browns. Too dry, it browns. Cheaper than a sensor.
3. One gets sick, all fifteen go brown together. Never uneven. Looks great in the fall.

Any other reasons?

Started this project with my wife a month before our wedding back in May. It took a little longer than we anticipated with the passing of my mother and the quarry taking a bit on the stone.

Went with an open grade base of 3/4” clean stone with 3/8” chip to bed and infill. The geombrame probably overkill but wanted to separate with loamy subgrade and added support for 1.5” thick bluestone.

Hopefully we can add a mudroom and front facing door in the future. Lurked here for a while, just want to say thank you for everyone’s contributions and advice. Any suggestions or feedback for the future is welcome, most of the natural stone in the mulch beds came from the house or semi-local project sites. Replanted alot of the vegetation and added a few new ones.

Really happy with how it turned out though and like to believe we retained some of the magic of the house era and carport. Can’t say I love english ivy and definitely don’t love ripping it out by hand.

UPDATE/EDIT:
Wow did not expect this level of praise and feedback and thank you so much to everyone, also those of you who offered your condolences. My mother did make it to the wedding and was one of the happiest times I’ve ever seem her. This was her 4th battle with cancer and she held on to make it to our day even knowing that she was ready to go. Deeply miss her and this project definitely helped us navigate that.

My wife and I are both pretty nerdy, shes a data analyst in sales and I’m a geotechnical engineer that grew up doing farm labor. We chose DIY for cost reasons and because I love a good outdoor project. Not really sure how much research and labor time we put into this as it started with ripping out alot of ivy ~500 sq ft and finding a random unknown abandoned utility (most like old sewer), in addition to mulching the whole yard, patching up a drain and converting the daylight into a swale and a bunch of other odds and ends.

For the walkway specifically material/equipment costs as follows:

~$600 - Plantings were all either repurposed or sourced locally from mom n pop nurseries, keep in mind we planted the other side of the driveway too. Doesnt include the waterfall maple and hinoki also planted nearby.

$300 - Various hand tools, wheelbarrow, strings, stakes, bubble levels

$200 - 2 cubic yards 3/4” stone (local nursery, delivered)

$210 - 2 cubic yards 3/8” stone (local nursery, delivered)

$200 - 5 cuyd hardwood mulch (local nursery, delivered)
Ordered 10 cuyd for whole house used half here

$600 - Corten Steel Edging, used EdgeRight, something like 80 linear feet with ends 8” height. This allowed me a solid embedment and reveal to limit mulch blowing over and decent reveal leftover for aesthetics. My subgrade was prepped lower to get at least 4-6” base

Free - Non- Woven Geotextile, Carthage Mills FX-60HS, ~500 sq ft, this was leftover from a project site for foundation subgrade segregation spec’d for a separator between the base structural fill and select non frost susceptible structural fill. Contractor had leftover and I didnt give him a hard time during construction.

$100 - Wacker Vib Plate Tamper daily rental Hone Depot

$100 - 2 Volt Mini Landscape Spot Lights Low Voltage

$310 - 8pk Hampton Bay Low Voltage Jemison Path Lights, wanted to go Kichler but dont have that kinda money, Home Depot

$100 - 200W Smart Transformer Hampton Bay HomeDepot

$150 - 200 LF 12/2 Landscape Wiring Low Voltage

$150 - About 30 additional jumbo belgian block to continue against the driveway past the walkway.

$300 - custom sign and lettering (Mod Mettle), Molly did a fantastic job here

$1.2k - And last but not least for natural thermal sawn 1.5” thick bluestone, one shape was custom cut and cost me $400 (last trapezoid), went natural because the pines drop needles and true blue would have been too clean to the point where any needles would look dirty, so natural is a more warm look that blends.

All in $4.5k, but maybe forgetting something, goal was under $5k.

I have a CAD license so did the layout there and sent a copy to the supplier (Chicks Bloc) and quarry/cutter (Meshoppen Stone)

The blocks will definitely move at least a little. There’s a few inches of gravel below them but it’s not lower than the frost depth in my area, so they will heave up when it gets really cold. And I didn’t use mortar between them, I just used masonry adhesive. All admit his isn’t my finest work.

I think I may also replace the gravel in the middle of the steps with river rocks.

So far I’ve extended my garden bed, replaced the beams that were rotted out, and added French drains running from underneath each set of beams (drainage stone not pictured) because we had flooding issues.

French drains are working, but clearly I still need something to keep in the dirt (and mulch once added). I was looking at 5” dig-in landscape edging, but I’m pretty new to this and wasn’t sure if there was a better alternative.

Any recommendations?

Any ideas on how to clear all this pine straw without just doing a rake and bags. We just inherited this house a few months ago and it’s a wonderful lot that we’ve been blessed with but lord it’s a lot of pine straw and tree coverage!

No grass and heavy pine trees that we’ll deal with eventually just looking for a cost effective solution to clear the yard right now

Thank you

Hello !

