r/landscaping

Hi,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but some advice would be greatly appreciated.

We have recently hired a local landscaper to lay 30sqm of indian Sandstone for a new patio in our new build garden (moved in Sept 2024). We have been very happy with their workmanship and work ethic thus far and while prepping the ground etc.

However I have gone out this morning to check the newly laid patio out (half of it was done yesterday morning, the other half on Friday). I have quickly noticed a number of loose slabs that I could easily lift by hand. A number of other slabs also sound hollow when tapped so I am sure they would also become loose with relative ease if I was to try lifting them.

This is clearly an issue with either the cement mixture being inadequate or the sandstone slabs not being prepped properly?

I am now a bit reluctant with them even with a fix as I suspect the entire patio will likely need re-laying, even the seemingly solid slabs? I am also unsure if this was just a fluke on their side (they are a very well reviewed small, local company).

I have messaged them this morning with these issues as they were due to return tomorrow to have the pointing done. Still waiting to hear back from them.

Any advice on how I should proceed from here would be greatly appreciated!

I have attached a couple of pictures with some of the loose slabs where you can see the back and the mortar bed.

This Virginia Creeper is so crazy:) Took over my parents entire property in San Diego. I love the look but it’s a lil much.

My brother passed away just over a year and a half ago and I inherited his cacti. I decided to make them a home. I squeezed it in between a desert willow and a Mexican buckeye I planted last year.

So my yard is big and sloped and full of weeds. We moved in 5 years ago and the very top had grass by the road, and then pine straw all over the rest of the yard.

5 years later, pine straw is gone, and I killed the little bit of grass by spraying weed killer all over the yard. My spouse doesnt want me just spraying weed killer all over everything and I kind of agree but feel powerless against the weed takeover.

We have essentially no budget. But the weeds weigh on me and we certainly cant afford a landscaper.

I live in gardening zones 7 or 8 or 8a. Just south of Raleigh NC.

I dont care if I have grass. I want a yard my kids can play in and love the wild look of the forest. I just dont want weed yard. The weeds are short and dont look terrible now but 1 month from now they will be long and spindley and rough looking.

Any advice?

located in central Florida, USA.

These are not my home, I found these images on Google, but I am looking to get concrete work done at my house and am wondering if I should bud the concrete up straight to the foundation of my home? Or leave a strip like these around the house that can be filled with gravel/plants

Does anyone know the point of these? Are they for ease of access to the outer perimeter/foundation of the home? Or just for athletics?

I live on a slab foundation in Southern California if that makes any difference. No basement

I have a 50 foot span along my back fence which separates us from our neighbors. Lately, their kids have started hanging out in the backyard a lot more with their friends, which is awesome to see in this day and age. However, with that comes the noise. It's difficult to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee or read a book when kids are constantly screaming on the swings etc.

when we bought the house, there were 20-ft emeralds surrounding the property, which have been okay for a while, but lately they are badly thinning out, and some have completely died. Now I'm thinking of replacing these trees with brand new ones, but I don't want to wait for years in order to enjoy privacy. I need the privacy immediately.

I'm thinking of getting 10 ft emeralds or excelsas installed. several marketplace sellers are encouraging the excelsas because they say they are more dense, but from the pictures I'm seeing, they seem to get really thin as you go up the tree. Are these the best choice for me? or should I just replace them with the similar emeralds that I'm going to take out? if I get emeralds, how far apart should I space them in order to have a tight wall.

I know that trees arent going to block out all the sound, but with the dead trees right in the middle of the yard, I'm noticing the neighbors' noise quite a bit this year. I'm hoping it will make some difference by getting new trees planted.

Any suggestions please? should I go with the excelsa (Red cedar) the trees at 3ft apart, or perhaps emeralds at 2 ft apart? Or any other suggestions to get a quick privacy barrier setup? I'll leave a picture of my current setup where some trees are dead, some are dying and thinning, and some are on their way towards death.

Reddit, I need your ideas. What should I do with this yard space? See attached drawing and pics of what we currently have going on, for reference. Considerations: Ideally, I would like this to be somewhere we enjoy spending some time when the weather is nice. We do have two dogs, so they need somewhere to do their business. We like gardening, hence the garden beds. The ground is quite compact and struggles to grow anything. In the rainy season, there is often standing water in the “dead zones” where nothing grows. Any thoughts welcome!

ETA: PNW, Zone 8b

We have a big bed of English ivy in our front yard (only about half of it or less pictured here, but you get the idea). We sprayed some stuff around the perimeter that killed it and mowed it over but that is not going to be practical for the whole bed. There are a couple of tree stumps under the ivy and it extends to a telephone pole in our yard. What’s the best way to deal with it!? Getting sheep/goats probably isn’t an option due to the cost in our area :(

So we bought this house and the front landscaping has been completely neglected for years. We are ripping out all of the ancient pine straw and underlying barrier and are going to replace it with brand, new barrier and mulch. How can I treat the soil underneath to have the least amount of weeds come back

Moved here in December. Not a fan of the brick square with gravel. The square is lined with the black woven plastic’y stuff. And the bricks around the edge are cemented. Then around all that is soil. I can add a picture of it without all the water once it drains.

We were hoping to get rid of the square and gravel and get a shed and a greenhouse and just let moss/lawn/clover grow around it, and keep the paving stones (we have a larger space in our front garden)

But I don’t want it to keep flooding like this? Any advice?

Would love to be able to make this sort of like a rain garden or plant something for the pollinators. We live in Colorado, so don’t get much rain.

I'm not looking to spend a lot of money, but this sloped corner of my driveway is a pain. It doesn't get driven on so weeds come up in the summer and looks awful. I weed whack it but that kinds of chews up the string and throws a lot of stone. It's kind of an eyesore area between the house and the detached garage. It's also where snow gets pushed by the plow in the winter. I want to put something here that will keep the weeds off but looks nice. Should I fill it full or shrubs? Some kind of low-growing ground cover? Also, not really thinking about mulch - I'm looking for low maintenance, and I have enough flower and ornamental shrub beds around the house that I need 2 pickup truck loads of new mulch every year for upkeep there as it is. Not looking to have to do more. Any out of the box ideas?

Hello! I would like some advice or ideas on a few things. This is a terrible mockup of my yard from a map photo with the app yard planner.

The brown is the beds we have added on around my house. They are about 2.5-3 ft wide and chock full of plants I have planted.

The three grey dashes are raised bed planters I just got.

The white along the side is my biggest concern. Year before last I did some digging in it. It is a long strip of white river rocks that runs along my fence. Ugly as sin, no border between it and the grass. I dug down and found weed barrier beneath it, 6 inches of dirt beneath the weed barrier, then ANOTHER weed barrier with larger river rocks beneath that. Google tells me it could be some sort of drainage system? Could there be pipes and things down there?

I can’t think of anything I could do to make the rocks cool looking as is. Ideally I would like to post it for free on Facebook marketplace and have someone pick it up. Im not sure if that’s advisable or even what I would put in its place.

Long term I would like to build a greenhouse somewhere back here and have a shed for storage but it is an exceptionally small yard.

Please let me know your thoughts.

As you can see the water has found its channel downhill. If I dig a swale and fill with eg river rock will that likely solve the puddle in the driveway during rain? I would consider a French drain as well but swale feels like the easier fix