Last set of questions (maybe) for @L45

Okey Dokey...
I have this plan in my head, and the more I learn about you and what you want/how you want to live, the better the plan gets.  

PLEASE forgive me for the ton of questions.  I’m not there to get to know you, talk to you in person, get a FEEL for who you are, how you want to live, and I can’t walk around your landscape and see its potential in person.  Your photos and my questions are the way I have to do that.  I know it’s a pain for you to keep answering and posting.

That said….this MAY be the last round of questions.  Everything in my head is working so far. BUT…


PRE-question:  Is this house a split level?????
(I ask because the bedrooms are on the ground floor, and that usually means split level.  That might mean a difference in how you use your indoor-meets-outdoor space.)


Okay so here we go…

1-One thing you will notice about all the photos you picked out in the earlier post, is that the yard is nice.  It's green, largely weed-free and well kept.  One of the things people forget when they look at photos of nice gardens and beautiful homes is that the lawn is the "frame" for the scene you're creating.  The green space adds a luxury to a landscape that is hard to get any other way.  

So...when we design your yard, you will have LESS lawn space, because we will be putting some hardscape, family areas and plantings in there to surround and set off the areas you want to enjoy.  However to get what I think you want, you will need to commit to lawn care--either having it treated, or doing that yourself.  It's not too onerous to do for yourself once you get it going, and you could begin that immediately.  It's a good time of year to get started.    You already have irrigation, so you are WAY ahead of most people.  HOWEVER…you may just freaking HATE lawn care.  And if that’s the case, we have to address that.  If you want beautiful, you have to either do it, or hire somebody.  I’m going to reduce the square footage you need to maintain, so that might be some help when you think about paying a lawn treatment service.

How are you with that?


2-What kind of soil do you have?  Is it dry and sandy?  Clay?  Any wet spots that don't drain well?  You had any experience with things that “just won’t grow” for you?  Tell me about that.


3-Anything buried in your yard that I need to know about? Septic?  Lateral lines?  Cable or electrical, gas, etc?  
Here's what I see.  


Those pink dots I will ask about in a minute.  But do I have the septic tank anywhere near correct?  

Your "drain line" goes out past the treeline.  Does that mean there is no lateral field in your actual yard?



Where are the sprinkler heads? (If you haven’t used the system and haven’t turned it on for the year (guessing you would not have where you live)  that’s okay.  But if I put a landscape feature on top of one, do you have the know-how to move it and/or extend it somewhere else, and/or change the head for a different one for, say, a flower bed or something?  Or will that cause you big trouble?

4-Are the pavers around your fire pit set in concrete?  Looks like they are really tightly placed (good job!) but you have that little plastic edging around it, so I’m unsure how it’s put together.

5-In an earlier question and answer, I said:
“That patio area under the deck...why does that not get used much? (or is it just the yard beyond, by the wall, that doesn't get used?) What's inside those sliders under the deck? (what room of the house?)”

And you said:  “Guest bedroom and storage. It's just not easy to get to from the deck or from the slider at the hot tub. It's also a pain to mow and weed wack in that area.”

Question…why is it a pain to mow and trim in that area?  …..  

Along with that question…I’m gonna go a little esoteric and new agey on you here with my language, so forgive me. I just don’t have better language than this to describe it….I’m getting the sense that you don’t like the feeling in that area—that maybe it’s sort of “stagnant” and doesn’t feel good when you’re over there?(I have areas of my yard that are this way for me. I just don’t like to go over there.)  I extrapolated that from your statements about it above, and the fact that you want a water feature there—moving water/moving energy—to brighten it.  Okay that’s the end of the new agey language.  Am I anywhere near right?  Trying to make sure I understand what that area feels like to you.  In the photos it looks sort of like a dead corner that just doesn’t have a use so you stack chairs there.

I have a use in mind for it, but trying to make sure I’m not way off base.


3-That same patio area….how high is the “ceiling” when you’re under there?

What is the room above it…the octagonal part of your house?  By chance, is that a kitchen/dining nook area?

4-If not, where is the kitchen?


5-Is there access to the back yard from the deck? I can’t see it in the photos if it’s there.   If not, why?  And if not, are you willing or able to add a small gate/opening and  build some steps? I think access to the back yard from your deck is going to be one of the main keys to making your whole outdoor living space come together into a “whole.”

So if we can't have that, I need to know it now. It will affect your design.




6-Okay aside from the bears and other wildlife…..Is there a reason you grill on the front driveway instead of the deck?

Listen…I don’t live where bears live (raccoons and possums are small potatoes), so please tell me if NOBODY in your world has any kind of outdoor kitchen with a grill that does not get brought inside at night.   This is not my world, so If that’s not even POSSIBLE, please explain how it works and I will take that into account.


