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White Gardens

183K views 747 replies 70 participants last post by  White Gardens 
#1 ·
I thought I would put together a thread on work done. I need something to do on days like today when it has rained almost everyday for the last two weeks. There is only so much office stuff to keep me occupied.
 
#2 · (Edited)
A couple of pics of the garden.

One pic is of my potatoes, lettuce, spinach, green onions, onions, and radishes. Luckily we had a dry day on Easter, so I got my early season stuff planted.

I'm still waiting for the rest of the garden to dry out before I till in the rest of my passive mulch pile (worm food) and get my warmer season vegetables in.

The first pic is a close up of the soil, If you look closely you can see the multitude of holes where the worms have been coming to the surface at night to dry out.

Grass Groundcover Subshrub Soil Herbaceous plant


Plant Green Land lot Grass Shrub


Plant Green Land lot Grass Shrub


Grass Groundcover Subshrub Soil Herbaceous plant
 
#3 ·
Short free standing wall. (not retaining much) I used Mortar on the back half of the blocks so that the mortar won't show in the front making it look like a dry laid wall.

Everyone is welcome to comment or ask questions.

Plant Road surface Asphalt Grass Window


Plant Wood Grass Outdoor furniture Door


Tire Plant Wheel Vehicle Road surface


Road surface Asphalt Bedrock Plant Gas


Plant Road surface Asphalt Grass Window


Plant Wood Grass Outdoor furniture Door


Tire Plant Wheel Vehicle Road surface


Road surface Asphalt Bedrock Plant Gas
 
#5 ·
Looks like a fun project. I'm afraid to start something like that because it would be only to the second step by end of summer. :)
That tree seemed high in relation to the foundation of the house.
 
#6 ·
Looks like a fun project. I'm afraid to start something like that because it would be only to the second step by end of summer. :)
That tree seemed high in relation to the foundation of the house.
Yes, very high. I really wanted it to go, but they decided to keep it. The wall has been causing me fits because of the weird grade.
 
#8 ·
That grade sure is funky. Even tougher to do I imagine, given the uneveness of the stone selected. Where exactly is the mortar? I don't follow that part of the install.
The mortar is between the back 2/3rds of the wall, so you can't see it in the front to give the apearance of an old-world dry laid wall. I just new in that location, next to the driveway, that it needed to be solid. Also, if the block was a little more flat and uniform, then I would have done a base and used block adhesive for each course.

The base is three inches of concrete with re-bar running the length of the base for extra support. I didn't want to do a deeper base as I was running into massive tree roots.

Yes, the uneven block sucked hard. They look great, but I had to use a firm mortar to keep as level as possible with each course.

All in all I like it. I can't decide if I should continue the last course to the garage or not. With the step-down on the upper end, I think it looks O.K. the way it is.

Any thoughts????

Here are the current pics, the wall is going to look great when it's washed down. Right now there is a lot of dust from my cuts.

Plant Leaf Road surface Tree Bedrock


Road surface Bedrock Rectangle Grass Groundcover


Plant Tree Road surface Land lot Asphalt


Plant Leaf Road surface Tree Building


Plant Leaf Road surface Tree Bedrock


Road surface Bedrock Rectangle Grass Groundcover


Plant Tree Road surface Land lot Asphalt


Plant Leaf Road surface Tree Building
 
#9 ·
That tree seemed high in relation to the foundation of the house.
Also, I just realized that the tree was probably there before the garage was added. Behind the garage there is a 30 foot steep hill.
 
#11 ·
Another row to the garage would dress it up nicely.

Do you have water problems with the garage being so low? Around here almost everyone is on a hill; and sometimes they underestimate the water pressures , particularily in the spring thaw.
 
#12 ·
I do agree about the last course. I might talk the HO into letting me run it to the garage.

Here is how I took care of the water issues. The garage is on a pad, but the basement does get water, and the drain corrected that issue. They did have water once a week ago when we got 5 inches of rain in 36 hours, and they left a low spot where they finished off the electrical service into the house.

