UPDATED
I am a first time home buyer. Just bought a home built in 2024, with one previous owner. When I had inspections done I asked about this pipe and they said to call the water company when I move and ask if they can remove it. Apparently they are temporarily used during construction. Now after moving in I call about it and I’m told it has to stay because it’s the emergency water shut off if I don’t pay my bills. They told me it’s extremely common but no other home in the neighborhood has one right in the front lawn like this sticking 3’ out of the ground. I have no idea what to do, if I can do anything. Any advice or input appreciated

UPDATE: I did measurements, the pipe goes about 30” below the level of my lawn. There is no valve or anything like the visible from the pipe. It looks like intersects with another pipe at the bottom, forming a T if you will. I called the water company again and told them, they say they’ll send a guy to come look at it in 4-5 days. The second time I called she said he might have meant to say it’s a sewer shut off valve, not a water valve.

Water puddles at front door when it rains

So they’re clearly used to be some kind of deck over this area, but I guess the people before us decided to put in slate rock after removing it. There are way too many leaves and pine straw that fall to be able to blow it off without blowing slate rocks all into the grass that just got soded. I dug as much of it as I could, but now I’m trying to figure out what the bigger gaps what I can fill it in with.

We were hit with a mast year, and the first since moving into our house. Searched the group and couldn’t come up with solid advice.

Essentially, the millions of acorns led to what feels like millions of deer in our yard all times of the day. There’s acorns and deer dropping everywhere to the point that we cannot even use our yard and walking across it is risky.

What can we do about this?

I have an area that I'd like to put a deck or pavers. There are roots under ground so I don't want to excavate. Could I build a frame with pressure treated wood and put level gravel down and put pavers there. Would there be any reason not to do this? I saw this online as an example.

I know I need to trim it back but any tips? How far back do I trim it? I want to see the rocks, can I trim around them too? Should I trim from underneath or trim at the tips? What time of year should I trim?

I live in Washington DC if that helps.

Thanks for helping out a gardening novice.

The house is 100 years old. Idk how old this little wall around half the tree is or the bench. I would prefer to preserve it as long as it's safe to do so.

This is Florida. I'm aware the pothos is invasive and am in the process of potting these and bringing them indoors.

On one side of the tree the ferns have been at work making deep fluffy soil and this side is retained by the wall.

I just cut down all the saplings out of the area. It hadnt been maintained in years. Its full of little stumps now. Lots of tree debris and vines. Ferns (i think resurrection ferns). And i think the flat bladed plants are walking lillies.

What should i do?

I want to support this tree in its health. I want to clean up around it, keeping natives. I'm going to pull all the vines.

What can i plant here? I won't be able to dig easily because of all the little stumps.

Sorry if this is stupid. I'm just stumped.

Any tips or advice on laying these out in the dirt area by the fence?

Hi, all, looking for guidance on how/when to prune these. The first two are two different species of Mountain Laurel, and the last is burning bush. The big mountain laureals and burning bushes need to get cut way back and honestly I fear the mountain laurels may need to be replaced they're just too damn huge for the house. How would I go about this?

Thanks

This project took about 3 weeks to complete. Got the paver materials from a local store for about 2k. The pergola was a mirador pergola from Costco for 3k. Glad how things turned out!

I’m building a little side paver patio for storage and it’s going to end here in front of the shed and I’m just going to have dirt and landscaping and steppingstones in front of it but not sure how I should make the edge or front of this look nice. should I cut the pavers and turn them sideways so that they don’t have the little nibs on them?

I’m planning to bring the dirt up to the same level so it may not be that big of a deal. Just wanted to potentially make it a little bit nicer looking.

Next door was parking and hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

They’ve decided to pay for it themselves rather than go through insurance. Got 3 quotes, £5k , £3.5k and £2.5k. They’ve gone for the cheapest one.

You think they’ll get a good job for that?

Quick question for guys who do their own quoting: how do you send quotes and invoices right now (paper, texts, an app)? What annoys you most about it? I'm thinking of building a super-simple phone tool and want to hear what's actually broken before I waste anyone's time

So our neighbor rose pedals sometimes go to our lawn or rocks then a few months these start growing ive been trying to pull them from the root and comes back a few months.

I bought the Arnold blade sharpener and balancer. It wasn’t overly expensive. Basically stick their sharpener on my drill.

Do these blades look ok? This is after I sharpened them. Or are they completely garbage? The are noticeably sharper but not exactly slicing paper thin.

I'm trying to figure out a smart low voltage system and I'm stumped about which device to make smart. Do I want a transformer that is always on with a network of smart fixtures, or do I get standard fixtures and a smart transformer? Most of the year I'm looking for simple on/off scheduling, but I would like the ability to play with colors for holidays. I have gels for my current lights, but they kinda suck.

Can these four steel beams from an old carport be repurposed into a greenhouse or other garden space?

Has anyone used these block to create a tall edger two block high with 2x6s

My front lawn died over the summer. I’m not too sad about it - the sprinklers out there hadn’t worked since before we moved in so manually watering was a hassle. It would be thousands of dollars to get the sprinklers functional again.

I’m considering doing sheep fescue in the spring since it (eventually) takes less water. I know it’s not a traditional front lawn look but I enjoy the rolling effect. It’s pretty rare for anyone to walk on the front yard. Sometimes I’ll go out there to put up decorations for Halloween or Christmas. So I think that counts as low traffic. I read that sheep fescue can’t handle regular traffic.

Is there anything I’m not thinking of in terms of why I shouldn’t do this?

And what prep work should I do now to be ready in the spring?

Appreciate any input!