Here's how I'm seeing it:

You are going to have this amazing space in the back, and you said a great time would be cooking over the fire pit/dutch oven/etc.  But it would seem natural to ALSO have the grilling area be a part of that same “this is our downtime” space, with an area devoted to that, so that cooking and eating the food would all be part of the “together time” for either friends (guy’s night out in the back yard….will there be a tub of ice with beer or soft drinks? ) or family  (maybe the grandkids would be there and there would be popsicles in the little plug-in freezer cooler, or a pitcher of lemonade on the little “counter” near the firepit)  

Maybe the grill is in a little shed built into the outdoor space that actually closes and locks so animals can’t get into it?

Anyway…. (It works well in the “joining landscape elements together” plan, so I need to know if it won’t work for some other reason, like…”I am Genghis Khan of the Grill and  I don’t want anybody near me when I’m plotting world domination/ grilling” or something. )

7-The rock the chimney is made of…is that the indigenous rock in your area?  If not, what is the natural rock?  I’m going after “what rock can be had at low cost, and what rock costs a lot?”  By this I mean both big rocks and small.  Ideally, the rocks you use in your backyard landscape will match that chimney rock. But if that is brought in from elsewhere and is expensive, it's not worth it.  You should go with a local rock. There will be enough of it that it will work just fine.

8-What are the trees in the pots?  Are they something you plan to plant in the landscape?  

9-I thought I had asked this, but I can’t find it….

When friends come over to join you for an evening of “good times” around the fire pit and maybe having a meal together, they park over there in the gravel area by the North end of the house, right?   Do they come THROUGH the house to get to the back yard? (this does not seem likely because they are right there by the back yard already).  Or do they just walk down the little slope into the back yard?

10-Flash forward into the future in your “best of times” vision as I understand it…

So…it’s late spring/early summer. Maybe Memorial Day weekend.  People you love are over for a gathering..the adults and old folks  are cooking around the fire pit. Maybe earlier in the day you had a target set up on the west side of the tree line, and y’all were shooting and teaching the kids to shoot.

But NOW...the sun has set.  The kids of friends and your grandkids are running around the yard playing tag. (do kids even play tag anymore? Or do they just screw around on their iphones? )

Anyway in my vision, there are happy shrieks and laughter. “Moooooom, can I have another cupcake?”  Maybe they’re playing badminton, chasing lightning bugs, and eating watermelon.  Maybe they're spitting seeds, trying to spit seeds as far as YOU can.  The teenagers are splashing in and out of the hot tub  “Moooooom, will you make him(the kid brother) stop putting bugs in my hair?” (By this point there might be a rustic, heavy-beamed play/swing set in the lawn area for the little ones “Moooooom!  Look how high I can go!”)  

On the other hand, maybe the ladies are all over at the patio table, having wine or lemonade or tea, maybe playing rummy or just chatting…just a girl’s night out, and this night, the men are in charge of the kids.

Either way….Where is the closest bathroom everybody will use? (Which set of sliding doors) and Where do the kids change into swimsuits, and come in and out of the house to get to the hot tub?)

Think about the comings and goings of any “gathering” of people you love at your home.  How does it move NOW?  We will talk about how it could move differently if your yard was set up for your best life (maybe, cuz we are not adding bathrooms) later.

But that all goes into the plan, because any home should be the place where these best times happen. I grew up with 30 people at holidays and one bathroom, and it worked out fine. (NOW I realize a lot of the guys were probably watering a lot of trees, but when I was little, I did not realize that.) Those times are what home is about, and when I think about your landscape, I want to know how you see those times happening in your yard.

11-I feel like I’ve misunderstood something I asked earlier..


It’s only 20’ from the “water feature” retaining wall to the firepit? Your house looks bigger than that in the photos.   Tell me again…the measurement from the hot tub to the fire pit, and from the “water feature” wall to the fire pit.  Just to make sure I've got it right.

12-I need one more set of pics.

Stand on the pink dots...take photos of the house--let me see the area under the octagonal bit by the deck, and how that part meets the rest of the concrete patio.
(That #3 pink dot is up in the yard beyond the retaining wall. My photo editing skills are not great.)



ALSO...Stand at the retaining wall by the hot tub and take a pic of the area between that small retaining wall and the parking area.  I need to see how steep it is and how far it is from parking to the back yard proper.

13-How big is the hot tub? (I mean is it 8' X 8'?  Or what?)  I need to know this when I start to draw.

1-Where are you located (approximate so I understand the climate

2-Can you take pics of the beds so I know what's there NOW?   Not only what weeds you're dealing with, but  I need to see the desirable plants you have there, so I don't suggest something that will hurt them.

3-Do you plan to grow any flowers or anything else from SEED in your beds?

So by "weeds" do you mostly mean weed trees?   It LOOKS like it's mainly weedy trees that have grown up in there, have been cut down, and have re-sprouted from the stumps.  Is that correct?

It looks like there are also some daylilies in there, and a few other things you might actually want to keep.  Is the large tree in photo 1 the dogwood?

