Repair-It

Onedrive link to pics and videos:
https://1drv.ms/f/s!An5lt1BKvFKdoP18w9-89X6artsWow

Moar pics: https://1drv.ms/f/s!An5lt1BKvFKdoP8N2_lgf68pFRAO8A

Also, fixed! Not really. I ordered one of these though:
http://m.ebay.com/itm/120467902639?_mwBanner=1

So it's been 6 months or so and I've had time to notice some drainage erosion at the corner of the parking area.

I did a poor job with before pics so forgive me. But essentially, there were serious erosion water ways on the dirt and the water was beginning to undermine the support under the corner of the parking area. It would crack eventually from lack of support. I had to do something.

So I reused the PVC drainage pipes that were pulled out from in front of my garage during the driveway job. Process went something like this:
- Hand dig a trench to lay the pipe from the corner to the edge of the slope
- Lay down some gravel to put the pipe on. I used what I had laying around.
- Lay pipe. I elected to point the holes downward. The internet could not agree on this so I just took a guess and figured that water was unlikely to funnel perfectly into the holes from the top. More likely water builds up and will more quickly enter the pipe from the bottom. Also keeps crap out of the pipe since the holes are downward.
- Begin to fill in around pipe
- Lay down that weed fabric to keep any soil out of the pipe
- Add more gravel to bury everything and bring up to proper grade
- Decide to add a 4' perimeter around the edges of the parking area. I will add white 3/4" stone later, which is more than twice the price. It will look nice and allow a vehicle tire to go off the edge with no worries of cracking the asphalt.
- I may cut the extra length off the pipe at some point. Or not.

I just sort of thought of this today so I was happy that it all seems to have come together. I did end up buying two loads of 3/4 yard of 1-1/2" processed gravel. It was about $30 per load. It loaded the truck up enough to look like it was basically at capacity. The suspension on this truck is pretty soft, but I guess all 1/2 tons from this era are similar. Could use more damping to control the load.

The bucket on the loader was a little longer than the bed of my truck (long bed rant mode enabled) so it peppered the tailgate pretty bad with rocks. I will probably have to touch up all those dings which went through the paint.

Now for the pics.

For the second load I actually backed the truck over my trench to make it easier to spread the rocks.

Jamie was hounding me about the dirt hill so I ordered some Icee Blue Juniper (a Monrovia patent, the grower). I selected it because it's pretty much the ideal ground cover for this kind of thing. According to the grower it is good for: - Erosion control (primary)
- Evergreen
- Does not require heavy watering
- Deer resistant
- Cold hardiness
- Grows only 4 in tall and up to 8 feet wide

So that is why I selected it. Price was $17 for a 1 gallon size and I got 20 of them, shipped to a nursery for pickup.

Working on this slope was hell and took most of Saturday. I also laid out the weed control fabric and that was similarly awful.

To plant, I bought some planting mix which was a rich organic mix of stuff, including poultry manure. I mixed that with some of the dug up soil and threw in some shrub fertilizer.

On Sunday I laid out the soaker hose watering system. For that I used two 100 ft kits from Miracle Grow, which was required due to both the amount of hose I would need and the number of connections I had to make. Side note, I think the soaker hose is cool. Since I will have to water this regularly until the fall, I feel like the soaker hose is a more efficient way to water, letting the water drip into and saturate the soil rather than spray a bunch of water through the air only to pool and puddle on the soil before it can actually saturate. Downside is it is kind of custom for the particular landscaping area you have, and is in fact supposed to have a layer of mulch on top of it.

The nursery guy said 90 minutes of this, at least 3 days a week, until September or so. It uses far less water per hour than a regular sprinkler due to the restrictor in the main feed.

The final step is mulch and sadly I seem to have missed all of the mulch sales, as the price is back up to over $3/bag which is too high considering I need like 40+ bags of it. My best option may be Walmart, which has the best price at $2.50. The usual sale prices earlier in the season are $2/bag.

I think bags are my best option as well because I can carry them from the truck (which I would park near my working area) to the part of the slope I want to spread the mulch. Then I'd cut open the bag and spread. Compare that to either shoveling mulch, one scoop at a time from either the truck or a place it was dumped in the driveway. The bags seem more convenient. I don't have a great plan for spreading it otherwise. Basically just start at the bottom, and as I mulch, try to walk up the slope on the mulch and not tear my weed fabric. I think this is going to suck, but it must be done.

Despite my whining about requiring bagged mulch the lack of bagged mulch sales forced my hand. I bought a total of 3.5 yards black mulch from Mulch n More. First trip was 1.5 and the second trip was 2 when I realized I couldn't really spread it as thin as I calculated. Price works out to $1.85/bag and the sale price is $2 so I beat the sale price, and there is no sale. $25/yd. Natural was a bit cheaper at $22/yd. But the key thing is, I think it was actually better to be able to place the truck where I wanted it, including backing it right up to the hill if needed, and shovel the mulch into place. It is not as heavy as I thought it would be to shovel so it wasn't all that bad. 2 yards was pretty freighted but it handled it fine. If I had to do it again I would have planted my juniper higher. Hopefully it flourishes and makes a nice ground cover. I am more than halfway done, and I bet I'll need between 2 and 3 yards to finish. Probably closer to 2, which means two more trips still.

Finished.

Total mulch: around 6 yards. This would have required 81 bags of mulch if I did it that way, which is twice what I estimated. Good thing I didn't do that...

I also estimated a much thinner layer so actually I think my estimate was good except I should have planned on a thicker layer (for my bag estimate) to hold up on the incline and cover all the weed fabric.