r/LandscapingTips

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?

I want to put some bamboo screening around the bed against the brick wall. ChatGPT is advising to leave a bit of an air gap between the wall and the screen. It’s advised to put posts and batons against the wall (with a slight gap using spacers) and tie the screen to the batons with some cable. I don’t want to drill holes in the wall as it’s not our house. Should I use postcrete or just tamp soil around the posts? Any other tips? Thanks

Please roast my design

Yellow = Deconstructed Granite/Loose Gravel

Grey = Concrete

Green = Grass

Brown = Planting Area

Hi everyone, I am currently designing the backyard of my house, I am working with a blank canvas and I'm looking for a create a design similar to areas of Mill Valley, and Sausalito area. aka a Rectilinear Modern design to the backyard, and am putting in concrete next week!

I'm currently not confident in my dimensions overall, and feel that the back of the patio being 3 feet only seems a bit short, as well as the deconstructed granite pathway to the patio to be too long, I did not do 6 feet for the back planting area as I felt that it would make the trapezoid shaped a lot small, and I'm concerned that there's too much concrete, possibly surrounding the house.

I'm also not sure what to do about the area on the right, I wanted to do a walkway, but it also seems a bit awkward being a trapezoid shape, maybe planting bed there in the future?

I've been to Palo Alto, Mill Valley, and Sausalito to reference from different neighborhoods to curate this design so far, and the last thing I don't know is really the overall dimensions and how they will play into one another as a sum.

Such as how does a 5 vs 6 foot garden bed look beside a 4 foot path versus a 3 foot path for the back area, and what tone does that create.

I'd want the planting area to overlap into the patio a little bit so the design feels more cohesive overall, but I don't know how much the dimensions I currently have will allow for that to happen.

I've also considered separate steps (3'X6')spaced, 2 inches apart, but I found the walkability and functionality of the steps to be very annoying and unnecessary other than being an aesthetic choice.

I have this bare area next to my house that I’ve added subtle grading to. What could I plant (or place) on it that’s not grass? I’ve heard mulch isn’t good to have next to a foundation. So I’m thinking stone or some type of groundcover? My main priority is keeping rainwater and moisture away from the foundation.

I’m a first time homeowner so I very much appreciate any and all insight!

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.

I have a long, narrow section of yard beside the house which remains damp almost all year round.
I can easily dig down a couple of feet.
The moist soil up against the bricks and foundation concerns me. You can see the moss that’s been growing there for some time.
There’s also a challenging level drop at the end where the door to the garage is.

What are my immediate options for dealing with this?

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.

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.

We think about placing a pool in our yard… where would you place it? Any pros around? :-)

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.

Planning for next spring blooms and would love to use my front yard. I have some soil amendments and worm castings and was planning to seed with clover until late fall. Is it worth loosening up the top layer before adding anything? Should I get a hand tiller? Rake? Hoe?

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!

Still have a few bags of mulch left but u can see the look ....103 degrees outside....plants don't dig that...

Not comfortable with AI to enter pictures of the house into it. Please help me think of landscape ideas for this large lot with broken sprinklers.

A water-saving solution with curb appeal would be great. Still deciding if this is a DIY project or if we hire someone. Would love to make big improvements for less than $2000.

The grass grows and browns quickly, and the weeds even quicker, especially on the verge between the sidewalk and the street. I’d like to keep some greenery with less of it requiring mowing. Large hedge on the the left corner of the lot that gathers trash from passersby :(

There’s also a little patch that we don’t know what to do with between the driveway and the neighbors lot. What makes sense there besides the trash cans?

Zone 6a, south facing, at least 8 hours of direct sun a day.

Any ideas what to plant for low maintenance? It's opposite kitchen door my dog will use this as a toilet if I leave it as is!

Just spent the weekend removing all our blackberry bushes (everything except for the rootballs). I have a bad back and we really can’t afford to hire someone to dig them all up….its a huge area. What are good tips for how to make sure it won’t come back that will also allow us to plant in this section come October. The empty sections are what we removed. Still have to haul it away. It was all along the fence and the entire “empty” looking area. I removed a very small amount of rootballs today and it didn’t even make the tiniest dent in it. I feel overwhelmed. My whole body is sore. I will throw out my back if I have to do this.

We have low retention wall going from waist to below knee height as the ground rises. Part of it is tipping and a section has fresh er brick already.

My thoughts are relief holes with rock/screen filter with pipe through the brick to allow water to drain out vs swell.

Or more in-depthly,

Excavate behind the wall, maybe build a French drain along the higher side, and brace the front with wood panels and use threaded rod or 2x4s against the curb side I can expand or shim out to push the wall back once the high side pressure is released.

Most other posts were more extreme and trended towards a replacement but also larger walls