Cup of Coffee

May 17, 2020: Still Waters

60 Comments

Our backyard has some pretty crappy drainage, something highlighted this week with all the rain. Short of tearing up the whole yard though, not sure if there's much we can do about it.

60 thoughts on “May 17, 2020: Still Waters”

  1. We also fight the drainage issue. I need to meet with the elderly neighbor next door sometime and get permission to patch up a low spot on his side of their fence; it's diverting runoff away from our drainage swale and it's washing away some of our mulch

  2. You can dig a deep, really deep, hole in the lowest spot and back fill with rock and sand to make a fakey french drain. Not worth the effort.

    1. Oooh, the jalapeno has quite a sizeable hole going in the backyard. Perhaps I could hire him out for this sort of thing?

      1. Parental desperation. Ok, kids. I’ll give you 6x6ft spot in the lawn to see how deep you can dig by the end of the summer.

    2. Apropos

      1. A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin' night.

        -Nicky Santoro

        1. It's just a very, very Norwegian town near me and where my company's office is located.

  4. Fortunately no drainage issues here, my biggest yard problem (outside of dogs making the front look terrible) is the gigantic patch of backyard with no grass after a few years of losing it little by little. We have a small wooded area behind our house, six big trees in our yard, and a bunch of smaller ones that make it a full shade area.

    This year we've cleared out a 40-feet wide semi-circle of undergrowth to reclaim some yard too, debating whether to just put in a fire pit area or go crazy and put a vintage camper in the spot (assuming local regulations allow it).

    Regardless of future plans, it currently is adding to the area of the giant mud pit back there at the moment. At least I did get a lot of seed down in some of the area ahead of the rain.

    Has anyone built a patio in their yard with rocks/gravel/decomposed granite? DG is where my head is at currently.

    1. decomposed granite? DG is where my head is at currently.

      Well I'm going to be thinking differently about a certain citizen for a while.

    2. I can’t remember where you move, razor, but dg is great in dry non freeze climates, but the trees you mention will necessitate the purchase of a leaf blower to clean the area in the fall. True grid will hold the gravel or DG in place, and can bear a lot of weight if you were interested in parking the camper on it.

      I’m about to lay a true grid path on the side of my house, and by about to I mean next year. Leaf blower is of my most hated inventions so....

        1. I like my leaf blower, except for the 100ft extension cord...
          If I had to do it again...debate would be between gas for power or battery for convenience.
          (Truth-be-told I’m not totally sure how much trade off there actually is there. But one would think...)

                1. I should mention that I've been pretty pleased with the Greenworks line so far. I've got a lawnmower and a chainsaw, and I'm eyeing a trimmer. All of them run on the same battery system.

          1. gutter cleaning is an issue I need to address. While we have leaf guards on our gutters, the trees put out a lot of pollen, and the coast redwoods drop a lot of duff that disintegrates into powder. That stuff ends up filtering through the leaf guards and filling up the gutters. Ask me how I know. 🙁

              1. gully-washing rain the night we moved in, which caused a big mess. Water over-topping the gutter above our balcony area, which cause intrusion under/around the door and a soaked carpet.

                We are still recovering from the agony of $$$$ in repairs to the prior house due to stucco failure (really due to shitty design and construction standards at the time the house was built in the 1990s). So, having water issues on our first night in the new house was...not fun.

                  1. it was more of an "oh, shit" thing than a serious damage thing. Big (ok, not THAT big) wet area of carpet and pad. Hopefully, we got it dried out thoroughly and won't end up with mold issues down the road.

                    and then we had the doors replaced to balcony, and another big-ass rain storm and more water incursion. My fault for not getting the gutter cleaned before that happened, but also issues with the way the weatherstripping was installed. Cost our contractor extra labor to fix damaged paint on the top of the doorframe and two trips out to adjust the weatherstripping. And I paid somebody to clean all of our gutters, which required removing the mesh gutter guards (all screwed in at multiple points; lots of the gutters are too high for my ladders to reach).

