Home

[Lilysmom1]

@JustJazzmom , we were typing at the same time.  This ditch gets snow filled by the plow each winter.  I am not too keen to be adding gardens at this stage of my life.  I spent last year consolidating gardens in the back yard.  Twenty years ago I would have been all over this  S.

[Lilysmom1]

@GinaV24 , watch out for the ivy.  Generally speaking very invasive.  I have a gardening friend who planted it and it got out of control in her back yard.  It took down half of a huge maple.  Not easy to control once it gets going.  S.

[AuntG]

If it were my yard, I'd excavate and make a gentler slope. Perhaps check with local officials to make sure a permit isn't needed. Tragic and sad about the man that had done other projects.

[Mom2Dogs]

We have vinyl fencing around our entire back yard.  We chose white, it matches other whites on the house.  It does need power washed every year but I found it went faster when I used a bucket of water and a rag, then I hosed off the suds.

The only thing we regret is we put lattice at the top of the fence..we cannot get it clean....big mistake.

[JustJazzmom]

@Lilysmom1  I was answering Gina about her 75' slope.

[Lilysmom1]

@Mom2Dogs , thanks for the comments about the latticework.  Good to know!  S

[ValuSkr]

It seems you would just bring more attention to the ditch by adding a fence.  I'd just keep it neat and  mowed.  And if mowing is difficult due to its slope, I'd consider regrading.

[Lilysmom1]

@ValuSkr , the slope is looking like the most practical solution so far.  S

[gardenman]

@Lilysmom1 

The photo helps. The very quickly and crudely done drawing below will give you some idea of how you could regrade the yard. The black line largely represents how the yard is now and the blue line more or less represents what it would look like afterward. 

If you use the top of the preexisting berm in front of the house as a starting point and the bottom of the ditch as the ending point, you get something like the blue line. It's a relatively gentle slope down to the ditch. I would recommend doing it in kind of like a bowl profile where the new profile comes in from the sides and curves towards the front of the house. Now the bottom part of that part of your yard would stay pretty wet so you'd have to be prepared for that. You could start six inches or more up from the base of the ditch so "normal" amounts of rainfall would stay in the ditch and not in the yard. That would also decrease the amount of the slope making the yard flatter with just a gentle slope to the endpoint. A very shallow bowl or dinner plate with sloped sides is a good way to visualize what I'm talking about in terms of the perimeter of the excavation.

Any changes though would have to get the approval of the bureaucrats. You wouldn't be restricting the flow of water. and would essentially be making it flow better, but bureaucrats are bureaucrats, so they may oppose it.

[Mom2Dogs]

@Lilysmom1   I sure wish someone would have told us!  

You won't be sorry I you go with vinyl...you will never have to paint or stain a fence...just make sure who ever installs puts the posts below the freeze line or the posts will come out of the ground.