The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

15 Basic Ways To Landscape Your Homepage

While speaking of rain, you should plan on handling the eave drip. Troughs of cement or din ditches filled with gravel will keep roof water run-off from splashing the house foundation or ruining next year's flower beds. Another serious problem child is the downspout. It usually requires construction of a concrete splash pan or tile drainage ditch to carry oil water to a paved area.

You can make the walls or banks from nearly anything, including logs, concrete blocks, redwood planks or random size rocks. As you build, it's easy to leave room between the sections for plant materials. Dwarf shrubs and vines provide a welcome splurge of color suitable for most situations. Or you could even plant seeds among the bank sections during construction. Good results will certainly appear if the plant materials are chosen for the climatic and exposure conditions of the bank or retaining wall you contemplate building.

If the wall exceeds three feet in height construction details should be planned by an experienced engineer. High walls are more of an engineering project than a yard decoration. Structural strength is especially important when the great mass of earth behind your new wall gets soaking wet and tries to push past the barrier.

Low banks or retaining walls are fine week end projects. But estimating the number of logs, bricks or slabs needed for any job defies written instruction. In the absence of competent local advice, your safest way is to order 20 per cent more than estimated. Make sure extra material is available.

An important basic rule of wall building is to lay the sections with their broadest surface down. To hold them in place use a short chunk of two by four to tamp earth tightly around the sections. You can then lay the next tier on its own pillow of good

topsoil] and repeat the tamping operation. The best appearing walls are those in which the top row is parallel with foundations of the nearest buildings or other walls.

Old banks and walls can be easily landscaped in your weekday spare-time. Use an iron bar or piece of pipe to spread the block sections apart. Then prop them up with small stones. Fill the newly created openings with good topsoil and plant the new shrubs or flowers solidly in place.

Use all the imagination you have when improving property with stone or other wall materials, but keep it simple in design. Soon strong lines of the wood or concrete will blend into a pattern as the planting program proceeds to beautify your home.