• How to Protect Your Yard from Moisture and Water Damage

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    Home maintenance, both inside and out, is an essential part of being a homeowner. While work on the inside can be a lot to maintain, few people think enough about the outside of their home, and the effect that too much water can have on their yard, their grass, and their home’s foundation. While gardens, landscaping, and lawn maintenance are important to a lot of people, it’s not just about design and creating something beautiful for your neighbors to fawn over. You must protect your yard from potential water damage, too.

    But how do you get started? It’s not like you can stop the rain. Thankfully, there are several steps and actions you can take to protect your yard.  

    Here are a few options for every homeowner to protect their yard from water damage and excess moisture. 

    Look into Drainage Systems 

    The first thing to look into when thinking about moisture control is a lawn drainage system. While you might think drainage systems are limited to manufactural warehouses, they can also help control water in your yard. Lawn drains are systems buried beneath the ground that catch rainwater and send it somewhere else.

    Typically, there’s a metal or plastic basin or grate to catch the water and then pipes to take the collected water to a designated spot. Usually, these pipes lead to the street or the city’s storm drain. There are several types of drainage systems. There’s a French drain, an outdoor slot drain, and more. No matter which drainage system you choose, incorporating one into your lawn will undoubtedly keep your yard free of excess water build-up. 

    Check Out Permeable Pavement 

    So, permeable paving systems are a really nifty invention. Essentially, permeable pavers are made to replace concrete, asphalt, or other alternatives for your porch, driveway, or street. These pavers are designed to collect and drain water, just like the ground does. They’re porous, so when it rains, these pavers soak up the moisture and drain into the ground. 

    What this does is it eliminates standing puddles that form on less porous materials. They prevent flooding, reduce runoff, and contribute to overall stormwater management. Also, they come in many different designs, so you’re sure to find a system that fits your aesthetic preferences.  

    Protect Your Concrete 

    Most people have concrete somewhere around their home. Whether it’s the driveway or a porch, concrete is a common material. Concrete is pretty absorbent, and too much water can damage the structural integrity of concrete. Also, concrete is prone to freezing and thawing during wet and cold winter months, which is not only dangerous; it’s harmful to the concrete. 

    If you have concrete in your yard, be sure to use a concrete sealant. Doing so will not only prevent water damage, but it prevents sun damage, oil staining, and damage from general wear and tear. 

    Re-Think Your Garden

    Anyone who owns a garden knows that they require a lot of water to stay looking good. If you already have a garden, consider turning it into a rain garden. Rain gardens are like a regular garden, except they use a special kind of soil that absorbs water and filters pollutants. Generally, rain gardens also have plants that absorb large amounts of water, too. 

    If you don’t want to switch your traditional garden to a rain garden, consider adding a drainage system to the garden you already have so that excess water doesn’t become an issue.  

    Stop Moisture Build Up in Your Lawn

    Water damage is not only costly; it can dramatically decrease the curb appeal and property value of your home. While you can try to prevent it by avoiding overwatering, you can’t stop rain. If you live in a particularly wet area, you can’t ignore the threat of moisture damage. 

    Additionally, if you live in an urban, highly-populated area, standing water goes from just being a nuisance to being potentially toxic. Urban water runoff is known to collect and attract pollutants. Standing water also attracts dangerous and annoying pests, like mosquitos. Other insect pests, like various red ants species, can also be an enormous pain to get rid of; best to call a professional to deal with these.

    Save yourself the future headache, time, and cost by utilizing some of the above techniques. Hire an expert if you need to but know that the internet is full of DIY resources to get you started. These techniques will ensure that your yard, grass, and foundation are protected, while simultaneously limiting your exposure to the dangerous pollutants in standing water.

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  • How to Tell if a Tree is Dying and Avoid that Backyard Disaster

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    Trees are nature’s way of providing the planet with sufficient oxygen and after thousands of years, humanity has finally realised how important they are to the ecosystem. Trees need regular care and attention, if they are to remain safe and attractive and in either a domestic or commercial environment, one must prune often. There are many reasons why a tree might die, perhaps too many to explain in this article, but whatever the reason for the tree’s demise, there are tell-tale signs to look out for, and here are the most common signs that a tree is about to meet its maker.

