Years ago I purchased some pressure treated (PT) landscape lumber from Home Depot and I need more. It is square lumber, comes in 8 foot lengths, is about 4-1/2" X 4-1/2", and all four corners are beveled. It is bigger in dimension than 4X4 but not as big as 6X6. They no longer sell this material (at least locally). Does anyone know what this particular PT lumber was called and where it might be found in Georgia? Thanks.

I have a client who is getting a hot tub and i suggested a concrete base, but they didnt like that... i told them i would try to find another solution. Would a compacted 3/4 minus base work? I was thinking an 8 or 10 in. compacted base and just extend it a foot past the edge of the tub (same as we do for pavers) what do you guys think?

Thanks
Shawn

hey everyone....

as part of a current project of ours, we've created a large parking pad constructed out of compacted angular gravel (limestone, some granite). the client recently asked about the possibility of sealing or otherwise stabilizing the gravel so that snow blowing would not hurl loose pieces of stone into the air. i can see his point. does anyone know of a product that might do this? i know there are road pavements that are primarily gravel that are bound with some sort of material that keeps the gravel in place (called chip-asphalt or something - can't remember the term.) any thoughts on a potential solution would be appreciated.

thx.

Who sells Christmas trees?
Do you have a stand, or sell at a nursery?
What's you pricing?
Hours?
Worth you time, or just extra cash?
________

I casually mentioned to a guy I do business with, that I'd thought about doing custom tree delivery and set-up. He immediately asked if I would be interested in setting up a stand. I'm not real familiar with his area, but the location is in a very high traffic shopping area. He called the land owner to see if he was interested, and said we could meet later in the week.

I live about 2 miles from a very successful Christmas tree farm. I just left a message with them about this.
What pricing should I expect to pay for trees?
How many should I look at buying?
I hoping to have very little out of pocket, and basically buy from them as needed. Maybe 20-50 at a time, not a whole semi load.

I've got a wall I'm building at the homeplace. It sits about 35' from the house. I want it to run parallel to the house. How do I go about establishing a guideline parallel to the house, 35' out from the house?

I have tried using the laser tape to establish 2 points equidistant from the house, but there was a lot of slop. I have also tried setting stakes perpendicular to the house, and then pulling strings out to the wall location, but again, too much slop.

The edge of garage floor is visible, and I have been using that as my dominant line.

Thanks for any help or suggestions!

I've been in landscaping business for a couple years now, tired the printed ad, online ads, the yellowpages,craigslist..and a website...whats seems to work the best for everyone else?...I'm located in NJ and was wondering what worked for everyone else, and where to put my advertising dollars this spring...

My latest and greatest design project........

Here is a pondless waterfall we just finished. We were subbed out by a larger landscape company to build it.

[/IMG]

Wish the design called for more planting, but I tend to over-plant just to get a mature look right away.

I have a 160 yo brick town house in an historic district. During a recent nor'easter, an exceptional amount of water seeped into the utility room in the basement which is in the newer part (1870) of the house. Outside the wall of the utility room had been a hedge of boxwoods which were removed because they had been allowed to grow way too large and were almost filling up the 8' width of the side "yard". With the exception of flower beds on each side of this area, and, at the back of our 18' deep yard, all of the ground is in brick pavers.

On the other side of the house a 4' X 40' brick walkway connects to the front of the house and the street. It is shaped like a swale, lower in the center. Water runs away from the house and the basement on that side was bone dry.

Would it make sense to lay brick pavers in place of the old boxwood bed along the side of the house that has the seepage problem, shaping the dip in the center to draw the water to the back yard?
I would anticipate that the entire back yard may have to be relaid to get the correct drainage.

My thought, then, would be to construct a French drain that would take the water from the back yard and shunt it down the side of a 4' X 50' walkway that goes to the parking area. I would run it along a 6' H stone wall that my neighbor has erected.

I think I have enough drop off from the house to the parking area for a French drain. Figuring 1/8" per foot of drainage distance, I calculate that I would need a drop of 9" to cover the 18' + 50' length from the back yard to the parking area. I have not measured this yet, but, think I may just make it.

I have always used the 1" outside diameter black iron pipes for screeding. I was wondering if that is the best pipe/material to use or do others have different options. I find that these pipes tend to bow due to the length and therefore sometimes might fudge up my base.

any opinions???

