Landscaping Restoration

Details: Written by: Garry Reisky; Published: 15 July 2020; Created: 15 July 2020; Last Updated: 18 April 2023; Hits: 11372

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Scope Of Work: Replace asphalt driveway with new concrete pavers installed on ultrabase. Replace existing walkway pavers with the same materials used on the driveway.

Time Frame: 3 weeks

Budget: $90,000.00 - $80,000.00

Designer: Garry Reisky from Terraform Contracting

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As a homeowner, undertaking a landscaping project similar to the one I’m about to discuss, it can be a bit of a conundrum. Two obvious questions immediately come to mind. The first question is, do we scrap everything and start over. The second one is, can we work with what we have and repair/restore. Is a redesign in order in order to fix something that is not working so well? Decisions, decisions. Obviously going with one of these options will have financial and time implications. Some of the determining factors could be, let’s start with the big one. Money, how much of an investment makes sense for this project. Starting over will certainly cost more money. How about time, are there any pressing deadlines that need to be met. What about the materials? Are the existing materials even worth saving. Are they chipped, broken, discoloured and/or heavily deteriorated through weathering. If they’re not salvageable than the decision is simple, scrap everything and start over! That was not the case with this project. The materials were in great shape, beautiful aged Wiarton stone, with many over size pieces. It would have been a crime to have disposed of everything, this was some nice stone. This front landscaping project was crying for restoration.

Restoration was the name of the game here, the only new elements added to the project, were the driveway and drain. Some new stone was needed for the walls and steps but everything else was saved. We got to work on the project, it was a typical first day, I did a review with the team. I started describing what we would be doing on this project. You see this walkway, uh huh, we’re going to move all these flagstones tighter together and level them out. I looked over at them and they nodded in agreement and probably thought, piece of cake. After we finish the walkway these steps are going to need some attention and will need to be leveled out. Again no reaction, just acknowledgement, steps, we do steps all the time,no problem. And the real reason we’re here is for these retaining walls. The walls need to be rebuilt and the wall on the the longer side, the homeowners want to take the curve out that side and make it straight. There’s also this humongous root that is in the wall that will have to be removed. I look at them and I start to see a little tension. I continue, after that we’re putting in a new driveway and the drain in the middle of the driveway is going to be relocated. After this last statement, this put them over the edge. They said, wow there’s a lot of work to do here, we’re going to be here awhile.

The first thing we did on the project was remove a very overgrown hedge that wasn’t helping the wall. After that was gone we were able to take a really good look at the wall and steps so we could plan our next move. The wall was dismantled and laid down on the ground. The pieces were laid out as best we could to make it easier to put things back together. Rebuilding took place without any issues, we were moving forward which made everyone happy. Progress was smooth, we got too the steps, nothing out of the ordinary there. We rounded the corner and leveled out the front walkway. Next was the long side retaining wall, rinse and repeat, the job was moving along nicely, until, duh duh duhhhh. The drain.

The plan for the drain was simple. Get rid of the depression in the middle of the driveway and move the drain in front of the garage. Upon moving the drain we discovered the line running into the house was not working, uh oh. Fortunately the homeowner had a relationship with a plumbing company and they were called in right away. They got to work and ran some new lines in the garage and took care of this for us, disaster averted. After that it was smooth sailing.

We moved on to the driveway, which we installed on Ultrabase. The homeowners originally wanted granite sets (cobblestone) but decided against that, Unilock Courtstone, a man made cobblestone, was chosen and I think it was a great choice. We used Unilock Copthorne as the border and if I do say so myself, I think it looks fantastic. After all this work the homeowners are extremely happy with the results.