posted
Anybody here have any particular talent or passion for landscaping? I bought a house last summer that has virtually no yard--just enough that it has to be mown, but not enough to have room for a shed for a mower. The house is built on a fairly steep sloped berm. One side has a row of kind of scraggly looking bushes running close to the house, while the other street facing side has an ill kept flower bed up by the house and a couple of window boxes. I didn't have the time or the money to do anything about the landscaping last year, but I'm hoping to have a bit of both to devote to landscaping this spring. Anybody here experienced with this kind of thing, and interested in offering some advice? If so I'll either email you a picture of the outside of the place, or maybe post a link to it if I can get Hobbes or somebody to host the picture for me.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Send me pics and a "floorplan" type sketch of what you've got now, if you can, and I'll start thinking about it. I totally redid my landscape over the last two years, and I love planning out things like that.
eljay at hotmail dot com... but I can't check it 'til I get home tonight. So someone else will probably have answered you by then.
posted
Don't take any of ElJay's advice unless you have a lot more than "a bit" of time to devote to this. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am very interested in this type of thing - have thought about opening my own landscaping business, in fact.
However, I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't know what kind of soil you have in your area, nor what plants are best for your climate. If you were in Kansas, however.......
posted
I can make less time-intensive plans, too. I just didn't want to for me, that was my summer entertainment and work-out program. (Many thousand 8 pound pavers, moved at least 4 times each.)
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: The house is built on a fairly steep sloped berm.
If you want to get more yard, you can build a wall. I am now qualified to tell you some things not to do.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
It was very easy to handle. The problem was the Mr. Helpful at the Bobcat dealer decided to send me a loader over 2 feet wider than what I asked for. When you only have 10 feet between houses and various sprinkler heads to avoid, bigger is not necessarily better. With the 3-foot wide loader, I could have varied my path somewhat. With the 5.5-foot, I was pretty much confined to the same path everytime and now have deep ruts in both my yard and my neighbors. Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you just want to make the slope attractive and not have to mow it, blue-rug juniper is a good ground cover. Or if you want a spectacular couple of weeks every spring, creeping plox is great. It usually grows thick enough to choke out all but the most vigorous weeds (which can be pulled when they appear).
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks guys! ElJay, I'll email you tonight with the pictures and a sketch.
Zan, thanks, but actually I'd just as soon have less yard (or at least less yard that needs to be mown).
KarlEd--that's a thought. I'll have to google blue rug juniper and creeping phlox and see what it looks like. If some kind of groundcover could completely eliminate my need to mow I'd be a happy man.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have no lawn left in front, and very little in back. It's nice.
Added: Check out ajuga, too. I think that's how you spell it... Chocolate Chip ajuga is my goundcover of choice. The leaves are a dark, purpley-brownish-green and it gets purple flowers.
posted
Very cool. I was pretty impressed by that walk you built. Hmm...that was you, right? The curving brick walkway?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
First you ask your dad to come over and teach you...
It's not hard, just persniketty to get the leveling right, and a LOT of manual labor. Plus you want to get it done as quickly as possible, because if it rains before you're finished it can screw it up. But many garden centers offer classes, which should be enough to get you good enough to put one in yourself, if you want to.
LOTS cheaper that way, which was my main concern.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Someone wanna come to my house and build me a low brick wall for my front yard? Free room and board!
Posts: 6394 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Noemon, if you end up with that slope needing to be mowed, you could always get one of those hover mowers.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
Eljay, I know what you mean about building walls and walkways and stuff. I haven't done a *lot* of that kind of work, but I find working with stone in general to be really satisfying.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, Christy and I could probably use some landscaping advice, if anyone's got a brain we could pick. Right now, our yard is ghastly.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Good lord. I was kind of expecting something like that, but still--if I'm going to spend $700 on a mower I at least want it to be autonomous and semi-sentient.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tom, you are close enough that you can invite me over for a weekend this summer and I will sit in a lawnchair, sip lemonade, and tell you what to do.
Preceeded, of course, by a trade of pictures and a discussion of ideas.
Noemon, not just stone, although it's high on the list. I find physical labor of many sorts highly satisfying. I probably wouldn't if I had to do it 40 hours a week, but for relaxation or working out frustrations, few things can beat the business end of a shovel.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I use cooking that way sometimes. It's why I use really big knives. (How come most sets only come with an 8" chef? You call that a knife? Sheesh.)
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree ElJay--working with ones hands can be pretty cathartic. It's the act of physically creating something, whether it's a hole or a wall or a sculpture or a meal--it's a release for me.
Well, maybe there's more to it than that. Back in the mid 90s I was visiting my parents' house while they were out of town and my childhood dog, Nike, died. I pulled up to the house and saw her running over, and she just keeled over, dead. Digging her grave myself, with my own hands, placing her body in it, and mounding the dirt high over the grave felt incredibly right somehow--fitting in a way that I've never been completely able to articulate.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My wife suggested that we hire someone to build the wall, but I didn't want to do that. Besides that fact that I'm cheap, I wanted to build it. It won't be a work of art when I'm done, but I'll be able to look at it and say "I built that."
I'm building a deck after that. I get to use my saws for that one.
Posts: 4625 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Tom, you are close enough that you can invite me over for a weekend this summer and I will sit in a lawnchair, sip lemonade, and tell you what to do."
You are cordially invited. But I believe late spring is more my thing, major-landscaping-revisions-wise. Because sweat is bad.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Cool. Send me pictures, a layout of what you have, and an essay on what you would like to use your yard for. (Relaxation yourselves? Small garden parties? Large BBQs? Play area for Sophie? Nude sunbathing? {requires more drastic privacy plantings})
Added: Essay might be too strong a word. Description.
posted
"I don't expect you'll ever move to Florida, Tom."
No. My mother and brother live in Florida, actually, and have given up trying to persuade me to move to that insect-infested, hurricane-prone, pastel-colored, armpit-scented hellhole. But it's a nice place to visit.
posted
Hey, ElJay, what's a good address at which to email you? I just noticed that yours isn't in your profile, and I can't send attachments via hatrack's mail thingie. If you don't want to post it you can send me an email at Noemon at Sakeriver dot com
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
*grin* But I e-mailed you from my actual home account this morning, too, when I noticed your post. So use that one, if you got it. It's the one I check most often, but don't post on-line.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
When are you supposed to plant bulbs? I bought some last weekend, but was installing new linoleum in the kitchen and so I didn't get outside to plant them when it was warm. This weekend it is supposed to be snowing. Will it hurt if I wait another week? I haven't worked out exactly where I want to put them either.
I've got some initial ideas, but I'm going to let it stew for awhile before I respond in detail. But yeah, I see absolutely no reason why you should ever mow again.
Um, I'll try for a low-end and a high-end idea, in light of Dana's warning. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
So someone else will probably have answered you by then.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
)![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
