My next door neighbors want a zero maintenance front yard. Their plan is to cover the hillside with black plastic and then black slate chips. They say they will be putting in a 2 foot high wall at the bottom of the hill. My concern is two fold: will the slate slide down the hill and will the plastic cook and rot out under the slate causing it to crest holes for weeds and a huge mess in the future? How would you tell them?
by toothqueencolleen
13 Comments
Sounds shit to me. Plant out with native wildflowers and some small trees to stop erosion, rock a retaining wall to… retain I guess
Plastic or any sort of “weed barrier” never equal zero maintenance. Nothing does. In a short time he’ll have a fresh layer of new soil on top of it mixed with those chips and a nice little weed farm.
Not sure where you are, but in the US, most people can’t tell their neighbor what to do or what not to do. We have HOA that sometimes regulates what a yard may look like and certain township ordinance might prohibit certain weeds, height, etc. but if your neighbor wants to put down slate, oh well
Tell them there’s no such thing as a zero maintenance yard because weed seeds get deposited by the wind and birds and only so they’ll have a really ugly weed filled yard that will be even harder to maintain.
With no roots, there will be nothing holding the ground in place causing further erosion.
If they are dumb enough to want an entirely black mulch front yard with black tarp underneath I doubt you’ll be able to convince them otherwise.
Id mind my own business and let them do what the please on their property.
Yea that is a pretty terrible idea, they’ll have slightly better luck using geogrid since it’s like a hundred tiny walls but even then it’s not going to work out
I wouldnt tell them shit. It’s their yard, they can do what they like and find out the hard way like every other idiot who fails to research despite having a supercomputer in their hands.
You can explain why you wouldn’t do it, if they bring it up first. But you can’t tell them not to do it. Depending on your area, there might be a problem if rainwater gets shunted onto the adjoining properties to cause potential water damage and there might be civil consiquences… but I don’t think that is your situation.
It’s their property. The retaining wall will be good.
If they use a normal grade tarp under it should be fine, we’ve started using that instead of the fabric for people who want it. Unfortunately though rock areas are always the most high maintenance and they also tend to just look bad when they’re barren
Why do people buy a home with a yard and then never want to maintain it? Live in a damn apartment if that’s what you want.
If they want a zero maintenance yard, they should move to an apartment, ffs
Water runoff is going to be … interesting. Also point out that if they fall on their rock covered yard, it’s going to hurt.