I hate my damn landscaping

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Crepe myrtles

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Bamboo

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I'm ripping all this shite out

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Good luck

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More than once I've walked into the house worn out and covered in dirt and told my wife "we're selling this fricking house"

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I feel your pain.

One time, my wife said that when I walked out of my shop with my backpack sprayer, she was worried it was full of gasoline, and that the house was about to go up in smoke.

Damn, I thought I had it bad. People I bought my house from used azaleas to separate from the neighbors instead of building a fence. Damn things were 8’ tall, 4’ from the house, and were on top of each other.

Back of the property was untouched and a small forest. Caught poison ivy 3 times, had major termite & mosquitoes.

Front garden had one of those low maintenance ivy brushes instead of mulch. Pulled them up and didn’t introduce any new plants other than some boxwoods or soil until we could map out what we wanted and immediately had the garden overran by torpedo grass.

Guess I was lucky/surprised they didn’t have bamboo somewhere

Best thing I did when re-landscaping my yard, was to hire a landscape architect to come up with a landscaping plan for me. I did all the work associated with re-landscaping, ripping out plants, building new beds, installing new plants, but having a plan to follow from a professional was $$ well spent. Not only does it look good, but adds significant value to the house should you ever sell. Just throwing that out there.

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I would suggest an air strike on your property

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ah, the smell of napalm in the morning

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Did you do raised beds? I'm needing landscaping at my home and have been debating hiring or DIM. I'm not afraid of the work but have never built "raised beds" and that's what the wife is requesting.

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Yes I did - in my case I raised the beds at least 12 inches above lawn grade - understand you do get some settling in height overtime.

In poorly draining heavy clay soils as I have in BR it’s a necessity for optimal results. After 4 years I tell you that the difference in growth and health of woody shrubs, azaleas and camellias particularly, compared to the old landscape beds that had the same azalea cultivars and were barely above grade, is staggering.

I side with your wife, put in the work and effort to raise the beds - aesthetically it is more pleasing - and the plants will love it as well. The cost of bulk landscape garden “soil” is not very expensive compared to the cost of shrubs, etc.

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Can yo be more specific on what this is? A retired landscaper told me they would typically use top soil mixed with sandy dirt to form the bases of the beds. Did you till the ground before bringing in the garden soil?

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Yes - at least at retail garden centers in BR - for example Cleggs, LA Nursery, Plant Tech, it’s 100% composted forest products, usually with some sand mixed in to aid in drainage. There is no mineral soil, that is, “dirt”, in the mix. The places I buy it from from call it garden soil or garden mix. Basically it the same material potted shrubs are grown in at wholesale nurseries.

Tilling - I’ll be honest, in my front yard, initially I removed the grass and lightly tilled the area before building up the beds to 12 inch height with the “garden mix”. Later, in the backyard, I sprayed the grass where the beds were being placed with glyphosate (roundup) to kill the grass, waiting at least several days, and I then built up the landscape beds with garden mix directly over the dead grass, without tilling. That saved some work, and the plants I’ve added to those beds, woody shrubs and herbaceous perennials, have grown very well.

Others might not recommend that approach, not removing grass and not tilling, but it worked for me. But remember I built the beds “high” for better drainage and aesthetics, if I was building beds only 4 to 6 inches in height, I’d remove the grass first and till.

You will have better luck killing that bamboo than a crepe myrtle.

I have one I have been fighting with for about 7 years. sprayed almost every type of herbicide on it.

It finally disappeared last year, but I saw it had sprouts coming back the last time I was in the back yard.

They will not die.

When designing landscape, unfortunately I have found that even many landscape architects overcrowd beds. Beds should be built to be full after 2-3 years of growth after install.

Here is how I build and design:

First, with raised beds, I find that 1 yd of soil will raise beds 8-9 inches and cover 40-45 sf. I only use a bed builder soil, which like someone else mentioned, is made of wood bark, compost and usually a little sand. You may still fight some nutsedge seed, which is rare, but you avoid the seeds that come in dirt, riversilt, etc.

I have found that most of our builds hold 4-5 plants (3 gal) per yd of soil. I have found that many landscape architects install another 25-30 percent more plants per yd spread out across the job. These numbers can change depending on plant type, bed design and build type.

Bed prep prior to install will vary depending on what you are installing the soil on top of.

As far as weed control, pre emergent herbicide after build, and a heavy base of pinestraw help tremendously with weed control.

Here is a breakdown of what we charge for our install. This includes design of beds, materials, shaping soils, plant layout according to sunlight, shade, size, growth habits, etc.

Bedding soil $100 per yds
Plants (vary according to type)
$24-30 (3 gal), $40-60 (7 gal), $150-200 (10/15 gal) $300-400 (30 gal)
Pinestraw rolls $25 (50 sf)

A decent average is $5-7 per sq ft. This can vary depending on the larger items and the quantity.


Some may say this sounds expensive. When you figure out that we arrive with all materials, 3-4 men, and at minimum $125,000 in trucks and equipment. Add fuels and insurance and it isn’t cheap.

You can find cheap and you will get cheap, or you can search for honesty and experience and get quality.

If a contractor will not give examples of his designs, references and a breakdown on prices, then you should keep shopping.

I’ll check back and answer any questions that I can

I had to cut down 3 fricking trees. The one close to the back patio pushed the concrete where water would slope against the house. When I cut it down, the roots died and shrunk and the patio stayed elevated and cracked all to shite.

In addition, a neighbors cypress tree has destroyed all kinds of coping around the yard.