                    First world problems.

                    1. I've avoided gutter guards because they look like they're a PITA if you need to access the inside for cleaning. (Also, $$$ to install.) Ten minutes walking my roofline with the leaf blower works until I have no business being up there anymore. Hopefully we're in a different house by then.

                    2. Yes, but slate roof. I am not walking on it. I don't have that kind of money.

  5. We have been trying to remedy years of neglect (by the previous owners) in our yard. So far, we have
    *constructed a path from our breezeway to back deck (12-15 feet, with reclaimed pavers/flat stones from random places around the back yard, plus a zillion bags of paver base and leveling sand, topped with pea pebbles)
    *Torn out some nasty climbing vine at our fence. She and I dug out about three toters full of roots.
    *Removed a couple volunteer fig trees ☹️ that were in bad places
    *Dug up a ton of planter area and refreshed, mulched and planted annuals and perennials
    *Trucked in two yards of redwood mulch and spread around our three coast redwoods
    *Dug up about 25 pavers ringing the front and side of the house, all of which had been grown over. Re-seated them to be at grade
    *Dug up and reseeded our boulevard weed patch with grass
    *Had a stump ground up. Built up a pit area near the stump by cutting the sod (by hand with my long spade, shoulda gotten a sod cutter) and backfilling about six inches of dirt in a 4X6 foot area before replacing the sod). This included digging up a shit-ton of roots from the dispatched stump.
    *Replaced a half-dozen sprinkler heads and risers
    *Reworked the drip line for our rose bed (about 60 feet). Ripped out some scraggly grapevines that had been planted in half of the rosebed. Prune the shit out of the roses. We have 30 rose bushes.
    *Pruned the shit out of a bougainvillea and trellised it.
    *Planted the raised bed

    Still to do:
    *Finish digging up the backyard weed patch (another 20X40 space of creeping charlie and crabgrass), including pulling up this weird plastic "barrier" stuff--a lattice of thin plastic that is mostly half-inch square gaps, buried a couple inches deep).
    *Build two raised beds, to accompany the one existing bed
    *Remove a scraggly, sad pine tree.
    *Plant a couple citrus trees.
    *Grow some actual grass in the bare patches in the front yard

      1. In one attempt people could join, but it only showed them as placeholders (no video/audio), in another I could admit them from the waiting room, but it never got past "joining..."

    2. It screwed up our call with the family in NOLA. Iyer was remedied before our call with the family a few miles south

  8. Filing under: Should have done long ago.
    Sometimes you don’t realize how bad things are until you fix them. I put new drawer slides on some of the drawers that were no longer sliding (and screws coming loose, hitting the roller, stopping the drawer in its tracks). So much better, and too easy.

    Also, the value of a good lithium battery cordless drill cannot be overstated. I know my Black&Decker isn’t even all that fancy, but having good tools at the ready brings me joy.

    3. Getting here a few days late, but this Ridgid impact driver/drill combo has been fantastic for me for over 6 years and I've used the crap out of it. Got the same combo for my dad five years ago because he'd been buying craftsmen or black and deckers every couple of years and he hasn't had any trouble with them at all.

  9. We were eating dinner outside (and zooming with NBBW's fam) and saw a new bird in the back yard, Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas). She says, "How come every new bird we see is Common!"

  10. My neighbor had a similar flooding issue, so he planted a willow tree, took care of it.

    1. The main problem is directly in the middle of the backyard, so not a good spot. As I mentioned before, the neighbors just cut down some large trees next to us. The extra sunlight is nice, but those probably sucked up some water too. Hopefully the increased evaporation will balance it out somewhat?

      To be honest, it seems like the whole area has a problem. Parks are always pretty flooded with any sustained rain. The soil or something? I'm sure CH could weigh in...

    2. I can't make it tonight; I'm melodramatically re-registering for summer child care ahead of tomorrow's deadline. 😉

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