This is my front courtyard and it’s not that exciting to me. I rarely ever spend anytime in it and when I look out my window it seems so bland. I’d love to spruce it up with so plants but I’m wary of snakes and packrats. Any ideas?

Recently purchased. Huge DIYer! 🥰

Looking for solutions for this. I’m currently renting at a condo and the backyard floods very badly with heavy rain. I’m interested in what sort of ways this can be dealt with and who might be the right type of person to contact. Due to the flooding the grass grows very sparsely. Would relaying sod help?

My landlord is very interested in finding solutions but this is their only property and I’m not sure how much they know about this kind of stuff. I’m really looking to try and help point them in the right direction and will help out with any labor that might need done.

Started this front yard from scratch a couple years ago. I keep envisioning it with big, mature plants, but can’t see the vision right now while everything’s new. It looks unorganized and amateur to me… any advice on creating something that looks more structured and modern? Or will it look great in a couple more years and I need to learn some patience.

The front yard is north facing in zone 4, Southern Alberta. It gets some morning sun and evening sun, but is mostly shaded mid day. The area closest to the house in the middle hardly gets any sun.

Would love to stick with a xeriscape style yard, but I’m not entirely opposed to adding some grass. Just love the idea of a lush, full, green front yard. Something that looks relatively decent in the wintertime would be a bonus. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Hey Everyone,

Moved into this house about 3 years ago and am constantly having issues with this “rock wall” that’s on my driveway. Poorly done and not practical long term. It’s been here for probably 20 years. What would you guys suggest? I am thinking of having a landscape company come by and use the larger rocks as part of a rock wall to limit the investment. I know rock walls can get pricey.

Thoughts?

I've been doing a ton of work around my property, including leveling out area and digging up a lot of fabric, but through this process I've ending up with a lot of extra dirt I'm not sure what to do with. There are only so many raised beds I can put in.

Hello you awesome people. I know nothing about landscaping so I’m hoping yall can help me. I live in zone 8a. My neighbor chopped a tree down in their yard, it fell and smashed my Japanese Maple to the point it looked like Charlie Browns Christmas tree, and they refuse to replace it.

So I dug up the root, and put the mulch back but now there’s the perfect spot for a possible small tree or shrub. I was hoping for something flowery to catch a potential buyers eye.

Any suggestions? Azalea? Knockout Rose Tree? I’ve got to plant it in the summer and the spot does get a lot of sun. Thank yall in advance!

I am homeowner from the state of New York. Recently got masonry work done.

Here are the details:

1) Patio size 500 sq ft, Nicolock Oceanic 5 stone ridge XL at 45 degrees.

2) Walkway: 120 sq ft, Nicolock Oceanic Blue Stone Ridge contemporary.

3) Driveway: Roughly 750 sq ft, Same pavers as the walkway.

How would you rate the Job? What would be a fair price for this work?

Greatly appreciate your feedback.

I just got a john deere stand on from a local yard sale here in NC. It’s got 334hrs. The guy wanted $1700 but I got em down to $1000 cash. Runs good and blades spin. It needs new blades but he gave me a brand new set that he said he bought for it. I don’t know much about these machines. Did I get a good deal? or is this one of those machines that give you headaches lol

Yard is 60 feet wide. And from the back of our house to the back of the lot is 50 feet. There’s a semi- narrow walkway in the back of the house before the slope starts. We definitely want a seating area at the top of the lot because the view is unobstructed.

We put sod down every year, half of it dies, I put clover in to patch and it looks halfway decent. Everything dies in the winter. Repeat.

This year I went buck wild with wildflower and cut flower seeds thinking I was going to get a lush meadow of zinnias and cosmos that me and my kid could frolick in all summer long, and this is the result of chaos gardening.

It’s sloped, half of it gets full sun half gets mostly shade, middle becomes a gorgeous swampland when it rains (though we put in a French drain).

I think it would help if we formalized the walking path with rubber barriers on either side, and filled the path with crushed limestone/rocks and the flagstone steps. And then plant some things along the barriers. Feels like it would give some visual border for the path and create more of a garden bed instead of just random things growing all over.

Would love some ideas! Be gentle I know this is not the meadow from my April dreams.

Need to block out a feces of a neighbor. What is there to know about green giant arborvitae? These pics are from two different green houses. Is there something to know about the look? Which ones are healthy which are not? Does one look better or healthier than the other? Or are all good?