    • Trunk Damage – If a tree has vertical lines running along the trunk, this could indicate serious damage, and one sure sign is lack of bark. Every tree will shed its bark, just as a snake sheds its skin, and it must do this to accommodate new growth, but if you notice patches of the trunk that are bare of bark, this is a sign the tree is in critical condition and might easily topple over in a storm. If you have a dangerous looking tree on your property, and you live in Western Australia, there are online companies that specialise in tree removal services in Perth and surrounding areas, who can safely remove the tree and also grind away the stump, leaving no trace.
    • Lack of Foliage – If a tree that normally has plenty of young green leaves looks a little bare, this could be a sign of the end of its natural life. Of course, some trees are bare in the winter, so one must make allowances for seasonal changes. If you think a tree is looking rather undernourished and lacks the usual amount of greenery, call in Williams Tree Pro Services, who have been servicing the Perth region since 2005, and there isn’t a job they can’t handle. In England, you’ll want to talk to Kings Cuts Tree Services, professional tree surgeons who operate throughout Romford, Dagenham, and the entire Essex area. From the southeast of England? Reach out to N J Apps Tree Surgery.
       
    • Change of Elevation – If a large tree suddenly leans over, even slightly, this could mean decay has got to the roots, and with some species, the roots are the first part of the tree to begin to cease working. This can be potentially dangerous, as a very large tree could weigh 30-40 tonnes and heavy wind would bring it down, and if you do notice anything unusual, ask your local arborist to examine the tree in question, as it is better to be safe than sorry.
    • Fungus – Fungus on the lower trunk and surrounding the stump can be an indication of internal rot, but you can only establish this by asking an experienced arborist to look at the tree. One can never really be sure until an expert gives their opinion and if the tree is in danger of falling, it must be safely removed by a tree surgeon.

    Trees are an attractive addition to any outdoor area and can really give the environment that natural feel, but they are also potentially very dangerous, especially if they are not looked after.

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  • book review: Icons of 20th-Century Landscape Design

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    My colleague Jay Dickenson was kind enough to review Katie Campbell’s new book for Hewn & Hammered:

    Katie Campbell, Icons of Twentieth-Century Landscape Design, Frances Lincoln Limited, Publisher, 2006

    In her new work, Icons of Twentieth-Century Landscape Design, Katie Campbell presents significant landscape designs created during the past century that, she believes, challenged the accepted form, use, and meaning of created landscapes. Campbell describes traditional attitudes toward landscape design, at least before the twentieth century, as alternating between the poles of classical formality and romantic naturalism. Fittingly, each of the twenty-nine sites featured in Icons eschews this rigid classical/romantic dialectic.

    As a whole, Campbell’s subjects share neither style, nor location, nor philosophy (though each of the works in Icons emerges from the Western tradition of landscape design). However, Campbell is able to group the sites found in Icons according to broad and sometimes overlapping themes, such as nature worship (Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery, Wright’s Falling Water, or Portland’s Lovejoy Plaza) and environmentalism (Eggborough power plant); nationalism and anticolonialism (Brazil’s Ministry of Education and Mexican designer Luis Barragán’s Las Arboledas); artistic (the Barcelona Pavilion, Park Guëll, and Bentley Woods); and allegorical (the Kennedy Memorial and Salt Lake’s Spiral Jetty).

    Yet the thrust of the book is not thematic. Campbell addresses each site individually through both written description and analysis and through visual imagery. Campbell’s writing is lively an accessible. And, in keeping with Icons’ “coffee table” format, the photographs and illustrations are colorful and, for the most part illustrative. My only complaint is that, in some instances, Icon lacks images sufficiently detailed to match Campbell’s precise analysis. For example, in describing Gaudí’s use of allegorical and ethnocentric imagery at Park Guëll, Campbell references “large stone spheres, suggestive of rosary beads,” and “a red and white band … which suggests a cigar band — a whimsical reference to Guëll’s interests in the tobacco industry.” Yet, in scanning the full-page prints and inset photos that accompany the essay, one unfortunately finds neither cigar band nor rosary beads.

    Campbell acknowledges that her selection of sites to include in Icons was necessarily idiosyncratic, and, certainly, Icons excludes other twentieth-century works that deserve to be called “icons” of landscape design. For this reason, the book is sure to provide grist for the expert to grind. Yet, Campbell’s writing is accessible and oftentimes general. The novice reader, unschooled in modern or contemporary art, philosophy, or design, will surely find Icons a richly educational read.