My new arborvitae’s were planted about 10 days ago, watering regularly and keeping moist. The dirt has some clay-ish characteristics so it’s holding water well and I’m careful not to over water. Do I need to panic at the bottoms browning? I don’t want to lose my $1400 in trees due to ignorance on maintaining them.

Some animal or critter stops by every night to damage my newly planted lawn. I have a motion detector sprinkler but it does not seem to be deterred. There are no holes in the ground so I do not think it's coming from under the ground and I also have a gopher barrier. I have this area fenced so I do not think it's a big animal like a deer.

Does anyone know what this could be and how I can handle it.

Didn’t research enough and heed advice to avoid the unreliable emerald green arborvitae. Seeing all these posts about how bad Arborvitae are, making me feel silly. I’m learning.

In PNW, planted 8 emerald green 7-8’ B&B. Planted 3.5’ from fence line (maybe too close, short yard so I tried to maximize the space). About one year in and the two ends are dead. We did have a dry year, but maybe I’m just doomed anyways.

Am I wasting my time replacing the ends?
What is a good alternative to get 8-12’ height of coverage next to a fence? Skip laurel?

I just bought a bunch to plant in a row along the back of my property for privacy. I thought they were good because they’re native but now Im reading that they’re kinda a trash tree. I was going to plant them 12ft apart. Will I regret it?

Edit to add I’m in south east zone 8a piedmont region. Thought they were a good alternative to arborvitae.

Purchased a home 2 months ago and the woman who owned it was obsessive with planting. I mean at least 10 different beds around the yard obsessive. To a point where it’s impossible to keep up. Anyhow, I’m dealing with an overgrowth of wild garlic in the beds. Debating a complete dig out and restart on these beds. I’ll be making them much smaller if I do. Any suggestions on getting rid of the garlic? It’s everywhere

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.

I don't know if I should tag this as "humour", honestly.

The first picture shows the newly-laid path in red (which it shouldn't be) and the second one shows what was wanted and ordered (minus the dirt). Please ignore the scribbled words.

I was there when my elderly, mentally unfortunately not very fit mother asked the floorer to use "natural stone" similar to the one in the second picture.

The floorer brought a palette of stones and laid them now that I'm not in the country any longer. Before he was done and before my mother came to see the results of his work, it had started to rain. He said the stones were "reddish" because they were wet. They'd look like we'd wanted them to as soon as they'd dry.

That wasn't the case. Now he says they will lighten if given a bit (!) of time.

I'm not entirely sure that this is how stone works. Please help me understand, is he right in any capacity?

If he's blatantly lying, there's another issue. My mother adores this "poor, hard-working, innocent young man" and would never ask him, let alone demand of him, that he re-do his work. (She also won't show me the invoice, so I have no idea by how much he overcharged her for something that wasn't wanted in the first place.)

Is there a way we could get the stone tiles to look less ugly without exchanging them for another type of stone tile?

Thank you in advance!

Local nursery are selling these strongbox inkberry holly for $35.7/ea for a #10 pot. My concern is they were mass grown and very close together so they fought for sunlight and became leggy basically defeating the purpose of the full look they are supposed to provide

How would you go about leveling this. Just got the deck redone. I no longer want the grills on the deck so decided to create a small paver patio. I’ve never done this and am having trouble understanding how to level this with the natural slope of the yard. The yard naturally slopes down towards the fence. I was planning on using paver base panels over gravel. Any tips or help are appreciated! Thanks

Our front yard stairs are crumbling and unsafe. I want to improve them by installing something like the second photo (credit to this person's original post in /r/landscaping: https://www.reddit.com/r/landscaping/s/of1dd31Db0) and I think I can maybe utilize the existing structure of the gravel to get a good start, but I'm unsure if I can just go ahead and tamp some pavers down on it, or if I should do other prep work.

Curious how folks here would go about the project - thanks in advance for suggestions/advice!

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)

Im growing grass on a slope its been about two weeks since I did everything. Do i need to worry about it being patchy? We water it everyday. Im about to clear the leaves that fell over night (it was windy and rainy)

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.

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 🥇

I'm looking for some ideas. What are some good ways to make this look better and easier to maintain? If I take out the rocks and bark and let the grass grow right up to the base, will that cause any issues?

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