Ok, whatever. I'm still waiting for somebody to stop by my house with a pair of snips, lol. I'd pretty much let anybody go to town on anything large enough to block the path. Here are some things that need thinning: Lonicera sempervires 'Sulphurea' Jasminum multiflora Thunbergias alata and grandiflora Trachelospermum jasminoides 'Yellow Star' and 'Variegata' T. asiaticum and T.a. 'Variegata' Passiflora caerulea, incarnata and 'Lavender Lady' Bignoia capreolata 'Miss Jeckyll'(maybe a mislabeled 'Mosaic', though) Salvia uliginosa Malvaviscus arboreus Hibiscus syriacus, pink Odontonema strictum Piper auritum Hibiscus rosa-sinensis 'Capatiola', 'Cooperii', 'Red Hot', and some unnamed, colors and white. Hibiscus acetocella Meyer's Lemon Buddleja alternifolia Ruellia brittonia, pink and blue. You can pull as many of these out as you can carry. Crocosmia crocomifolia, ditto. Brugmansia suavolens, bring the BIG loppers, lol. Quisqualis indica................. Oh, yeah. A friend had me cut back her massive plumerias yesterday and gave me most of the cuttings. I've been handing them out like candy. Really, come get 'em, lol.... I made some offers for postage. One person sent their's, no word from one, one didn't understand how to use PayPal. Sigh. I guess I'll have two boxes of cuttings to stick unless I just toss them.

I thought the picture to be a "before" shot. Was anything salvageable from amidst the snakeroot? See a couple of hostas at the lower left. Also appears to be sun in the photo, so maybe you've got a portion of backyard with passing and/or light shade. Has the area been completely cleared out? Snakeroot is fairly easy to pull up getting the rhizome and fibrous roots, especially when the ground is wet. But it seeds itself readily, so I'd expect it to keep on coming for a while. I found this just by surfing for free wood chips in Madison, Wisconsin This could come in handy once you've formulated a sort-of plan for the area. And you can't get less expensive than free. This might be a good idea for the clothes line area you want to keep clear with minimal maintenance - keeping the rest a blank slate, as bboy suggested, for the next owner/occupant. Clean it up, but I don't think I'd go too much further with any investment in plant material - unless you like puttering around and can beg and borrow excess plants from friends and neighbors. "Free Wood Mulch Available: The Street Division has free wood mulch available at four drop off locations. You can pick up the free mulch at: East Side Sycamore Park (Across the street from our facility at 4602 Sycamore Av.) Warner Park (In the softball parking lot just off N. Sherman Av.) West Side Garner Park (On Rosa Rd. just off Mineral Point Rd.) Elver Park (In the parking lot just off McKenna Blvd.) You will need to bring a shovel and containers to load and haul the material. The Street Division tries to keep these sites stocked with wood mulch. However, we cannot guarantee that mulch will be available at all times. If there is no mulch available, you can check another site or try back on another date. It is possible to have large amounts of wood mulch loaded into your truck at our processing center at 121 E. Olin Ave. The facility is open M-F from 7:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. Please call 266-4911 prior to coming to the site."

I put about 8 bags of topsoil down there, 5 inches deep at the most, directly on the existing soil/roots. I had dug a few areas kind of testing out the soil to seed if I wanted to plant directly in the existing soil but decided to to raise it up a bit. For me, ferns, pulmonarias and hellebores do quite well there plus Tiarella and spring ephemerals like bleeding heart and Virginia blue bell. Astilbes dry out way too much. The surrounding trees are all doing fine. I have mostly ash trees there. I think if you do not cover a significant area beneath the tree or do not sever the roots in a large circle around the tree, the tree will adapt. Normally that tree would hAve years of leaf litter accumulating above the roots--it looks as though you remove the leaves. I would not plan on putting down 5 inches of soil across the entire drip area of the tree though. I think either a curved section of raised bed in front of that edger you have or a couple of individual beds would work fine there and give you spaces to add a bit of variety to your back yard.

My partner and I are having some persistent leak problems in a house we bought 4 months ago. Two months ago there was a leak on the first and second floor, and we hired a contractor to fix it at the leak source which is on the 3rd floor. But today the leak at the same spot is back.. I'm trying to figure out what we should do about this situation, and hoping to get some answers from experts in the Houzz community. Here are more details on our saga of rain leaks... • We bought this 3 floor victorian house that was gut renovated 15 years ago by the owner, who is a contractor. So we trusted the condition of the home was not bad because they lived there until they put it on the market. • During the inspection in Dec 2021, I found a stain on the wall on the 2nd floor and the inspector pointed out the wall is a bit damp and identified the source is a wooden doorframe on the 3rd floor that is right above the wall. The door was to a small balcony and the corner seemed water damaged. The tenant on the 2nd floor confirmed that there was an issue a few year back, but their landlord (the seller) took care of it and it's been fine since. So we moved on with the purchase process and the seller (again, contractor himself) said they took care of it by caulking the gap in the door frame. And they re-grouted the balcony tiles too, which I thought was nice for them to take care of. • 2 month after we bought the house, we found a leak on the 1st floor ceiling. We figured the source is the door frame on 3rd floor. Because the ceiling leak on the 1st floor, wet wall on the 2nd floor and the door to the balcony on the 3rd are all aligned. (image above). So we hired a contractor who was recommended by someone to fix it. He cut out the bottom part of the wooden door frame on the 3rd floor and confirmed it's rotten inside. They cleaned it all out and filled the wall below the doorframe with some water proof material, replaced the bottom part of the doorframe, and then then caulked it up. He told me that it will hold up for at least for few years and then we can replace the whole doorframe into something more weather proof. He also recommended re-grouting the balcony tiles, as they were all cracked up, which could be an additional source of water entry. This made total sense. • He told us it's not a good idea to do grout work in cold/wet weather. So he sent someone to fix it a month or so later with some special grout that cures really fast and well in cold temperature. On the day they worked on this, it was high 20 ~ low 30 degree and sunny, but as soon as the job was done it started to sprinkle. I was concerned but they told me it would be okay because they got the special grout. • Two weeks ago, I checked the grout. When I walked on the balcony tiles, I heard cracking sound and it felt like the tile was moving/sinking very very slightly. (no one has been on the tile since they did the job until I walked on it). My contractor wanted to come check on it again, but hasn't happened yet because of some scheduling issues. • And today, after several days of rainy weather, the leak is back again on the 2nd floor. The second floor wall is dripping wet. Now, 1) We really want to find the source of the problem, fix it and be done with it... But not sure if we can trust our contractor's judgement on the issue. Any suggestions on what's the issue here? 2) We feel deceived by the seller. I know it's very naive of us buying a house with water damage.. Is there any legal action that we can take against the seller? Especially if we end up finding there's any mold issues? Lastly, thank you so much for reading through our story!