Since then I've corrected the problem and shouldn't be an issue.

http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?t=253922&highlight=Rock+For+French+Drain
 
#13 ·
I think I would prefer the look of continuing the course to the end of the wall. Looks nice, but that one stone by itself looks a bit out of place to me.
I think I'll have to concede and agree. I'm talking to the HO's today and we are going to decide what to do.

Got to love Memorial day. Another day that all my suppliers are closed.

Don't get me wrong, I respect out troops and everyone who has faught for us. I figure if they can go out and work, risking their lives, 24-7, then I can show my respect by working somewhat as hard as they do on Memorial Day.
 
#15 ·
So, in person, the job looks great. The homeowners are happy and that's all that matters.

I choose my plantings and spacing to allow a little room for the HO to piddle around with. She likes to do some gardening, and I'll I was trying to do is give her a good start.

I got the mulch down today before it started raining. Then I took pics after the rain. While I was there I was able to observe the function of my french drain and I couldn't be happier. In one pic is a puddle, and at the right edge you could see the water hit it and disappeared. The main source of the water was from the driveway, so there was a lot and the trench absorbed it with ease.

The other pic of the pipe is the outlet, ten minutes later and it was flowing twice as much.

Yes, we decided not to continue the last course on the wall. I really wanted to to help hid the downspout, but they were happy. If you were there in person it doesn't look bad at all.

The Easter Island guy was made by a local man, and I'm not sure if he is still around or not. The HO bought it 3 years ago, and I gave him a good home.

Plant Tree Road surface Land lot Natural landscape


Plant Botany Wood Grass Trunk


Plant Window Land lot Tree Grass


Plant Window Tree Road surface Building


Plant Tree Road surface Land lot Natural landscape


Plant Botany Wood Grass Trunk


Plant Window Land lot Tree Grass


Plant Window Tree Road surface Building
 
#17 ·
Nice bro! Looks great! I still think I would have added, rather extended some of the courses a little, but it looks fine as is too. French drains... I don't mess with them, not trained, qualified or legal to do so. Are they a PITA?
 
#18 ·
Nice bro! Looks great! I still think I would have added, rather extended some of the courses a little, but it looks fine as is too. French drains... I don't mess with them, not trained, qualified or legal to do so. Are they a PITA?
Ya, if it was my property, then I would have extended the course. In person, with the drop on the upper end, it works OK.

French drain wasn't too bad. Actually highly profitable. This was my first one, so I did all the homework I needed to do it correctly. The 6 inch trencher made a wide enough cut to lay a 4 inch perforated pipe. The worst part was lining the trench with fabric. Other wise, the back-filling etc... wasn't a big issue. It's all documented in the thread I posted a link too after smallaxe had questions about water drainage.

Thanks for the comments, anyone else can feel free to make some, good bad or ugly.... :laugh:
 
#19 ·
Ya, if it was my property, then I would have extended the course. In person, with the drop on the upper end, it works OK.

French drain wasn't too bad. Actually highly profitable. This was my first one, so I did all the homework I needed to do it correctly. The 6 inch trencher made a wide enough cut to lay a 4 inch perforated pipe. The worst part was lining the trench with fabric. Other wise, the back-filling etc... wasn't a big issue. It's all documented in the thread I posted a link too after smallaxe had questions about water drainage.

Thanks for the comments, anyone else can feel free to make some, good bad or ugly.... :laugh:
I'm pretty sure my landscaper's license does not include things like french drains.... so it isn't on my radar in the near term. Might be worth looking into at some point. I know that just the liability insurance here would be a big nut for sure.

Question: If you really think that extending the courses would have made a big difference, would you low ball the price just to be able to finish it the way you want? Maybe some discount? I find myself doing this, and wonder if I am just negotiating poorly. Lets say you have priced it at so many $ per foot.... would you drop the per foot price 50% to get the job done if it wasn't going to mean too much time and labor?
 