I just realized that I posted this in the wrong location, as I am a homeowner. I was unable to delete this, so if anyone can tell me how, I will, as I plan on re-posting in the Homeowner section instead.

This is kind of a multi part question, but they are related. My wife and I purchased a house and end of the back yard sloped down into our neighbors yard, down about 10 feet, out about 20. We had someone come in and install two terraced retaining walls and regained about 10 feet of yard. We used ecology blocks (2'x2'x6' concrete blocks w/ a rebar handle) for the wall. The upper wall consists of 3 blocks of which one is completely buried leaving 4' above ground. They also leveled our yard (it was always fairly flat, but there was one section that quickly dropped off a few inches creating a, so a portion was lower than the other part of the yard), and graded it away from the house, and brought in several layers of top soil. We had no problems with mud or drainage before this happened, however now we have had alot of rain in the last several weeks, and our yard if very muddy. There was grass/weeds when we started, but now the flatter yard is just dirt, and we were going to replant grass in the spring. As I said, there was no water issues before, but now the yard is muddy. If you walk on it, you sink several inches, and your boots tend to stick into the ground.

My first question is will this likely be alleviated when we plant grass, as the grass will be absorbing the moisture, or should the yard be graded more than it is? As I said, it currently gently slopes away from the house, and the foundation stays dry, so no basement issues, just the yard being wet.

Secondly, when they installed the retaining wall, they only put a drain tile (drainage rock and a pipe) near the bottom of the wall. The put no drain rock between the wall and fill. The wall has begun to lean, and they are returning to fix this. My question is how is the best way to do this? I was going to have them add drain rock up the entire face of the rear of the wall to allow water to drain, and also slightly slope the blocks into the hill. Will this be adequate?

I am not sure if the drain rock behind the wall will work because the yard retains so much water currently. I have read about hydrostatic pressure, but is this caused from the water itself actually pressing against the wall, or from water saturated soil gaining mass, and putting more force against the wall? If the water is creating the force, the drain rock would seem to solve the problem, as it would all just drain away, but if it is just soil that retains water, I don't know how much the drain rock would help.

What is the ideal grade for a yard to facilitate drainage, but still be "flat" for usability? I have heard 1 foot drop for every 50' or run.

My yard is about 35' long, by 50' wide (50' retaining wall). Also, with the drain rock behind the wall, should the yard slope completely away from the house, w/ the highest part being the foundation, and the lowest part being the retaining wall, or will this cause retaining wall issues (it seems to me even if the wall is the lowest point of the yard, the drain rock behind it would create a place for all the water to drain)? The other option that I can think of would be to have the retaining wall and foundation both higher, creating a slight V shape in the middle of the yard, and drain off to the side, but I am concerned with how this will look. A continuous unnoticeable slope from the house to the wall seems the best aesthetically.

I'm not sure of the type of soil that I have, but I previously figured it had pretty good drainage because the yard never had water problems before, now I'm not so sure. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to present all the info I could. Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Richard

Hi everyone,

I'm not a landscaper, just one woman that loves using native plants in my garden and want to hear from other people that are doing the same thing or want to share some info with me.

I put in my garden two years ago, here in Ventura county and I'm glad that I did since we now have serious water issues. I'm constantly being asked about the garden, plants, how to start one, etc.

I'm looking forward to meeting my fellow "Xchangers" :,

Help!
I spent most of the day with the leaf blower blowing on my clay pavers to make sure that they would be dry enough for my polymeric sand install. (They haven't been wet for many days, but the dew that forms is enough to make them wet-ish each day.) It turns out that some were still retaining moisture when I started doing the first section. I was able to get all of the gummy layer off of those bricks by rubbing it around into a ball like rubber cement. The problem is that I did not have time to sweep in any other sections OR to do any compacting with my rubber mallet to make sure there weren't any voids in this one section, and now there's rain in the forecast for late tonight. Do I:

1. Go ahead and mist and activate just this section?
2. Don't mist it. Cover it with a tarp and hope that the dew that will still form won't partially activate what's in there?

How will I get these clay bricks to dry out next time I go to do this? The dew each day just doesn't seem to dry out enough by the end of the day...

Thanks a million!