I'm asking because if there are other plants in there you're going to have to be careful with any kind of spray.  If it's mostly woody plants you want to kill, that's easier.

Okay here's what you do.

Get this product:
Tordon

You take loppers and go to the small woody tree you want to cut.  Make the cut a couple of inches above ground, then immediately take the Tordon, which comes with a squirt bottle top like dishwashing liquid, and pour it on the cut.   It doesn't take a lot.  Be sure to cover the cambium layer, which is at the outer edge of the wood just under the bark.  The stuff is blue-purpleish, so it's easy to see where you've covered. Don't overdo it. Just coat the raw cut.

The herbicide will translocate down into the roots and kill those.  You will have to dig the tree out eventually, or cut it down to the ground and just plant around it, but it will die.

ONE CAVEAT!!!

If these sprouts are coming up from the roots of a tree you care about?  You will seriously injure or kill that tree.  When I say this stuff translocates, I mean it TRANSLOCATES.  It's very good at it.  

In fact, knowing what we now know about trees (they share stuff to help each other) I would manually dig the weedy trees that are within reach of the dogwood I wanted to keep.   Probably it would not be damaged, but if you really care about that tree, extra precautions are in order.

You don't have to buy from Amazon.  Your local farm store or TSC will have this.  Ace Hardware might have it.

Any herbaceous (non-woody) weeds you will need to either dig or spray with roundup.  Safer to just dig them if there are only a few, as drift is a bad, bad thing.  Then prep the ground and plant, then mulch.  

There is no such thing as a completely maintenance free landscape.  You can get close, but you have to go out there and pull a few weeds now and then.

You CAN put down landscape fabric, but I don't know if you want to hassle with that.  If you do, say so and I'll explain how to do it properly.  

Okay ask anything I haven't answered.

ETA:  I forgot to say:  DO wear something like a pair of latex or nitrile gloves, and DO read the label.  Keep your pets away from it til it dries.  Just use common sense.  Always read the label of anything you use.  That's important.

Okay I'm going to ask you for some more photos....then I'd like to have a conversation where I talk about the principles of this, the absolute "probably don't ever do this" stuff and the possibilities, and we work together to figure out the right solution for you.

If I were there and could see your site, one of these options would probably become immediately clear as the correct one for your situation (and for who you are, which counts, yaknow?) But I'm not, so I'm going to type a lot, and hope you type back, so we can figure out how to approach it the best way.  I will talk about heavy solutions and simpler ones.


First...there are ways to do this--to deal with it and make it work for you..I hope ONE of them is one you will be happy to hear, but none of them are "throw it down and walk away" easy, because with drainage issues, the trouble is...Water always wins, so we have to work WITH the water.  We cannot stop it.  We have to slow it and move it.


I'm dealing with this right now (on steroids) at a residence in a fancy subdivision. Steeper than yours, soil about four inches thick over bedrock (soil ain't gonna be there for long unless I do something) under heavy tree cover (house is in the woods, basically) and the lawn guy keeps telling this cardiologist that he can have grass back there.

I'll talk about what I'm doing there, because some version of it may be what you need to do.  Let's explore the options...


1-Absolutely do NOT remove the existing plantings, because that's all that's holding your slope.  Those plantings are your friends.  In fact, the more plantings with strong root systems you have, the better.  It looks to me like most of the erosion is toward the bottom of the slope, where the ground is essentially bare.  Is this correct?  

2-You will not easily get grass to successfully seed on that steep slope as it is right now IMO.  Is it POSSIBLE? yes.  Is it one of the most difficult things you will ever attempt? Yes.

That's hard to do because the grass cannot establish quickly enough, with deep enough roots, to hold the soil before the next washout rain.  (see next point)  And even if grass DOES establish, eventually you will end up with little gulley washouts where the water flows the heaviest.

In fact, even if you brought in sod, I'm not sure you would have long-term success up there on the steeper part of the slope.

3-There ARE systems designed by people far fancier than I am, which are meant to hold soil on slopes--even very steep slopes--steeper than yours.  The simplest of these are erosion control mats, which you can get at the big box stores. These will help you establish grass on that bank.   BUT...I will tell you that I don't think turfgrass is what you need on that bank, because for the rest of your life you will be a-aggravated when you have to trim the entire bank, be in danger because equipment on a bank like that is dangerous, and the bank may look messy more often than not, and b-you'll still be fighting washouts, because water always wins.

4-One of the issues I see is that it's not just THAT slope you've put in the photo. It looks to me like the entire yard, from the driveway (and maybe beyond) slopes toward that area, which means you've got water coming downhill even before you get to THAT part of your yard which is concerning you most at this point.  I'm also curious as to where the gutter downspouts terminate at the front of your house....are they coming out above that slope?