We fixed the water leaks coming from the old terrace, which sloped toward the house.

Thoughts? How to improve ?

Thanks !

I´m an architect by trade but I recently got my first proper landscaping gig, after doing many architectural landscape projects I thought it was time to get into plant selection.

Clients wanted a succulent garden in a very specific area hence the rectangular shape and this shows an initial proposal of cacti for the red hatch zones, the rest are a mix of succulents , agaves, etc. I also presented lists of plants matching their symbols on the plan, the second image is substrate layers, or heights. Hope that in a few months I can show it off fully planted 🥇

Holes only seem to be in the top leaves - none in the bottom ones!

We bought our house a few years ago and have been slowly fixing it up.
About this retaining wall: Our house was built in the 80s and has this retaining wall that goes all the way down the side of our property from the backyard to the front yard. The rock wall is original to the house and I’m assuming is created with rocks that were dug up during construction.
We live in Texas and basically live on top of a bunch of limestone rock.
That area of our yard is mostly shaded so is pretty humid and moist.

I love our rock retaining wall as it looks very natural, but I am terrified of what probably lives behind it. So I never go over there.
I saw an opossum crawl back there a few years ago (where the yellow circle is) and more recently, a toad, so I love that it could be keeping critters safe, but I also know that there are likely tarantulas and snakes back there.
My 2 year old daughter was laughing her head off at a coral snake that was slithering by a few months ago and that got me thinking about it. (Thankfully coral snakes are timid but it did give me pause).
I also wonder if it is a space for mosquitos to breed.
I know they hang out in there, but I definitely would like to avoid giving them places to breed.

My question is: what do you all think I should do with the retaining wall? Leave it as is? Try to reset it with less gaps?

Hi, I posted about a landscape patio build I did for the first time, and I have no clue how to update the original post, so I'm trying this way.

My first solo install of a patio cement walkway for a client.

I was clearing out some brush earlier and noticed this hole right beside the sump pipe. No leaking in the basement or moisture. I haven’t heard the sump go off. Any suggestions?

We had a boulder seating area placed on a slope in our yard. We contracted for a flagstone patio to be placed. Initially it looked ok but expressed concern that the stones were placed too far apart and not cut to fit a little more closely. Job finished last week but the polysand was not installed properly. I couldn’t even put anything on it without it crumbling/collapsing. So the guys came out and tore out the stones and reset them with some larger ones but still placed them with some gaps over 4 inches. They reapplied the sand yesterday and now I’m concerned it was watered too much because it’s still really soft and there are spots where it washed out the sand and it looks sloppy. I don’t think this will last at all and it will be impossible to keep chair legs off the sand. I’m considering ripping out all the sand myself and just using something else. I might even take it all out and just put pea gravel or something. Was told we shouldn’t use mortar because it will crack with freeze and thaw. Any ideas? I like the way it looks but I regret not going with something more durable or more low maintenance.

Summer crunch is over and leaf season hasn’t hit yet. People might actually have a minute for this one.

Not asking about the ones that were somebody else’s fault. Everybody’s got a bad luck story, like a client who swore up and down there was nothing buried in that corner.

I mean the ones that were on you. You were booked solid and running behind, so you rushed something you’d normally take your time with. Or you put a newer guy on a machine before he was really ready because nobody else was free that morning.

Doesn’t have to be a line you hit. Could be a machine or somebody’s siding. What’s yours, and how did you end up settling it?

Some of my well established Arbs have turned yellow. Next step death and removal. I'm seeing more and more in my area as well. We had a longer than usual drought period this summer so that must be it. Water your Arbs.

I bought a house last year and there’s a moderately sized pine planter in the front no more than 6ft from the house. I don’t know what kind of pine it is but I can’t imagine it staying smaller than 50ft long term.

Should I bite the bullet now and have it removed? Could I keep it there by trimming it and stunting its growth? Could it reasonably be moved instead of torn down?

Thank you for your responses.

I own the property on both sides of this fence. Previous owner (a proud diWHYer) installed these cinder blocks immediately against the fence, presumably as a misguided attempt at a retaining wall. They’re gradually migrating downwards, and some are pressing quite hard against the fence already.

They slope they’re on is quite gradual, and just leads down into a ditch as shown in the second photo. My instinct tells me these blocks aren’t really doing anything except very slowly destroying the chain link fence, and I’m wondering if I could just pull them out and let the ground gradually settle however it wants. Probably also throw some topsoil on there with some grass seed to level it a bit and merge it with the surrounding yard.

Am I missing something about this? Is it actually doing something important that would be catastrophic if removed? Let me know if more info or pictures are needed.

I live in California and El Niño is coming. My backyard is going to turn into a mud pit. I have a big 75 lb dog so he ruins most nice things….if you had like $1000-$2000 what would you put down with the dirt area to make it nicer? I will do all the work myself.

Thanks!

I'm not a landscaper, so im not sure, but isn't this backwards?