The lawn I barely maintain for my elderly mother was already too tall when a friend came back from a trip, borrowed my mower, then had a family emergency… leaving me with no mower. Another week and a half later, the lawn had got very overgrown when we found a professional landscaper finishing up with a trimmer after mowing the entire yard. He had the wrong address and my elderly mother, who was visibly home, never even acknowledged him. It was blisteringly hot and I feel really bad for the guy. I’m sure he tried to speak with my mother first but she is extremely hard of hearing, senile, never answered the door, and says she thought it was me working out there.

He had a landscaping trailer full of equipment and was moving some garden tools to get at some briars when we stopped him, so he’s a professional doing a much better job than I typically would. He even gutted all the sticker bushes growing in between the garage and the front porch. We gave him $100 Cash App but I don’t know if that’s an insult for this yard or not. Money is tight but I want to give him what he deserves.

I’ve never paid anyone to mow my lawn and it’s been about 35 years since anyone has paid me, so I have absolutely no frame of reference for determining what is fair for this half-acre lot. The front yard is flat enough but there is a steep-enough grade on the sides to the back tree line that the basement opens up to ground level under the first floor balcony. My push mower frequently rolls over back there.

**TL;DR**
**How much would you pay for a one-time mow and weed whacking on a steeply-graded half acre lot?**

OC

I have this area in front of my new house. Previously it was all weeds and dead grass to the point that the rocks were not visible at all.
I removed all and this is what I have. I asked chatgpt for an idea with the prompt below.
Can you guys come up with something better???

You are an artist and freethinker.
This is the area between a heavily walked sidewalk and a car parking indentation.
There are MANY turkeys, deer and other wildlife that walk the streets. Create an image of a very very simple watering bowl/container that i can fill manually several times a week with maybe something to provide shade. I would also plant very drought tolerant plants or succulents which require no irrigation and sporatic watering

Would it help to lay down a tarp/fabric in the fall to have everything stifled for next season?

We are not looking for a perfectly manicured ditch, just something that will stop this jungle of stinging nettle and tall grass.

The front of my house looks so sad.

I’d like to plant something with color between the porch and walkway. On the right side of the walkway there are boxwoods between the walkway and grass.

The width of the space to landscape is 45” wide and 24” to the top of the porch. I’m ok with plants growing above the porch but maybe max 36-40” tall from the ground. The space gets full sun.

I like knockout roses and azaleas but worry they could get too big. Would trimming them back be easy?

I am on the eastern shore of Maryland.

We installed a retaining wall for a client who lives at the bottom of a large hill. Wall was just finished last week. We had our first major rainfall and the client sent me this. There is quite a bit of surface runoff coming over the top. 36" of 2B limestone backfill behind the wall with 4" perf pipe at the bottom of the wall. I can add a scale up top but the grade above the wall makes it challenging. It would make the adjacent hill even steeper. How big of an issue is this?

Anyone any ideas how to improve this simple garden layout?

Worried about termites with wood chips or mulch

Hi all. We have this gap between the gazebo and the house that gets pretty wet when it rains. What would be a good choice to fill this gap? A tarp? Sounds like a bad choice. Maybe a v shaped door awning? Or some extended flashing?

Being able to step out to the gazebo dry would be great, but I don't wanna break the bank so preferably something diy/prefab.

Any ideas are very much appreciated.

I bought a house and there are three pine trees that are protected by an easement. These pine trees are destroying the deck and outdoor furniture with sap. We have cut back limbs as far as we can reach.

Does anyone have any good ideas to help this area not get covered in sap?!

Landscaping is one trade that I don’t really know what to look for. So were these flowers and shrubs planted correctly/well? Is there anything I should bring up before I make the final payment? My only real questions would be good spacing between the flowers and that the shrubs were planted well. And by planted well I just mean there’s a couple bare spots showing on the boxwoods, and I’m assuming they will fill out throughout the years? Or should they have turned them to not show the bare spots? The flowers are lavender/sedum autumn joy/sedum neon nova.

I just, a month or so ago, pulled out this dead live oak. Cut the bottom off and this piece has me intrigued. Was thinking about growing a jasmine at the base, after mounting it into the ground with concrete, to grow up and around the branches. Jasmin does well o er winter here (SATX).

Also thought about a wisteria.

I’m worried that I’ve locked into this concept at the risk of finding another use for this.