You need to determine that, because if they ARE coming out above that slope, you need to move them...dig a trench and take them to daylight somewhere ELSE where that roof runoff is not ending up washing down the steepest part of your yard and adding to the volume coming down that slope.  We can talk more about that maybe.



So here are the options I would explore.  Read through this and lets have a conversation and find the best option/options for you.

1-You can bring in MOAR BIG ROCKS and sort of "terrace" that section--especially in the spots where the water tends to run the most.. The point is SLOW DOWN the water runoff.

Terracing does not have to be as elaborate as some of the photos I'll post. I'm just posting ideas to get your brain spinning if you want to do something like this.










Pay attention to this one.  I'm going to talk about it in option 2, below, but again later in the "real world" for you.


2- You can bring in those "stackable" landscape concrete blocks and terrace the section--once again--slow down the flow.  This is not as effective as the big rocks because you can't easily dig them back into the slope.  Big rocks you can place there as though God put them there. (Big rocks and trees are how God holds steep hillsides in place, if you notice, but God also includes "dry creek beds and waterfalls" which we'll talk about later.

3-I could be dead wrong about this, which is why I could use more photos....but it looks to me like the main water runoff concentrates in a couple of spots---around and below those big landscape rocks you have presently in the planting bed.  That means, whether it's easily visible or not, there are at least two "swales" in the area--that channel water.  One appears to come from the grassy area on the (right?) side of the steep bed (if I'm standing on the lower walkway) and wash around that one rock with green behind it, and go across the planting bed onto the walkway.  Another appears to be kind of in the center of the bed area (standing at same location) where water comes straight down from the top, around that washed out rock and out of the bed.  Is this correct?

So you've lived here for two years.  You don't know why the previous owners put gravel in that planting bed, but....My guess would be that this was THEIR attempt to create an "easy" dry creek bed to deal with the water flow.

And that leads me to this option #3....you can install dry creekbed/waterfalls in that bed.  They will be beautiful landscape features.  You can build them yourself.  This is a metric sh*t-ton of work. . Or you can hire it done (which involves a metric sh*t ton of money).  It involves finding the existing "drainage points", making sure the rest of the bed slopes toward that (gently but slightly) then digging a slightly deeper channel where YOU want it, installing landscape fabric, big rocks, pretty heavy gravel and  building a "water feature" that will remain dry except when it rains.   I don't know what's at the bottom of that slope other than the walkway, but the trouble is.....when all that water gets down there, you've got to do something WITH it.  Spread it out and disperse it with MOAR big rocks, etc, so you don't have a river going across the walkway, or you've got to pipe it UNDER the walkway. I figure that's a "no" from you, but just sayin.

Now then, unless you've been considering a water feature already, I don't think this (above) by itself is the right way to go for you, but it IS an option.  I'm mostly posting photos to keep my wall of text from being overwhelming.





This one's from from BackyardBoss.net and is really pretty.




I think more likely you need to do a combination of all of this, and the key thing that will be your salvation is.....(drum roll please) Ornamental grasses.

Nothing holds soil better than big grass.

Here are some examples of different grasses.  I am in NO WAY suggesting this outlet as a retailer. I know nothing about them. I just liked the side-by-side images.

Some grasses

A quick google search shows the unbelievable variety of ornamental grasses.  After you think about this, and if you decide to use some, let's talk further about which ones might be appropriate to blend with your existing landscape and make a pretty show, AND grow in your conditions (there's some shade at the top, looks like).  So you don't spend money that doesn't work for you.

Google search ornamental grasses

A screenshot of that cuz...wall of text..




So...if this were mine (without seeing more photos) here's how I would proceed..


a-Divert the water from the upper portion of your yard--over to the side of the slope.  You can do this with a simple french drain-ish project and corrugated pipe Take it to daylight WAAAAAAAAAAY out there, where it will not run back toward the slope from where it terminates.  If this does not make sense to you, holler.


b-Plant a row of ornamental grasses along the top of that slope. Buy the biggest plants you can afford.  2 or 3 gallon pots if you can.  Plant them fairly thickly.  DO NOT PLANT THEM TOO DEEPLY or you'll rot the roots.  Some kind of pretty fountain grasses would be ideal for this.  We can talk about that later.  So you're going to be putting hardy, thickly-rooted plants in the soil, on top of that slope and in so doing (by planting them shallowly) you're going to build a small "berm" at the top of that slope.  

C-Find the "swales" in the bed, bring in some mondo-rocks, dig them back into the bank, and place them where the water will hit them, flow a little, and then move on down the slope.  You are SLOWING DOWN the flow, without actually creating a huge water feature-esque dry creek bed. (easier and cheaper, though still not a small project.)


D-put a retaining wall at the bottom--using mondo rocks if you want gorgeous, using stackable concrete blocks if you want pretty and functional.  It needs to be only a couple of blocks high.  Put a curve in it because these blocks make stronger walls when they're in curves (according to an engineer I know). Just curve it along your walkway.  Lay landscape fabric behind it to prevent the soil from washing through the rocks, and backfill.  So you're building a small terrace right there at the bottom of the slope.

