Greetings all!
I've just bought a new house. The yard has a nice size back patio, a gas firepit, a retaining wall and an apple tree. I love it. It needs a LOT of work, bushes (read: WEEDS) need to be removed. The apple tree has been sadly neglected, there is no more grass. So, I went out and turned on the barely adequate sprinklers and watched the water dribble across the clay packed earth of my yard... towards my house.
How do I go about excavating and re-surfacing the yard so it tilts AWAY from my house? There is a retaining wall at the back of the property that is huge.
I've attached photos. I took it from the back door, looking towards the back of the property.
I want to have those Italian Cypress removed as they are about twenty feet high and scare me. I'll have that done by a professional tree person, which will just about wipe out my budget for the yard.
Can I do the landscaping myself? Do I get a bobcat, or some kind of rototiller? If I dig down into the other end of the yard, I'm afraid the foundation of the lower retaining wall will be exposed. Do I need to get a mason in here?
Help?
I've just bought a new house. The yard has a nice size back patio, a gas firepit, a retaining wall and an apple tree. I love it. It needs a LOT of work, bushes (read: WEEDS) need to be removed. The apple tree has been sadly neglected, there is no more grass. So, I went out and turned on the barely adequate sprinklers and watched the water dribble across the clay packed earth of my yard... towards my house.
How do I go about excavating and re-surfacing the yard so it tilts AWAY from my house? There is a retaining wall at the back of the property that is huge.
I've attached photos. I took it from the back door, looking towards the back of the property.
I want to have those Italian Cypress removed as they are about twenty feet high and scare me. I'll have that done by a professional tree person, which will just about wipe out my budget for the yard.
Can I do the landscaping myself? Do I get a bobcat, or some kind of rototiller? If I dig down into the other end of the yard, I'm afraid the foundation of the lower retaining wall will be exposed. Do I need to get a mason in here?
Help?