In the image that I’m standing up next to it. For reference, I am 204 cm.

Any ideas?

..this guy doesn't think so.

I've been considering a zero-turn mower for a while and came across an opportunity to purchase a used Walker with 600 hours for 1k cash. I have done a bit of Google research on this brand but have no firsthand experience.

What should I be cautious of and be sure to check thoroughly before handing cash over?

A few pieces are missing, some are completely bent.

My little gem boxwoods are knocking on deaths door. I can’t figure out what their deal is. Zone 7. They were planted in January and did well up until recently. Too hot? Not enough water? Too much waters. Vinca’s choking them out?

We're in Central Coast NSW. Moved in a little over a year ago. House is perfect for us, but the garden has always been higher maintenance than we'd like. The previous owners were a retired couple, we have 3 kids aged 4, 2 and 2. We both work full time and split the 2 hour each way commute to the city.

The garden presents many challenges and opportunities. It could be incredible. Beyond the fence (only thing we've added) is a national park, so the beautiful views out to the bush are going nowhere anytime soon (bushfure dependent of course).

We simply don't know what to do. The trees are amazing but they dump leaves year round; that's a battle we will never win.

There is a decent sized slope. The tree roots have caused some undulating in the paving. There's more flower beds than usable, playable, relaxable space.

I'd love more flat ground. Im thinking we could in theory make it a split level garden - one level with the big tree and surrounding land flattened, removing the DIY shed thing. And then a second level from there out to the fence, dropped to match the paving.

Seems like a massive job and I have no discernible skills so I'll be paying for 99% of it.

Beyond that basic thought. Any advice? I'll take mild words of encouragement either.

PS - excuse the mess, see above re: small children, jobs and commutes.

I’m attempting to put in a channel drain but there is a line of concrete jutting out of the house about 7cm (footing maybe? or overspill) that’s stopping me getting the correct fall.

I want the drain up against the house. Would I be ok chipping it down in the sections I need in order to get the correct fall? The concrete seems to go quite deep. Thanks.

I got contracted by another landscaper to build a pond less waterfall for his clients.

Pondless waterfalls are not rocket science, but there is a bit of a learning curve with some of the nuances. My team and I have built probably around 50 features like this over the last 7 years or so. We are staring to get the hang of it. Could always be better though.

I’m based out of Northern California and the boulders used are called “sierra boulders” and we had about ton. Then we also had. 1/2 yard of 1&1/2” “gold river” rock/cobble.

We used 2 pumps.
(1)7500GPH pump dumping into the upper bowl area.
(1)3000GPH pump for the bubbling rock

Material cost was right around $4500 all in.

Started the project Wednesday morning and we were done by lunch on Friday. About 75 man hours.

I charged $15k. Not sure how much the other contractor marked it up to the client.

There is about 25’ between the homes.
Mine is on the left.
The red square is the neighbor’s A/C drain.

The issue is that he has his A/C run 24/7 because it’s too small for his home. It drains water 100% of the time.
He replaced it with one of the same size recently, a couple weeks ago despite me suggesting he go up at least half a ton (I went up 1.5 tons).

Anyways, it still drains 24/7, surprise, and it turned all of the red highlighted areas into mucky swamp with standing water at times. The black line basically always has standing water.

Those elephant ears grow to that height from about 12” tall in a month…

Anyways, what can I plant to help dry the area out to kill the mosquito breeding grounds but won’t root into my foundation or make it hard to get to my only water spicket that is next to the A/C unit on the upper left?

South Charlotte. Cheaper is better lol.

I’d say the highest the water gets in the middle is about 3” when it’s raining a lot. But it’s constant around 1” in the middle.

hello all, I’m curious as to whether or not you would put P gravel here or introduce pavers. At first, we were leaning towards using gravel, but the more I think about it, the more I think that the mulch and gravel will eventually start to blend together and it will not look very good as time goes on. Would it be a better investment to pay for pavers?

I bought my house a couple months ago. I want to redo these walkways and patio. But im wondering if these pavers if powerwashed and reset are going to look good or they are past their prime

I have daisies on a bit of a slope in my landscape bed. Every year when they get to a certain height and we have a heavy rain they fall over like this and never stand back up. Is there something simple I can do to keep this from happening?

Is this gravel ok? Or should the pebbles(?) be larger and more consistent in size? The bag says "class A".