#20 ·
I'm pretty sure my landscaper's license does not include things like french drains.... so it isn't on my radar in the near term. Might be worth looking into at some point. I know that just the liability insurance here would be a big nut for sure.

Question: If you really think that extending the courses would have made a big difference, would you low ball the price just to be able to finish it the way you want? Maybe some discount? I find myself doing this, and wonder if I am just negotiating poorly. Lets say you have priced it at so many $ per foot.... would you drop the per foot price 50% to get the job done if it wasn't going to mean too much time and labor?
We don't need licenses for landscaping or such here. Don't really know why. I do know there is an Association for landscapers, but it seems that it is predominately up north around the Chicago area where it becomes a factor. I made a disclaimer for this customer stating that I wasn't responsible if water entered the basement because we used perforated pipe the whole distance. So far, there hasn't been any water in the basement, and solved the problem of the water that was entering the basement.

It wouldn't have cost me much more just to finish that course. Generally speaking, I would have been well withing my markup if I bought another 4-5 blocks to finish. Besides, when I give an estimate, it's only that, and sometimes my costs exceed the estimate. Another thing is to, that when you look at the total cost of the project, the customer 90% of the time doesn't as much raise an eyebrow over 50-100 bucks difference.
 
#21 ·
Here's pics of the latest work.

The before pics were right after I pulled 1.5 yards of debris from the beds, including old fabric, weeds and woody volunteer trees.

All the rock was pulled from the sidewalk, and I spread it out and used a leaf-blower to get the worst of the debris out of it. I then used my plastic wheelbarrow with holes I drilled, to wash the rock clean. That part of the job took 2 hrs.

After that I removed and old Hydrangea stump (easy), burning bush stump (extra hard), and an over-grown smoke bush (horrible).

I then hand dug the bed pulling stumps and roots from English Ivy that had overgrown the bed.

The next step was to throw out a bale of peat moss and use my yard boss tiller to mix the soil.

Dig next to the sidewalk, grade, plant shrubs, lay fabric with pins, plant grasses, reinstall rock and I was done.

3 days, approximately 14 hrs. labor.

Bed renovations stink. They take twice as long per square foot as a fresh install.
 
#25 · (Edited)
The taller is a Karly Rose ornamental grass and the green is a miniture hosta that was already on the property and I took a split off of.

In that spot was the smoke bush, when at it's max, it was hanging over the rail of the deck. Bad choice, and spot for a bush of that size. That was one of the reasons the root ball was hard to remove, I had little to no room to get full swings with the Maddox pick.

We had contemplated putting in an annual vine and trellis. I've had good luck with the Spanish flag, and might have work there. The spot gets a shot of sunlight morning till noon. The other option was a trellis and clematis. I wanted to hide the service box, but the HO liked the grass.

Smaller box-woods were put in along with a Karl Forrester reed grass, and a blue chip. My fabric is cut in an oval shape in hopes that the reed grass will fill that section that it is in.

I also put in a miniature hydrangea near the downspout in the first pics.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Also, the box-woods were used as the HO is wanting them to grow together.

I'm also going to donate some maintenance time to help keep the property in shape. The HO's wife was diagnosed with Huntington's Disease 8 years ago and has little to no time to work on his property. The maintenance will come out of the wash in the end as he has a big shaded back yard that needs to be reworked. It already has existing hostas that will be used.

The front needs some junipers ripped out as they have become over-grown, and new shrubs put in. Luckily the guy across the street is a farmer and has offered to rip them out for him with his JD tractor and bucket. That will save him some money in the end.

This job is in Danvers IL where I live. I primarily do work in Bloomington, but it's nice to do jobs in the town I live in. Accross the alley is a church I'm mowing for a guy (relative, on the side, do it lowball, member of the church, and great guy) who just had prostate surgery and is recovering (caught early, no biggy). Then catty corner to that is a lady I'm lining up to do an install.
 
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