Here's that image I want you to pay attention to...because....this is easy (well, relative to the mondo rocks it's easy.) You can do it yourself--by yourself-- if you have a strong back and are okay to do hard work.  



You dig out a little, so you sink the first course a bit into the ground....then stack...stacking the next course BACK just a tad bit from the first one,..so this wall is leaning into the slope just a bit..JUST A BIT, kay? I mean an INVISIBLE bit it's so small.

You backfill with more good soil.

E-  Then plant ornamental grasses down there.  Liriope is a great one for this.  I'd do a sweep of taller grass, a sweep of medium grass, and a sweep of liriope right down there in front, on the edge.


IF you do NOTHING else, I would plant grasses at the top, build that retaining wall, and plant grasses at the bottom.

If the wall is out of reach, use the grasses at the bottom. If this ends up being your option, I will design for you if you need it.

NOW...after all this, you're going to apply some liquid aeration to this slope and to your upper yard and the grass next to this planting bed, to help it perk more and run off less. It's cheap to do and it works really well.  But that's another conversation....

So......talk to me and let me know how all this hits you.  



ETA:  Oh...more photos...can you back off and take some from the bottom, straight on, the side, and from the top?  so I can see the surrounding landscape and you can help me understand how the water is moving into this planting area from outside of it?

Partly I ask for this because depending on the volume of water coming down that slope, you might even need to run a pipe behind your new retaining wall, to divert water off to the side and across the walkway OUTSIDE of the bed area.  Does that make sense?

Is all of this WAY more involved than you meant to get?

Okay this just got a little easier I think.  Well...the problem got easier to SOLVE, anyay...

So you ARE getting water from up top in the planting bed by the tree, but the MOST water is coming off the driveway.

If this were mine, I would go at it in four steps.

1-I would fix the bulk of the problem by draining that water coming off the driveway and moving it to my advantage.


I would do that in this way..

You're gonna have to move those rocks at the top, because they are keeping your driveway from washing out, but they are not helping the drainage problem itself. So you are going to move them, and USE them.

First, I think you need to do something like this.



That green dot is a surface water catch basin like this one  

I"d go 18 X 18 if I could, because I overbuild stuff like this and if you build it, Mother Nature will try it out and see if she can max it out. (She always can, but anyway...)

The green line is an undergound line taking the water down the hill.  

Here is how I'd do it.

It looks to me like you've essentially got a hole right here--



So....since you've already got timbers as part of your landscaping (that's a big timber beside your driveway, right?)  I'd use timbers like that.  They're cheap, they're durable, and they will work with your existing landscape.

First, drive a rod into the dirt in that area to make sure you won't hit bedrock two inches down or something.  When original owners or builders fudged a solution instead of going for a real one, I always start looking for "why?" and the "why" may be that there was no soil there to move to install the thing.

So let's assume you've got decent depth to work with (you don't need as much as it seems like cuz....there's a hole.

Stack the timbers and build a box.



Line the box with landscape fabric and back fill it, installing the surface drain basin into it.

Make sure you orient all of it a couple of inches below the driveway level, with a slope down into the catch basin.

Pipe the water from the basin out the back and down the hill.

6" pipe is better than 4"  Just sayin.  More expensive, but....more capacity and fewer issues with clogging, etc.



You can take the drain down the hill to some innocuous place (you will have to rock the termination point with some rip-rap-size rocks at the very least, and still it may wash) or you can take it over toward the existing drain, and make a rock swale to carry it on to it. (that's why my green line has two options). I can explain how to build this rock swale so you can mow around it and it's not a PITA.

Step 2 for me would be to make a dry creekbed coming down the hill beside the flower bed because it looks to me like you STILL will have drainage from the top of the bed and from the grassy area beside it--that's what the yellow arrows are in the photo-- creating its own wash down the edge of the landscape bed.  You will need more than "gravel" because anything that could be called gravel will wash right down that hill no matter what you do.

It will need to be bigger rocks.  Rip-rap size, and you can get pretty ones--like river rocks--that large, and buy them by the ton so it's not so expensive.

I would pause every few feet and shove a big-ass rock in there on one side or the other, just to make it prettier and to make it hold better.  Slow the water down more, right?

Step 3 would be to build the 2-stone high retaining wall (you already sort of have one, it's just not tall enough) backfill and fill that area with liriope and dense grasses.

Okay, tell me what does not make sense.

Honestly you could JUST do the river-rock dry creekbed, but I think it's not enough.  I think you need to divert most of the water, then deal with what remains.

You could do one step at a time, see how it works, then move on to the others as you see the need.


Thoughts?

ETA:  That's a really pretty home and property you have!

I've gotta say, there's a HUGE difference in how steep that slope looks in the bottom pic (from the bottom) and the one from the upper driveway/street level.

