Fail!

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

a gabion wall install gone bad. we do the mowing at the house where the creek runs along the property. this is a high end development (10K sq ft houses) where LOTS of corners had been cut, surprise surprise.

there is zero setback on the cribs, I remember seeing them when they were first installed, this is maybe 3yrs after initial install. The few remaining sections on that side of the creek that are still standing, are braced with planks in an attempt to keep them upright:hammerhead:

the house, notice crappy lawn due to an attempt to seed without the use of topsoil:clapping:
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00587-1.jpg

failed gabion wall:
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00595-1.jpg


weed infested beds, and a view of the gabion walls upright portion
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00590-1.jpg


oh and this is a fun one, see that versalok wall yonder? well its not upright anymore. My brother told me that last time he was out cutting that the wall completely collapsed.We would watch the homeowner build this wall when we cut the grass and knew he wasnt doing it right. We had installed a larger versalok wall that held back a swimming pool b/c the old rr tie wall was failing. My brother told me
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00592-1.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00589-1.jpg

[Hanau]

Jesus tits...

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

might wanna tell junior to close his eyes when he steps in here, "oh the horror..."

[JB1]

gee, where do you start with that.

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

not sure, if i had the equipment id try and contact the developer and put a bid on it. but the area is so tight and has finished landscape from either house, its gonna be a real pain to get any type of iron big enough to handle it in there.

in this picture you can see the bridge that the driveway is on. the other houses property, the one with the failed versalok wall, is the only place that has enough flat area to use any equip in to work on the wall, but you cant get any equip over there unless you can cross over the creek.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00591-1.jpg

[JB1]

don't think you would hurt the grass or whatever that is.

[J. Peterson Grading]

Wow. Is that a 3 basket high wall? I am sure they didn't put any compacted stone behind the wall.

Gabion walls are kind of a bicth to build. Since there isnt anything perfectly flat on them they never seem to stack correctly. I hope we never do a nother one.

J.

[Bleed Green]

JB1 I see your location says you are from Southern Indiana....Where are you at in relation to me? Are you the one that owns the concrete company? I think they are doing some work out at USI where I go to school.

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

JPG- yep, when I was standing on our "side" of the wall, it seemed to be about 12-15ft high, no compacted stone behind the wall and im sure they made no effort to grade or at least make some suitable base for the cribs before placing the base course.

[Junior M]

might wanna tell junior to close his eyes when he steps in here, "oh the horror..."
Dear god, rip everything out and start over..

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

Dear god, rip everything out and start over.

damn near did that. we raked up alot of the "mulch" that was sitting on top of the beds, ripped out all the weeds, applied SnapShot in the beds, then sprayed everything down with Prosecutor. ripped out alot of the day lillies that were too crowded, trimmed all of the shrubs and trees, edged all the beds, but heres the funny part, all the beds have landscape lighting, but the previous landscaper cut every single electrical line going into the beds when they used a bed edger.

a few before pics:
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00575.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00576.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00584.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00583.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00582.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00581.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/DSC00586.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/IMG00007-20090708-1034-1.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m300/frndinalowplace/IMG00003-20090707-1359-1.jpg


i thought i had the after pics uploaded, but apparently not. ill get those up later.

[Mr. Rain]

That is sickening. I've had a couple higher end jobs where you bust your azz and nothing can be good enough for them when you're working, but then you come back a year later and there has been absolutely no maintenance and the place looks like crap. Hard to figure how someone can spend seven figures on a new home and have so little pride in it.

Is that normal in your area to use no edging of any kind on the beds? Seems like that would be a maintenance nightmare. At a minimum I use black poly, but push for pavers or bullets for easier mowing whenever I can. Plus it looks so much nicer and is permanent.

Just mow that with your striping roller on. That'll dress up that lawn. :)

[ProTouch Groundscapes]

edging around here is not that common, you see most beds deep edged, although i have a few mowing accounts that have the poly, and it always seems to have been an afterthought. If the beds were planned for and installed correctly, then a deep edge that is far enough away and does not have a steep slope on the edge works just fine.

[SiteSolutions]

Most affordable edging ends up looking tacky. Some of the plastic stuff looks tacky even newly installed. The metal, ehh, I'm not crazy about but not as bad. On a high dollar house, no edging ("shovel cut") is more common, unless they are serious about the beds and go for brick or stone, which *IMHO* is the least tacky looking over time.

[Mr. Rain]

I think the biggest problem with black poly and the reason it has a bad reputation is that more often than not, it's not installed correctly. Once the lawn is established, you shouldn't even see the "ball" for the most part. Homeowners have no clue how to put it in and too many contractors skimp on spikes and it ends up riding up w/ time and frost and looking like sh!t.

[Mr. Rain]

Everything around here has some kind of edging material. With our sandy soils in a lot of areas, you'd never hold a bedline over time with a shovel cut edge. An edger is a rare find in a maintenance trailer up here.

[YellowDogSVC]

Jesus tits...

blasphemy .....

[ksss]

Everything around here has some kind of edging material. With our sandy soils in a lot of areas, you'd never hold a bedline over time with a shovel cut edge. An edger is a rare find in a maintenance trailer up here.


Where are you from Rain? ND?

[Mr. Rain]

The land of 10,000 lakes. :)

[DUSTYCEDAR]

IT ALL LOOKED GOOD FROM THE OFFICE RIGHT LOL
people buy these houses and think they r good
maintenance what is that the builder put down mulch right?