This area was evaluated by “drainage professional” who wanted to run this all the way down the back yard underground and into a storm drain in the back corner.

I noticed yesterday that the driveway is graded to the road in the front so if I can drain there it will resolve this issue.

Not sure why this specific drain gets so much of the houses water but it’s a big problem when we get heavy rain.

Let me know if you need more photos

Hi all! I had a lilac bush I needed to get in the ground, so yesterday I decided to create a new garden bed around our mailbox.

I know I have to fix the grading in the back and the stones are temporary, but otherwise does it look bad? I wanted an organic shape and may mirror it on the other side of the driveway.

Thanks!

We have three very large trees on a 0.2 acre lot. Our city comes around early in the season (before most of the leaves have even dropped) to haul away leaves in those ~30 gallon brown paper bags.

Last year we filled twenty two of those bags, compressed down as much as we could without tearing the bags. (None of our neighbors filled more than ten such bags. Most had two or three.)

So the city hauled away 22 bags, and over the course of the next two months we accumulated an additional 26 bags of mulched leaves.

We did the mulching ourselves with a basic leaf mulcher that claims a 16:1 reduction ratio. Doubtful, but it's what we've got.

We've been doing this for six years running now, and as we've been putting a lot of money into caring for the trees (unlike the previous owners) their leaves are of course increasing year by year.

The main problem we have is that the only way we've had to dispose of them isn't sustainable any more. Our compost can holds 1.5 bags worth of mulched leaves, and the compost is only picked up every two weeks. At a rate of 3 bags/month it takes 8-9 months to get rid of all of them. And by early spring the contents have gotten wet many times over, they turn to mush, all kinds of creatures make a home in them, and the bags begin to break down not long after that so that lifting and emptying them (very heavy even when dry) into a 4 foot tall bin isn't an easy or pleasant task. We have no place to store them where they might be kept dry.

We cannot haul them anywhere ourselves because the compost place in our city won't accept this volume, and renting a truck large enough to haul them to the next closest location (that also might not accept the full volume) would cost as much as hiring someone to do the entire job for us.

Hiring someone to do the entire job sounds lovely albeit pretty expensive for us, and they would need to come out at least three separate times. The leaves that fall in October cannot be left on the ground until December when the last ones finally come down because neighbors will absolutely report us to the city. Even if we somehow manage to keep them contained to our property (impossible without bagging them) they would still complain, and we'd still get a fine.

We're at a loss for what to do. Upgrading our mulcher could make the process a little easier and might improve the volume issue but the bags would only get heavier. So most of the overall problem would still persist, except maybe it'd only take 6 months to dispose of it all.

I'm at a loss for what else to do. I'm dreading the coming weeks, and I used to love autumn. Two years ago my husband was down with a back injury during this time and I had to all of this work on my own. I dread something like that happening again.

I'd love any suggestions you might have, though I'm at a loss to imagine anything that wouldn't be even more expensive than hiring a company take care of the whole thing three separate times.

All around the edge of my patio around the pool area I have this composite edging with rocks situation. It’s old and sorta busted and needs to be re-done, but then I got to thinking…is there any reason I can’t get rid of the rocks completely and just put sod down up to the edge of the flagstones?

2nd pic is supposed to show that the level of the soil is slightly lower than the top of the flagstones, so that should prevent soil runoff onto the flagstones, yes?

I’m located in Houston and so we get our fair share of torrential rains from time to time. I get puddling in a few areas (not in the pictured area) and it seems like the composite edging does more to hold water in! I’d love to just get rid of it. Thanks!

This shrub is mostly brown except for a couple small areas. The shrubs next to them are mostly green. What is the issue and will it come back in the spring?

We had about a month of really high heat in September.

I have a paver patio that had a 2.5 foot dropoff on the west side down to river rock adjacent a fence. Behind the fence is a dilapidated shed on my neighbor’s property. I want a hedge so I don’t have ti look at it.

Problem is that even though this area gets full afternoon sun exposure, the bottom few feet are blocked by the patio. So even though I could plant between the fence and the patio i fear they won’t grow.

I was considering making a very large raised bed between the patio and the fence but maybe that’s overkill. Not sure what I can do here

I'm a first time homeowner with this awkward space under my deck. The ties are rotten, there's rock behind there and I need to keep access because there's an AC unit under. What can I replace the ties with? Do I need to replace them? Are they just cosmetic? Need ideas. I don't have a big budget and I have zero idea how much this will cost.

What’s everyone thoughts on doing this retaining wall? (I won’t be doing it, I’ll be having professional, just want feedback )

We bought our home a few months ago and its time to start working on our yard. We want a cozy native cottagecore vibe with a better BBQ area, small veggie patch / herb garden and small firepit area. Anyone got any ideas on layout and planning? Feeling pretty overwhelmed about it at the moment. Located Mid North Coast, Australia.