I'm hoping it's the LESS steep of the two illusions, so it's an easier fix.

Answers in RED.



Lemme think on the size. I'm about to ask a question in team, hoping for a civil engineer to get an answer for the property I'm problem solving right now in real life.  My gut says build it OVERALL three feet wide and a foot deep, (that includes shallow edges to deeper center) but give me a bit of time to think on that, too.  I may be going too deep.  It's that tendency to overbuild I have.  In this case, you want adequate, but you don't want to overdo it cuz it's too much work and rock.  

I wish I had a sense of how much water actually comes running down that hill in an ordinary rain.

You will line the whole thing with heavy landscape fabric (geofabric they call it now).  Be sure to tuck this fabric into the little "shelves" I'm suggesting below, tightly, so you don't tear it or stretch it when you pack the stones. I'll link to a video that is a sales tool for a pondless water feature, but it shows the guys building one, tucking fabric in, etc.  YOUR fabric won't be this waterproof (edpm I think they call it) stuff, as you are not intending to contain the water, and some permeability/seepage through the fabric is fine, as long as the seepage is SLOW.  Your goal is to hold the bank, not allow it to wash out under the fabric.  Does that make sense?

ETA:  You CAN use the edpm fabric.  Let me look at the latest fabric and see the longevity.  The real trouble is...none of this stuff lasts forever.  You want the longest-lasting stuff, as you don't wanna do this again cuz yours is a big project and not just for viewing pleasure.  Stand by and let me look at the latest stuff.  

It's very important that you dig little "terraces" (shelves) into this dry creek as you are using the hoe, so you can create sort of a "waterfall" effect as you go downhill because your slope is so steep.  Don't space the terraces out evenly cuz that will make your landscape feel like a plastic kid's play set.  Lay larger rocks in the bottom and at the sides of these terraces, some of them flat if you can, to act as "steps" to slow the water, obstacles to slow the water, etc,  as ANYTHING smaller than your foot will wash down that hill in a big rain.  Or else the dirt will wash out from around the big stone as you so clearly demonstrated in your original photos showcasing the problem.  The terraces don't need to be deep or profound.  Just think, what would water do?  Then think, "how can I slow it down?  Watching a real-live meandering stream running down into a holler (you folks up there know what a "holler" is?) would help you, or videos of other water features with falls.  There's a ton of them on youtube.  You're not going for beautiful. (It will be beautiful anyway though).  Just "slow this water down."  Watching some water move around rocks will teach you about how water acts.

SLOWING The flow down the hill is paramount.   You are actually making the water flow more easily by putting in this creekbed, see? Which seems counterintuitive, because water flows better through rocks than it does across soil.   But you're doing all this with the end result in mind, which is not creating the equivalent of a spillway, with water rushing downhill like crazy, but keeping the rate somewhat reasonable while holding the soil in place and redirecting the water in a way that is advantageous to you.

That means flow, slowdown, flow, slow down, flow, hit something to make it slow down....

Rinse and repeat, all the way to the drain.

Does that make sense?

I will look tonight and next couple of days to see if I can find an image that fits your situation better than what I found before.  The right key words in a search are paramount, and I didn't get them exactly right with those photos above.

Here's the video that shows the people building this "pond-free" waterfall feature.  FWIW, I think waterfalls seeming to come out of a board fence are a little weird, so this is NOT my design sensibility (Some larger landscaping behind it, pulling the feature closer to the patio would make a lot more sense to me, and when the fence rots, which it will, it has ZERO physical involvement with my water feature, but just sayin'.  




ETA: Forgot to say... When the stream curves, the stream has to get a little wider on the "outside" of the curve, because water doesn't LIKE to slow down to make turns.  And when you ask it to, it builds up a little and tends to a-overflow banks and b-CUT OUT the bank because the water that was moving straight HITS the outside bank head-on, and cuts it out wider.  SO...YOU cut it out wider, and place BIGGER rocks on the outside of the curve.

ETA2:  This next is an excellent video showing an important part of the rock installation--how to set up the flat rocks you use, with big rocks to the sides.   FWIW, I think parts of this look too "man made" because they have too many same-size rocks all in a row at the very sides in some spots.   Don't do that.




ETA3 cuz I can't shut up.  The steeper the slope, the more "drops" you need...so if the view from the bottom walkway is at all realistic (cameras fool the eye with steepness of slope sometimes), you will have more "drops up at the top, then ease off on those as you come down the hill. By the time you get near the bottom, you will have mostly just "stream bed".  I see where would be a really good place to terminate the main pipe just above the bottom drain, and feed that right into the same "stream bed in a "y" shape, with lots of small and large rocks around that drain.  I'll edit one of your photos as soon as I can.

meantime...I've gotta go work on a landscape.

I'm researching all the geotextiles right now.  Give me a bit to figure it out based on what I have done in the past, and what is available now.

