Larsen Landscape | Blog

Surfacing Materials

There are a number of surfacing materials for use in patios of all types that I will cover in the next few blogs.  Some of them are suitable for any type of patio and others are really best used only for occasional use patios and are really more visual that practical.

The first one I would like to cover is texture stamped concrete.  This is probably the most popular finish that we do since it looks great and it is a lot more cost effective than using a surface that has to be laid in piece by piece like flagstone or brick.  Sometimes we mix these surfaces, commonly using flagstone for some areas and textured concrete for the larger surfaces.  These two types of patio go particularly well together.

Thousand Oaks Stamped Concrete

Textured concrete is essentially concrete poured out from a truck that has an impression of a stone-like texture pressed into it before it is dry.  While there is a whole technology to the process and it does require skill to get it right, the basic idea is pretty simple, if somewhat ingenious.

Landscape Design to Keep Mold From Growing

Assuming that some gardens are desirable, the next question is how to have them next to the house without creating mold issues.  Here are some tips for achieving that:

• Sprinklers should be designed, wherever possible, to spray away from the house, with the sprinkler heads at least six inches away from the foundation.  Larger garden areas might require sprinklers that spray toward the house.  In this case, flat spraying sprinkler nozzles that keep the water low are good.  Six inch and twelve inch pop-up sprinkler heads are available and can be used with flat spraying nozzles to help with coverage where more height is needed.
• Sprinklers should never be designed that spray water up on the walls of the house (you would be amazed how often we see this).
• Once a garden is established, watering should be done every few days, not every day.  This allows the soil to dry out some between watering and is usually better for the plants anyway.
• If you have clay in your soil, adding gypsum several times a year helps to break up the soil and the water can penetrate deeper.  This helps the roots of your plants go deeper as well.  Gypsum is available in most home improvement stores and is simply spread on the soil and watered in.
• In more extreme cases, a French drain can be installed next to the house foundation (this is a perforated drain pipe with a nylon sleeve over it which allows water to enter the pipe and drain away without allowing roots and dirt to clog the pipe – usually some gravel or sand is put around the pipe as well).

• Surface water needs to be drained away so it doesn’t accumulate.  If this cannot be handled by just grading the soil, a drainage system is usually needed.  When we design any new landscape, including patio areas, garden and lawn areas as well as driveways and entryways, drainage is always a primary consideration and is part of the design plan.  This is easy on properties raised above the street and can be a real challenge on very flat properties.  The only exception is a property with very sandy soil that naturally drains fast (water never accumulates on these properties, but they are rare).
• Designing gardens next to the house with plants that do not have a huge water requirement is smart.  Part of this is ensuring that the sprinklers in these areas are on a separate valve so the water can be regulated properly (for instance, if these gardens are on the same line as a lawn, it will tend to get as much water as the lawn).
• The shady side of a house is the most important area to address.  Sun is a natural enemy of mold.

Simi Valley Landscape - Entryway

Here’s to a beautiful home and one that is mold-free as well.

Landscaping Design To Keep Mold From Growing

The essence of mold is moisture.  Keeping this basic idea in mind, landscaping can be designed that will help you win the battle against the effects of mold.

Newbury Park Garden Design

The most important area to address is the landscaping right next to the house, itself.  Shady gardens away from the house can develop mold, particularly if they get watered often and are not allowed to ever dry out, but this usually doesn’t pose much of a threat to people.  Normally, when one hears about mold issues it is related to the house itself.

The most obvious solution would be to create a continuous concrete sidewalk all around the entire house, pitched away from the house for drainage and to ensure that no sprinkler water gets close to the house or the foundation.  In actual practice, this might be useful for some parts of a residence, but doing the whole house that way would probably remind most people of a cheap motel.  Nice looking homes usually have gardens next to

Simi Valley Design

the house, at least in some areas.

Assuming that some gardens are desirable, the next question is how to have them next to the house without creating mold issues.

Next Week – some tips for achieving that.

Drainage for the Landscape

It is interesting to note that several times I have come across new clients who just moved here from another state that have looked surprised when I mentioned drainage for the landscape.  I’m not sure why this is, exactly, but I do know how important it is here.

Proper Pitch for Drainage - Thousand Oaks Property

One of the most precision things we do is drainage.  For a new patio, we have a specially made laser that helps us ensure that the concrete or stone is pitched away from the house and toward each drain grate at the rate of at least one inch every 10 feet.

Patios should be 2 inches below the base of the stucco and are recommended to be 4 inches below the floor line inside the house.  Gardens should be 4 inches below the base of the stucco.  Water shouldn’t spray directly up on the side of a house, etc. etc.

There are a lot of rules we use to ensure that when it rains heavily, there is no water seeping into the house, retaining walls are not pushed over by hydrostatic pressure (sideways pressure due to water buildup), sprinklers should water the landscape and not the house and so on and so on.

It is amazing what I sometimes find when I am looking at an old landscape job that someone did.  Perhaps there is a new owner who just found out in the

water drainage problems

first rainstorm that six feet of the dining room carpet is wet.

I had one client who went out of town for a few days and, due to unusually bad timing, had a sprinkler valve stick and not turn off for several days.  That particular sprinkler was watering a raised garden that someone had built next to his house and filled with soil 12 inches above the floor level.  He returned home to find an inch of water covering the entire first floor.

The worst one I ever saw was a sunken living room with six inches of water covering the floor.  This was due to some “landscaper” in the past who had decided to empty all the yard drains into a garden right next to the house and then build a decorative grass covered mound that prevented the water from flowing around the house leaving the sunken living room as the only place for it to go.  The house was in escrow at the time.  Our job was to fix the drainage system and the landscape problem in a hurry while the owner scrambled to find a floor guy who could dry the place out and get a new floor in before the buyer backed out.

If you drive around some of the older towns after a heavy rainstorm you are likely to see the occasional retaining wall lying down on a sidewalk.  Someone didn’t provide a reliable means for the water to escape from behind the wall before it built up.  This turned the several hundred tons of dirt behind the wall (pushing downward with gravity) into several hundred tons of mud (pushing sideways against the wall).

Mold is another issue that can come up when outdoor water finds its way inside the house.  The best solution is to not let the water in the house in the first place.

Handling drainage properly is not too hard to do right but it does take a precision approach and should be a natural part of the thought process of anyone intending to do the job right.  It might seem a little extreme, but water can be a powerful force – just look at the Grand Canyon.  OK – that is a little extreme, but seriously, my idea of excess water hitting the landscape is that is should just go away immediately and you should never have to think about it.