2024 Update… My basement wall started leaking water into my office – right by my guitars. Fortunately, I spotted it quickly and it was a very slow leak. One that I could easily patch myself with hydraulic cement. But no matter how small the leak, it’s ‘a leak’ and it has to be dealt with […]
Maintenance
Building a Removable Wood Fence Section and Gate
2024 Update – When we enclosed my yard with a cedar fence 11 years ago, it seemed like a good idea to create a removable section using a single (but ultra-sturdy) removable fence post so we could get a truck inside. You never know when you might need to get back there, right? So I […]
My Collapsing Paver Walkway
2024 Update… With each passing week, my paver walkway continued to cave in – and I was frankly getting more than a little frustrated. I was definitely worried about someone tripping and getting hurt because the walkway was becoming less and less stable, and even worse: I had no idea how to make the burrowing […]
Spider Mite Arborvitae Decimation
July 2024 Update — Originally Published June, 2011 Last spring and summer were brutal for landscaping in New Jersey… almost zero rain and non-stop heat in the nineties. I had a line of emerald green arborvitaes that had been growing beautifully for about 8-9 years. These got hit really hard, and I frankly never saw […]
Landscape Anchors To Save My Wind Damaged Spruce
2024 Update – This time it was a perfectly shaped and well-established blue spruce that took the hit. The wind knocked it to an awkward angle, and I could almost certainly pull it the rest of the way down by hand had I wanted. We had to secure this focal landscape tree to save it, and […]
Paving an Asphalt Driveway
2024 Update – Surface tree roots and water drainage problems had been slowly killing my asphalt driveway for a number of years, but it was a convoy of construction trucks en route to the backyard that really finished it off. None of the usual asphalt repair quick-fixes could possibly help. We tried to get creative […]
Rehabbing My Crappy Fire Pit Patio
2023 Update – My fire pit paver patio area was disgusting. It didn’t start out that way, of course. But after a while, everything needs a facelift. Or a rehab. Or maybe just some TLC. The mold, moss, algae and weeds in my paver patio were out of control. Rust, rot and filth had consumed […]
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