Advice for landscaping in a flood plain, please.
alphamutt
17 years ago
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alphamutt
17 years agoRelated Discussions
Front Landscaping Help Please!
Comments (4)Making suggestions from afar depends on you showing, as best you can, what you have. Since landscaping addresses all areas at once, it's more or less the way we need to see it ... as if we were standing there. The best technique for capturing a single scene -- from not too far away -- is by taking slightly overlapping pictures that pan from left to right. The first picture above is part of the scene we need to see. Return to the spot where it was taken and add the slightly overlapping pictures that would show the other (left) side of the walk. (The camera will pivot for each picture, not change locations. The doorway itself will show in the interconnecting picture, linking the two garden plots into a single scene.) If we're only addressing the two plots immediate in front of the house, that's all we need. If you want more of the front yard addressed, you'll need to back up with the camera and show that complete scene. Always you want to show more than you think we need to see by pivoting the camera far left and far right....See MoreDrainage, hills and flooding help needed
Comments (13)I would be very hesitant to think that RAISING the grade around my house would solve a drainage problem. Water flows underground too. But I would have no way of knowing unless I had a map that showed the overall grade of both your property and adjacent properties and what kind of soil you had, the dimensions of the lots, location of paved surfaces, etc. Your property does not exist in a vacuum as you have discovered, and anyone who designs anything on your property that does not consider how it relates to the whole area is not showing you signs that they are competent enough to handle your problem. Could they be, yes, but no guarantees. Best bet to find someone with a very long track record of handling drainage problems EFFECTIVELY. Everyone will tell you they can and have done it, you need to diligently check their portfolio and speak with references. I deal with water managers all the time and the good ones are few and far between. What you get is common solutions to common problems which do not always work when applied to every situation....See MoreLandscape Design Help / Advice in Northeast Florida (Zone 9A)
Comments (24)Yes, I understand that the immediate intention for the play area is not to install a play set. But it's coming eventually and do you want the planting scheme to do dual duty by working now and also be ready for the future without any major alterations? Or do you want to subject yourself to the possibility of making a lot of changes when a play set is installed? A year is NOT a long time. As the play area develops, it is divided from the planting area with a bed line. The bed line is something to be figured out now, on the plan (as information about the play set/area becomes known.) The bed line divides places where people could possibly walk ("floors": lawn, low groundcover, mulch-only) from places where they couldn't ("walls" & "furniture": shrubs, perennials and tall groundcovers.) Trees ("ceilings") could be located in either areas Another possibility with the pitts is to cut them down and do a total rejuvenation -- where you control/shape their re-growth (which will happen very quickly since they already have developed root systems) -- and trim them so as NOT to reach way out into the yard. Let them grow as a much narrower hedge which is later trimmed into tree forms and reaches and screens above the fence. Based on some of the prior discussion, I'm going to speculate that one potential problem that could come up is not devoting enough depth to the planting beds (that are likely to surround most of the yard.) In general terms, this bed(s) ought to be allowed 6' depth as an average minimum. There are usually instances where it can easily be deeper, and possibly some instances where it can be shrunk to 4' when sacrifices must be made. Plants require space and trying to maintain a bed that is too skinny/shallow is not only difficult & more demanding of maintenance, but it doesn't look very good either. That's something to be mindful of....See MoreNeed advice on how much to pay landscaper
Comments (54)That wavy bed looks sloppy being immediately adjacent to the straight walkway and the angularity of the house - in the cartoon provided it looks like the house fell out of the sky onto a pizza. And if it is already intended to have mostly lawn beyond the existing bed and walk then both aesthetically and practically it would be better not to cut the lawn off from the house and walk with a second bed along the outside edge of the walk. Instead of integrating the house with the surrounding acreage the wavy bed isolates it, like a stockade. As far as softening the house is concerned that would be accomplished primarily by plantings in the bed between the walk and the house. Except where trees of sufficient eventual size would be planted in particular other places near the house. Trees that would serve visually enhancing functions not provided by low shrubs placed within an incongruously informal bed. As for there being no conventions or traditions behind what I am talking about look at films, videos and photos of countless large country houses just in Britain and Northern Europe alone that have paving or turf coming almost right up to them. Often with climbers on the facade and foundation plantings (if present at all) being the extent of greenery immediately in front of the building (except for any large trees that may be reaching over from the corners etc.) This includes properties that may have acres and acres of fully appointed grounds containing plant collections and other features of international significance out away from the house, where these do not distract from it visually....See Morebonniepunch
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17 years agoJudy_B_ON
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