About the yard

I realized, after getting a similar comment from several people, that I haven't clearly communicated why we need a landscaper in the backyard. I think the general assumption is that landscapers make yard "pretty." I think when I talk about it, the image people get is that the yard is simply bland and boring, and just needs a few plants and maybe a touch up on the grass. The truth is, our backyard is in way worse shape than that. Our landscaper won't even be doing any plants (except the grass)

First, it slopes both left to right (higher on the left) and front to back (higher in the back). It also slopes toward the house and garage, which is a big problem with water run off. So, right off the bat, there are several tricky 3-dimensional problem to solve. First is the general grading of the yard. The slope must be changed so that the water drains properly (i.e. away from the house and into the street or into a drainage system). This is quite a complex problem by itself. There are multiple ways to handle it, including building a drainage system (which we'd like to avoid). We may need to have dirt trucked in, and the landscaper may have to bring in a back hoe to move dirt around. Plants need to be considered as well - without plant matter to hold the dirt, and changes to the grade might not last (this will be grass in our case). With or without a drainage system, there are still multiple ways to handle the slope and water runoff and all of them have their pros, cons and price. The second tricky problem is the transitions from the various heights. The driveway, with respect to the house, is quite high (i.e. if I am standing in the driveway, the lower edge of the ground floor windows is about waist high). On the other side of the house, there is a 5 foot wide walkway. When I am standing in the walkway, the ground floor windows are way over my head. The backyard touches both of these levels, so we have some transitions to figure out. Our plan is to put a deck in that is at the same level as the grass in the back of the yard and to use step(s) to get to the driveway and side of house. The deck will be about 2 feet higher than the driveway near the house and will be at the driveway level at the back of the deck.

Second, the yard was used as a junkyard/dump by the previous owners. Right now, there is no grass. It is packed dirt with waist-high weeds, glass, cat poop, ditches, glass, litter, etc. After grading the yard, it needs to be rototilled (top layer broken up) and possibly the soil quality corrected. Our elm tree has dropped seedlings which are now growing quite tall and need to be removed as well.

Third, we want a seating area of some sort to use right outside our back door. We are thinking a ground level deck at this time, but we are waiting for prices. The deck has to tie into the fencing and gates. Since it is a ground level deck, we could probably tackle this ourselves, but we want it done sooner than we could possibly get to it. The hardest part of DIY projects is sifting through all the information on something. We could probably spend years figuring out what wood is best (yes there are dozens of options), what stain is best, how to lay the boards, etc. We've owned our house 19 months and have lived here 14 - we want to start enjoying our yard and sitting in it.

Fourth is the issue of time. We need a yard by the time I start school for our large-breed puppy to hang out in all day. He cannot be out there at all now. There are too many dangerous things for him to eat and be injured on. There is no way to contain him as the yard isn't fenced and the fencing can't be done till the deck and gates are done. We'd be years trying to solve all these problems and figure out how to do things and which materials to use.

Fifth, we live in a warm climate. Without sprinklers, you can't have grass. He'll be installing sprinklers for us and running a water outlet at the back of the garage for a hose.

So there you have it, the short answer of what the landscaper will do.