I haven't done a steep slope in a while, and technology is moving at the speed of light.

I have a steep slope to do like...yesterday, in real life, for my business, and I'm researching for THAT, so I will tell you what I find out, but gotta get the time online and in phone calls to pick the brains of the people I trust about this.

I will say that if the rainfall that caused the most erosion was record rainfall, you could probably go quite a bit smaller for the creekbed.

Sooo...What size is your hoe?  18"?

Or is it bigger?

Where are you located, and how quickly do you want the landscape to look "full?"

No matter the answers, feeding them properly will help.  I can recommend what to use for that.  So.....what region, and what is the landscape like that they're going into?

In most cases, the pruning spray is not useful.

Can you post pics of the trees so I know what kind, and what needs trimmed?

You have my dream machine.  I'm jelly.

So that first picture...that horizontal cut that takes half the trunk?

Don't do that.

Let's figure out a better way to do that.

Don't make any cuts that leave a flat surface like that.  Rain will soak into the wood and rot the tree.  Rot equals death.

Can you back off and take another photo and I will help you best I can with cuts to take the limbs you are worried about over the fence?

Let me look tomorrow at the photos of the one over your house.

How far is that tree from the house, and how far over the house do the limbs hang?

@L45  I'm sorry I haven't done your drawing yet.

I draw the old fashioned way (no Computer Assisted Design) so I have to find the chunk of time to do that since it's not something I can just "answer based on what I already know).

I have not forgotten about you.

Are they regularly dropping limbs?  Is that why you're concerned?

I notice that you have a LOT of dead wood in those trees.

That needs to come out, and the cuts you're considering aren't going to take care of that.

I'm not sure you can get the dead wood that needs pruned unless you have a bucket and a right fair bit of training so you won't die.

Tell me more about your situation so I understand how to advise?

Cutting out half of a tree is never going to be good for it.  So that's why I'm hesitating to say what I recommend, cuz I feel like I don't understand fully what's going on for you.

I know you don't want limbs falling on your house. But...the whole tree could blow onto your house (or on your fence).  There must be some reason why you feel concerned about those limbs in particular.  If I sound skeptical I don't mean to. I don't feel that way.  I'm just frowning at the photos going, "a lot needs done there but I don't see how those cuts are going to fix it."

Okay does that make sense?

Okay.  

Lemme get some time and I'll use your photos and say how I'd approach it.  I cannot tell by the photos how low the limbs hang.  They will hang lower with leaves on them, too.

@Reaperwaterfowl

You have a really interesting situation here, so I hope it's okay that I use your post to talk in general (for everybody who is interested) about pruning, and the photos and questions will be specifically for you. So.... not all of this I say is aimed at you.  I hope you will forgive this intrusion and use of your pruning need.

First let me say...I'm REALLY scared I'll tell you something off because I'm not there.  it's very hard to tell anything just from the photos because you have a lot of scrub brush obscuring things, and these trees are kind of gnarly. (nothing wrong with gnarly trees...they make some of the best trees EVER, but they're not just straightforward one-two-three pruning, cuz if a tree is bent or twisted, you kind of have to just go with that, and let that tree be what it is, yaknow? Because..

Here's a bit of philosophy--maybe even a Rule of Pruning:

You can't unbend a mature tree.

NOR SHOULD YOU.

First because you will fail...none of your cuts will do what you want, and

Second...because  you'll just screw the tree up and make it not only ugly but scarred and ugly.

Let a bent tree be bent.  Like the arthritic fingers on your grandfather, who spent his life working at some craft or trade, to straighten his fingers would actually cripple him, and would ruin  the magic and beauty of the person he now is.  You would not be healing him. You would not be allowing him to move without pain (we would all do this for our grandparents/parents if we could, but we don't have that ability yet.) You would be merely tearing down an slightly rickety wooden bridge and making it a concrete one. Straight? Yes. Beautiful?  Almost certainly not.  Functional?  Perhaps, but maybe at a greater cost than we know?
Reaperwaterfowl, I know you're not trying to unbend this tree.
So...

For YOUR trees

Here are ideas to start with and some philosophy.

I wish you could do this, then post more pics, cut more then post more pics, but I realize that's completely ridiculous, so I have to give you the best I can with what I can see.

I also wish I were closer to you. I would wade in there and start cutting, but I wouldn't be cutting randomly.  The way I would do so is in the order I'm about to show you.  And I really CAN'T show you.  Not really.  It's kind of like this reasoning that's a cross between science and art.  You go in and take one step at a time, then you walk back and take a look, then go in and do some more based on the same science and art reasoning...

But so for everybody's sake...

Here's how you go about approaching something like this..

