Even liriope is not going to be overly fond of growing in that amount of shade. Also I am not sure I would want to walk down a path of that next to a water conservation easement in Florida. I can see snakes resting in there. Follow your friends advise and do the river rock. It looks sloped in the picture, which you need for drainage but that will cause you to lose the rock over time. You may want to consider a short 3 to 4 inch border on top of the wall, brick or wood loosely attached to the wall, water can drain underneath, to help hold the rock on the path. Now add a few potted plants in decorative pots at the entry and along the walk to give it a little more appeal. Look for basic foliage type house plants that do well in shade. These can be replaced if they start looking ratty. Now you are done. ilima PS. You will get more responses if you post this on the discussion side of the forum.

One thing I learned about epoxy grouting river rock: you want to make sure a line is left at the edge for caulk (color matched) to be put in right at the plane change, or you risk cracking at the seams (I've heard of regular tile breaking, rather than the epoxy grout breaking, but in our case, I guess the rocks were flexible enough that the epoxy grout cracked instead). It's a bit tricky aesthetics-wise, because there's no natural break as there would be with a row of tile--we're just cutting a teeny groutline-sized line in and we've made sure to color-match the caulk to the grout very carefully. The lack of natural break with the rocks is why mongo has shown that he puts a row of tile around the outer edge of the floor of a rock shower--it provides you with a clear place to do the caulk plane change. But if you've already got the rock down, and no ability to edgeit, just make sure that there's a groutline's worth of space left around the outside and that caulk is put in there, rather than grouting all the way up to the beginning of the vertical.

Okay first, you'll need to pull back those stones. If you don't have a 'hard rake' yet, invest in a good one. If you have one, and it's cheap, work with it until it breaks. If you need one, you will forever appreciate a good tool - get the best one you can afford. For a hard rake, you'll want one with 2 connecting points on the edges of the head (bow rake.) The type where the handle makes a single connection with the rake head is not designed for heavy materials, nor as good for long-term landscaping tasks such as moving stones or leveling beds (the back of a bow rake is perfect for moving a lot of dirt and putting a nice finishing touch on the project.) Get one that is size-appropriate for your height. These choices are what will take much of the drudgery and frustration out of already difficult jobs. Next, since it will be an ongoing project, break it down into stages. I do suggest that when it comes time to buy the plants, you buy all of the same varieties of plants at the same time. They can be like kitchen tiles. If you don't get the same exact shrub, at the same time, colors of both foliage and flowers may not match. Do all of one type at one stage, then later get all the next type, etc... If you have a decent size back yard, and can afford it, buy at least one extra of each shrub and plant it in an out of the way place, or in a spot where it can be moved later. It's not uncommon for a shrub to die, and a small investment ahead of time can save you headaches later if you need to fill something in. If you have so many plantings that this is financially a problem, skip it. Start with the rocks. Get a good size tarp, a wheelbarrow, and a round shovel. Start with pulling back the stones in the areas that will get the same plantings. Place the tarp on an out-of-the-way corner of the lawn and start dumping stones on half the tarp. Use the other half to fold back over to keep them clean and to keep the neighbors happy. This will kill the grass, so if you have extra driveway space, just dump them on the driveway and cover with the tarp. Keep removing more stones as you gather OM (see next paragraph.) Next step is to decide if you are going to buy the soil amendments, or build the soil yourself. Since you expressed a desire to build your own (the vastly cheaper route) begin piling on any organic matter you can. Either start a compost pile, or just start tossing on what OM you can gather on the now stone-free areas of the beds... or both. Some very cheap examples of OM resources are coffee houses (free,) wood chips from the companies that trim trees from power lines (free, or a small tip that makes them both happy to dump it where you need it, and happy to return with more,) kitchen scraps, grass clippings (learn how to compost these properly... a great source of organic matter, but a pain if not used correctly,) city leaf collections (even out of season, some cities use the same place each year and uncollected leaves piled up become what is called leaf mold... great stuff for lightening clay!,) and county dumps (many dumps in Tn. are now separating out all tree products and shredding them. They either give it away free, or sell it at reasonable prices to county residents.) There are many other sources for organic matter, just keep your eyes open and you might be surprised at what becomes available. Let it pile up high, and keep it pulled back a little (or really, just don't let it pile up too high) against any plant you want to keep. As it begins to break down (kept relatively moist, organic matter breaks down fast in Tn. My 8' of long grass and hay mulch on my garden beds broke down to an inch over the summer and was incorporated into the soil by the worms) add more and/or turn it into the soil (next paragraph.) Next you'll want to buy or borrow a 'garden fork'. You can use a shovel, but a good fork works better. At least once a year, and as often as every 1 - 3 months, turn the organic matter into the soil. If roots are in the way, you can keep it on top, or pull out the plantings that you don't want, and just mulch around what you want to keep. The worms will incorporate the organic matter into the clay around established plants, but it's a much slower process. If you did a good job at scrounging OM, you will be ready in a year or 2 for your new plantings. Of course, the longer you wait, the better, but strike a balance. When you dig clay, and turn in OM, the expansion of the volume can be surprising. Clay packs very tightly, once you begin to loosen it, you may quickly find you'll need to pull some out. This will depend on your desired level of the bed. When it comes time to remove the old plants, think about reusing them somewhere else, or use them as trade to get people to help. Lastly, decide what you do want as mulch. Organic mulches will continue to improve the soil and have many benefits. The downside is continual replenishment. Stones are fine, and when used with a weed barrier of some sort, look good and clean. The downsides are weeds that poke through when no weed barrier is used, the soil stays in a 'stasis', well-intentioned landscapers trying to weed eat around, or on top of stones inevitably break a window, and stones don't always stay in place... matching them, and replacing them ain't cheap. Anyway, that should get you started, and if you piddle around a little here and there, you'll be surprised at how fast removing the stones goes. BTW... a bbq gets family and friends more in the mood to help, and if you tackle the entire project in stages, the work for each step is nothing.

Previous owners put river rock along this one stretch of foundation (nowhere else). It looks awful 100% of the time. We have a very dirty tree and leaves/weeds always accumulate. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to serve some kind of drainage purpose?but all the organic debris is pretty compacted under the rocks anyway. I’d like to take the rocks out, add soil and then plant pachysandra, then put mulch and preen down. Is there any reason I shouldn’t? (We’re looking to replace the wood planks but can’t really do anything about the crappy bricks right now). Also if there are any suggestions for less unsightly basement well covers I’d love to know! This area is a total eyesore.