Hi everyone,
I’m a new homeowner and total newbie in landscaping. The previous owners let bushes and small trees grow right up against the foundation of the house. I cut them all down because I know that can cause problems with the foundation.
Now I’m planning to cut the stumps flush and leave the roots in place. After that, I need to backfill the missing soil around the foundation. My main concern is water. I don’t want it pooling near the house or draining toward the foundation.
Question:
What type of soil should I use to backfill around the house so water drains away properly? Clay fill? Topsoil? Something else?
Links to product examples would be super helpful.
Later I plan to cover everything with landscape fabric and decorative stone for a low-maintenance finish (see attached AI-generated photo).
Thanks for any advice!
Edits:
Located in WA
The photo I attached is just an AI-generated mockup from ChatGPT to help me brainstorm ideas. I know it wouldn’t look exactly like this in reality. I just liked the general idea of having stone between the house and the walkway.
by PhilosophyOne9202
32 Comments
I’m not sure about the kind of soil you should use, although my gut says sand. I’m actually commenting to say: please don’t use white pebbles. They will get shit in them and look filthy. And please don’t put two kinds of pebble next to each other. You will constantly be removing one from the other. The best idea is to use one natural pebble that won’t look nasty if a few leaves or sticks get mixed in.
Edit: I think I was wrong about the sand thing
Don’t do stone – just read about what other people experience with fields of dead dry hot stone. You dont say where you are, but put in some ferns and mulch. Nature wins. They’re easy to maintain. Bingo.
Compact gravel to grade, lay giant river stones on top, it will drain on the surface and you will be good.
You have this beautiful house and you’re going to cover it with rocks?? For Pete’s sake hire some one.
Nothing is the only thing that’s low maintenance. Weeds will poke through the rocks and the leaves will fall onto the rocks and you can blow them all off.
Hey no offense, but That design is not good . All the sharp corners and compartmentalized rocks…. The lights are laid out really weird. The placement of the containers, the random rectangle of darker rocks… the primary path is going to the shed…. No no no.
Please have an actual landscape designer make you a drawing.
Put clay against your foundation and compact it and make it higher against the foundation to direct water away. You do not want anything porous against your foundation. Water is stronger than you think and WILL work against you in this situation.
You can top dress the clay with topsoil, mulch, stone whatever.. but be sure to try to maintain that slope.
I would put a layer of generic local fill dirt compacted to level and or slightly raise the grade so the water drains away from the foundation then a layer of pea gravel, compact down and cover with top soil before you put the fabric down for the stone overlay. You want the under layers well compacted to push water away from the house more.
As someone who works in landscaping, please no landscape fabric if you can avoid it
Sand and/or stone with some succulents or ground cover plant “tiles”.
Hope you either have a healthy maintenance budget or plan to enjoy countless daily hours doing Zen weeding and stone raking. Also make sure none of that edging creates tripping hazards that could get you sued.
Weed fabrics don’t work long term. You will regret installing it. Organic matter will settle in between the stones and turn to compost/soil and weeds will grow anyway.
Don’t hate me but I put down the premium black rubber mulch and sprayed it with mulch glue. If leaves get on it you can use your blower and they come right off. The premium version seems to be key. It’s been dark black for five years now in upstate ny and we get all of the seasons. So far I’ve only had to get five new bags a year to refresh it and make it look brand new again. Glue prevents it from washing in your lawn during hard rains or when your dog tries to dig a hole in it. All the plants are thriving in it.
Mulch
Koy pond.
I’m having this same exact problem near my entryway. I’m also worried about water pooling around the foundation but I don’t want the walkway to flood.
So far my “best” solution I’ve come up with is:
– level the dirt out
– add a weed barrier
– add a row of cinderblocks to make a raised base
– then build some raised planters to go on top of them
Cover any exposed weed barrier with rocks or something. The cinderblocks can be prettied up with some decorative tiles later one. 🤷♀️
This will keep the water from pooling and the roots away from the houses without turning it into a boring dead space. And when I say “best” I mean it’s generally cost effective, will last a long time, low maintenance, and will look pretty cool.
Pretty sure you’re not going to walk that wavy path, you’re going to walk up straight to the shed path be damned.
The bushes and trees might try to grow back for a while even if you cut them flush with the ground. You might want to get rid of the roots.
Screened top soil or fill dirt
If water pooling is the main concern, you just killed anything that’d drink it up…certain trees and plants with problem root systems could cause foundation issues, basic landscaping would not. Intentionally chosen plants would slow erosion and help actually
Heavy duty fabric>3/4 crutched clear stone sloped away from house>stone dust or DG screeded and compacted while maintaining slope > mulch glue
This will give you a low maintenance , water shedding and modern look.
OP, I’m not as familiar with WA landscaping. But your backyard looks really great to me.
Sand settles better than most anything. Drains well too.
You mentioned this was an AI generated image. If you have a tree, go with a thin layer of mulch around it, not stone. The mulch will keep grass from competing with the tree, and will help it retain moisture.
Landscape fabric just makes it harder to weed and grows weeds on top of it and if you want to remove it, its a pain. I removed some of my mom’s Landscape fabric that was just as old as me. She has to still do the same maintenance as me who doesn’t use the stuff.
The area where you are filling- are you planning on having any plants there or just having sections of stone beds? If your concern is water then I would suggest planting native plants that actually work in their microclimate. That takes tons of research. Native plants have larger tap roots allowing for them to sequestere water WAY better than most euroasian plants at most nurseries.
If you aren’t going to put plants in, use stone or use concrete so that water doesn’t pool there and redirect the flow elsewhere.
IMO that design is a lot of weird angles and curves for no reason… dunno about that.
Stone is NOT maintenance-free as many people assume. It is LOW maintenance but every year or two I remove the stones and clean out the accumulated dead grass and leaves and if you have dogs, dog hair. If you don’t do this It begins to look pretty ugly. In some area you could blow a lot of it out but around my pool it would inevitably all end up in the pool. AND that landscape fabric you put under the stones – it is NOT impervious to weeds. Some will still find their way through so you will be pulling an occasional weed. But to the OP’s question; the most important issue is that soil nearest the house is higher than the adjacent soil.
Compacted native soil or fill soil is the correct type.
Look up cross section details on Google with the term “foundation soil detail” and click the Images results tab. Detail or cross section are the terms you want for the technical specifications more common in code books and design docs. Add your location (county or state name) for more geographic specific results
I’m not a concrete expert but I think I see some erosion in the third picture for the concrete slab (walkway? Sidewalk?) in between your house. I think you’ll want to fill that as best as possible to prevent the slab from eventually cracking.
Hopefully someone else here who is an expert can advise more
X.
One more vote for avoid all stone. Did landscaping for a few years and it’s just a nightmare. Stuff settles in it and rots so you end up with soil mixed with stone which grows weeds which are now in stone-armored bunkers. Usually stone is laid over landscape fabric, eventually the landscape fabric starts showing and you have to keep fighting it back down into place. Stone is heavy, stone is impossible to weed with a hoe, stone can not be shoveled up casually. Stone retains heat and kills things around it that would not normally die (in sunny sites). It’s also usually not great how they’re obtaining it either, pit mines in riparian areas etc.
But for original question, eh, just whatever good soil, probably just call local soil places near you that do bulk and they’ll have a rich planting mix you can get a couple yards of, and a couple yards of mulch to top it with.
I don’t know if it helps but you may want to cut out the stumps a little more to hide them. My suggestion is to dig around them a bit and use a sawzall with a large wood blade to cut out the main stump from the roots.