The first project was pulling out our monkey grass. Over the years, grass and weeds had intertwined with the monkey grass and it was becoming a real pain to keep it looking nice. I would spend hours pulling the weeds up individually.. only to see that they would come right back up within a few days time. Therefore, I was ready to have something planted that was a lot less maintenance. And this is what we came up with...
Our second and much LARGER project involved putting in a drainage system in our backyard. There are hills all around us, therefore, we get a lot of runoff from the neighbors yard. We decided to put in a drain along the fence line that would collect the water before it flows into our backyard. The drainage pipe is at the bottom of a 2 foot canal and it has a series of holes in it so it can collect the water. The canal is also filled with rocks so that the water can seep in quickly and fill the canal.
The pipe travels along the fence line and then down through the middle of the houses towards the street. It was quite a tricky process because not only do you have to bury to pipe line- you also have to make sure that it at least has a little bit of a downward slope the entire way. Otherwise, there could be points in the line where water sits or wont flow as easily.
We also decided to incorporate a walkway in between the houses. We've always had trouble growing grass in this area because of the limited amount of sunlight, so it only made sense to incorporate a walkway. As well as helping cover up the canal that we dug and helping to give the water another route to the street.
We literally finished right before a heavy down pour started. And lucky for us, we were able to see the drain in action. It felt like Christmas! It's taken us two very long weekends to finish this project and to find out that it actually works was a relief!
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