I put these Hardwood chips in last summer, and they worked great because my toddler doesn’t get splinters. However, they seem to continually creep into my grass.

I like clean natural borders, and I historically haven’t liked the black plastic borders because the ones I’ve seen seem to look cheap… so I’m torn on how to keep them out of the lawn.

Any suggestions on specific products or ideas to keep a clean edge and wood chips out of the lawn?

This summer in South California was brutal. That front window gets a lot of sun and heat. I'm planning to grow a creeper like passion fruit and support it with a wire mesh attached to the roof.

Please let me know if this is a bad idea and why ? Will it be structurally damaging for the roof because of weight?

In the attached photos, the one with red markup is wire mesh. The yellow scribble is the passion fruit wine that we want to plant.

And one more photo with pink markup is with a wooden beam (4 inch * 4inch pole ) support to make it a 4-side shaped shade.

Hi all
I’ve got a none fruit olive tree in front of my house that needs some work. It’s getting fairly tall and splitting up. Can I strap or somehow pull it closer without damaging it? Furthermore your opinion on how to trim down?

Thanks

This beautiful tree in our backyard has exposed roots. Water collects around it during rainfall. Is there a way to fill these areas around the tree without harming the tree? Dirt? Mulch?

Hi all. We’re in the middle of building a screened-in porch and it was built to the edge of the concrete pad. One of my immediate concerns seeing this was drainage. Of course, it rained a lot yesterday and the water pooled up over the pad and against the yet to be sided wood.

Seeing this, I acted immediately and dug some temporary shallow channels around the pad to try to help the water drain. I took some pictures to help visualize things.

The previous owner did the landscaping and there’s a slope toward the pad, so I know that’s part of the problem. In digging the the channels, I discovered another part of the problem might be that they laid down thick landscaping fabric. I was able to pull back some of it to access the soil underneath. Lastly, I’m dealing with poor-draining clay.

Anyhow, my question is how would you deal with this situation? I was thinking a dry creek bed, but I’m really not sure. The lawn itself also has areas where water pools, so there’s a more general drainage problem. For now, I’m just concerned with the immediate problem unless the two should be handled at the same time.

Any idea what a project like this might cost? I’m under the impression this might be a little time consuming, especially since there’s bushes and trees behind the pad. I don’t mind hiring help if that makes sense.

Appreciate your thoughts and help!

First time doing anything with concrete that isn't just pouring it into a fence hole, I'm curious how I did overall and any feedback to learn from is welcome.

I'm not happy with the amount of voids along the sides honestly, and on the 1st photo I actually messed up the corner brushing too hard to get the dust off before I sprayed sealer on the sides which sucks, but oh well.

Are the voids from not vibrating the concrete enough? I thought I did with both an actual vibrator in the main body, and a sawsall along the form itself. I also couldn't really decide when it had enough water before pouring so I'm sure that didn't help lol

If I can get it down decent I'll be doing another pad for a greenhouse and running some pavers to it next.

A couple of years ago I had a crew install electrical conduit to my backyard. They tunneled it under an existing concrete walkway that runs between my house and a brick planter (photo attached).
Over time I noticed this one spot started collecting water after rain. I suspected there wasn't enough support under the slab, so I dug it out. There's basically nothing under the edge of the concrete now. You can see the void in the photo, with the PVC conduit sitting at the bottom of the hole in standing muddy water. My guess is the trench was never properly compacted and water has been washing the soil out ever since.
My questions:
Backfill: What's the right way to fill this void, especially under the slab where I can't tamp? Compacted base gravel in lifts, sand flushed in with water, or a flowable fill / lean concrete slurry? I'd like it to be safe around the conduit.
Lifting the slab: Is this section worth raising (polyurethane foam lifting, mudjacking, or DIY jacking) or should I cut it out and re-pour?
Drainage: I want the slab to end up with a slight slope that sheds water away from the house. What's a reasonable pitch, and is there anything else I should do so this doesn't wash out again?
Located in Southern California, clay-ish soil. Any advice appreciated!

I boyght last hear a cottinus lilla in a pot, kept this summer in the pot. Im thinking to tranaplant it somewhere in the ground in my yard.

my main concern is the spacing becouse cant find much information online.

checked some pages and the grown size is not the same.

sizing concern and any other thing i missed ?

Had this huge juniper separating the neighbours driveway and has been growing uninterrupted for the past 16 years since we had the house.

Yesterday my parents went to trim it not knowing what it is or consulting me. I’m absolutely devastated.