OT Landscaping questions

[COElizabeth]

We recently moved to a new home and need to landscape the small back yard and sides of the house. The lot is fairly steep on the sides of the house.

What we have in mind is to put a concrete walkway from the side door of the garage going down the hill to the back yard and ending in a wider concrete pad for our dog run. We would also like to put in a ground-level wood deck outside the walk-out basement (there is a very small deck outside the kitchen on the main floor, which is above ground, and there is a stairway going down to the ground). With all that, there would really be very little space left, and we would probably just have rock or gravel on the sides of the house since they are so steep and would do a little grass or some xeriscaping around the deck and dog run.

My questions are:

1) Are there any other good, reasonably affordable choices for solid surface walkways and kennel floors that would be easy to clean both snow and dog poop off of? Plain concrete is discouraged by our HOA, and all plans have to be approved. I hope we could get approval, but I'd like to know of other options.

2) Should I get a landscape contractor to draw a plan for the HOA and have the company do the deck, walkway/run, and plants/grass? Is it better to get different people to do all those things? What questions should I ask? I honestly know nothing about landscaping!

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9-20-02

[peanut4us]

Elizabeth we put our own landscaping brick type of patio in and it would look awesome as a walkway. All you have to do is clear, at a little base rock, a bunch of sand, insert the bricks and then "pound them down" with a special machine (DH LOVED that part) and spread sand over the top to fill in the gaps... probably not describing well, but I can send you a pic if you like??? Supplies at Home Depot...

We hired someone to do our deck. They designed and constructed and it is SO beautiful. we are doing our landscaping "around" the deck, kwim? Now that we can actually see what it looks like and how the space fills out, it is much easier to really get a feel for what to do with the rest of the yard. Of course, we're relative cheapskates and don't want to pay for anything we don't have to... we'd rather do anything ourselves that we think we're capable of. (It took forever to convince DH that we were NOT capable of doing the deck ourselves! LOL!).

What kinds of plans have to get approved by the HOA? Just stuff that is visible from the road? Is there any other home(s) in your HOA with the kinds of things you like? If so, I'd stop by and ask them if they had any problems or requirements from the HOA.
That's all I can think of right now. Let me know if you ahve any questions or want any pix.

[alkagift]

Elizabeth,
Concrete can come in brick shapes, colored, stamped all kinds of things...you'd be surprised how nice it can look--it doesn't just have to be a grey slab--so don't rule it out just because it says concrete. One choice would to be to pour the slab of colored concrete (yep, they can do that) then stamp in a bluestone or some pattern for the dog run while it's wet--it would be permanent and better looking that just plain.

I put a path in with Belgard stone and it wasn't too bad, expense wise--we are NOT handy people and I had it done by the same landscapers I used to put the heavy stuff in my front garden--shrubs and the like. You can use the same landscape people, they usually have contacts for stone/concrete, etc. I designed the garden and path it myself, but I know any good landscape architect can do it--they have to understand hardscape and plantscapes. Landscape DESIGNERs are a different deal, they aren't all created equal (some here just call themselves designers because they feel like it), so get lots of references before you pay money for a design, don't just look at their samples. I learned that the hard way and found that I would have saved money if I'd just used the landscape architect to begin with.

I would use an architect anyway, since you may have drainage issues to consider with the slopes and concrete--LA's are the way to go about that. Check out the university's evening education classes or the botanical garden for classes on landscape design. They should have a teacher or two that either are LA's themselves or can refer you to one!


Allison
Mom to Matthew Clayton, 5/19/03