Step 1 is always ALWAYS...Just go in and take out the dead stuff. With an overgrown shrub or small tree, sometimes you're 45 minutes or an hour just taking out the dead stuff.  The first time you look, you can't even see it all.  So you just start taking dead stuff as you come to it, then you step back and oh, looky there, some more dead stuff you didn't even see before.  And you take that out.

And suddenly you step back, and the tree is WAY more open and WOW, you can suddenly start to see the shape of it, and then you can begin to see the ACTUAL problems--the ones you can solve and the ones you maybe cannot.

Your trees, right off, have a bunch of dead stuff, and I'm pretty sure I can't see all of it.

This photo for instance...



Everything I'm pointing at in pink here looks to me like it's dead.  That one limb--the blackish one with the uppermost pink arrow-- coming at us toward the 1 o'clock position ...I dunno if it's dead, but I'd be inclined to just cut that out right off.  It's probably over your fence and it's growing at a very strange angle compared to the rest of the tree.  I think I would remove it. Right at the trunk unless I am not seeing something important or unless the view is making it look like something it's not.

The limb coming from the tree on the right...I think that's dead but not sure?

Okay this second photo...these are the cuts I would probably make initially....

Then I would step back and look at the tree.

But I realize that this means you would have to commit an afternoon to pruning, then take more pics, and I understand that this is likely not feasible.

So I will put here that my best guess is to make these cuts and see if that alleviates the main problem.

Step 2--Is to take out any limbs that are rubbing against each other, criss-crossed, twisted together (there are exceptions to this twisted together rule) or obviously hanging too low or in the way of some operation --like mowing, or like you say they're whacking you in the head.  

The yellow cuts are the ones that seem obvious, but I may be not seeing correctly, so if at any point you say, "I don't think that's right," DON'T CUT.  You can ALWAYS CUT.  YOU CANNOT PUT IT BACK. Okay?  Err on the side of NOT cutting.



From the other view, I *think* with the yellow cuts above, I would have already removed the limbs indicated by the pink arrows.

Is that right?



Tell me what you think, or take more pics to show more clearly if you think I'm telling you something that doesn't make sense.

Never really pruned a tree from this distance before.



There will be more to prune after this, but honestly, just this is what I would probably do to just "get into" the tree and begin to see what needs to be done.

Not sure you can do all of this without a bucket, and I hope you won't attempt it if you don't have the right equipment.

FYI:  For anybody who needs the information:  Don't call anybody to help who tops trees, even as part of their business. They won't care whether they do this right.

Any tree business that includes topping as part of their work is one you should avoid.  No decent tree pruner will ever top a tree.  So search for one who will not, and you might have a good tree professional.

ETA: @Reaperwaterfowl I think a lot of the cuts I'm suggesting are ones you were also considering.  Not sure about some of them, but betting so.

FIRST....Be safe!!!

Your new little one needs you!  And so does your wife.  So don't reach too far, and be really freaking careful with a chainsaw!

Have a buddy with you, if possible.  Somebody who can yell, "STOP!  Hey, wait. Look at that. It's gonna fall on you."

That kind of help is more valuable than anything in the world.  It will save you for your family.  

Hope to see pics of the little one if you are okay with that.

if not we understand completely!

@ReaperWaterfowl

Regarding the brush you're going to clear...

Go to your local Tractor Supply or country hardware store..dunno if Ace has it..

Get some Tordon.

Not from amazon, but this is the link I could get to show the product..

Tordon

Each time you use your loppers or saw to cut down a bit of brush, take the Tordon and drip it onto the cut stump.  It's blue.  Just make sure the blue covers the cut. Don't overdo it.  MORE is NOT better.

It translocates to the roots of the plant and it won't grow back.

BUT...if you put this on a sprout of something you want to live?  You will KILL whatever it is.

Be careful what you do with this stuff. It's powerful.

But all that scrub brush by your trees...if you want it to be gone and not grow back..the way to do that is to cut it, paint the cut with this stuff, and the plant will die.

Use it carefully.

Awwww!  

THIS is the reason we want to make our homes safe, healthy and beautiful.

So nice to see he's doing well.

So I see the limb at the bottom. You will take it back to the branch collar at the trunk (but not cut into the branch collar) right?

But there's one at the top, too...looks like it's been cut. Unless the image is tricking me, that also needs to come back to the limb below it.

Am I seeing that right?

I know that probably requires climbing and may be a whole nuther issue, even with a pole saw.



The tree already looks better. More open.

I think you're doing a great job!

FYI, in KY, you have a right to trim back any limbs on your neighbor's tree that overhang your property or threaten your property.  But you do not have the right to do anything that will significantly damage or kill the neighbor's tree.

So you may be able to work with the neighbor to trim back any limbs that need gone (especially dead ones).

Totally your call on that. Just thinking out loud.

That's GORGEOUS property!

I have a drawing to complete for L45, then I will take a look at yours. Is that okay?

Also...where are the azaleas?

OH!  I see...down on the mulched portion nearer the road?

Wait, what? Are those drains?