My yars was put together by landscapers, the plants are watered automatically every day. I noticed these weird rings and tons of ants. The rings never go away even when it's seemingly totally dry and I live in the desert?

Hey there! First time home owner. Bought a house from someone who flipped the inside of a house, but didn’t care for the lawn/outside for over a year since the previous person had passed away.

I paid a pretty penny to get the jungle of my back yard mowed, trimmed, and weeded a couple of weeks ago, but recently been sitting in my grass and feeling it (been playing with my new puppy) and pulling up endless super long looking weeds that blend in with my lawn?? It feels like I don’t even really have much of a lawn and it’s mostly these? What are these?? What can I do???

Thanks, sorry if I sound silly. I don’t know what I’m doing obviously lol. I am in Texas just outside of Austin!

Homeowner here, looking to fill in this pond and hoping for some feedback on my plan. The end result will be grass and/or clover with either a fire pit or a recirculating water feature in the centre of the circular area. The pond diameter is 16 feet and the depth at the centre is 42”. So I figure the total volume is about 13 cu. yds. After removing the liner I’m thinking to pour in 7 yds of either 3/4” clear stone or HPB which should bring me to within 9-10” of the surface. Then cover with landscape cloth before dumping in the topsoil — so 6 yd. of soil. The aggregate hopefully requires no compacting and the soil I’d compact with a manual tamper. Does all of this sound reasonable? Is there anything you would do differently?

I recently got laid off so I’m spending all my time at home. We recently had to remove a big old pecan tree from the corner, it was expensive but we had to do it before it falls onto our roof. I planted zucchinis, tomatoes and peppers just for fun and I thought they were gonna die but they are doing ok, we even had one zucchini on dinner the other day.

Long story short I want to make my yard look more beautiful, what would you do if you were me?

My husband and I moved into our house about 5 years ago. The people who lived here before us filled the front part of the yard with an expansive evergreen bush that spanned the entire yard and completely overtook the wall . In fact, even our neighbors who have lived in this neighborhood for 10 years said they never knew there was a retaining wall of any type, because the evergreen always covered it. After a few seasons of living here, we found that multiple trees and weeds planted themselves in the evergreen, and it ended up becoming a massive clean up project, which required us to rip out the evergreen. Now we have an incredibly sloped front area, and I'm at a complete loss of what to do. A landscaping came out and gave us a couple options: 1- Redo to current wall, increase it's size and length. However, this would cost $15K-18K, so this is out of the picture. Option 2 is to excavate the land, decrease the slope, and grass the area. We brought out an excavation company and talked to the city. Unfortunately, with the way the water pipes are located, it would require burying them further underground so that the dirt we remove doesn't leave them exposed to the elements during the winter, risking them freezing. Additionally, it would also require a plumber coming out and rerouting the water pipes back to our house, which would likely require us to rip up our driveway, lawn, etc. Long story short, this is no longer an option.

Now, I'm at a loss. We're left with a heavily sloped area that is really long. I'm concerned that any type of mulch or smaller rock will just run off with a heavy rain. We will be ripping out the rest of the shrubs that are above the wall, so that will be gone, but I'm looking for ideas. We do plan on putting down a weed barrier for anything we do. I initially was hoping for something low maintenance, but at this point, I'm prepared to put in the work consistently to help this area look better. It has been such an eye sore, and I feel so badly for our neighbors who have to look at this. Can anyone help give me ideas? I'm open to anything right now!!

(The last picture gives you a total view of the yard. Please ignore the pile of yard waste. That was from just weeding today! 🙄)

First time homeowners and we feel overwhelmed with what to do with our backyard space. There used to be grass where there is now dirt, but due to two pups and droughts (we live in SoCal) it has all died. Not really interested in getting grass back either, but now everything is dusty all the time. We’ve considered artificial turf where the dirt currently is but idk if the dogs can go potty on it. Below are some things we’re looking for:

1. What to do with the dirt lot.

2. What to put in that strange flower bed? We’re considering putting a hot tub there.

3. Possibly screening in the covered portion.

4. Any other fun or interesting ideas you all can come up with.

We are converting a large garden bed into a grass area and in preparation found this PVC pipe with a cap coming out of the ground. We don't know what it is.

SF Bay Area, my house faces a t-junction sloped road that is kind of busy so I would like to add some privacy for the front window. Right now by said window, there is a crepe Myrtle bush that gets mildew no matter how many times I spray it. Looking for something where you could look out the window and get a partial view, so not totally dense.