Project Overview
Whether you are at home full or part time its important to be able to enjoy your exterior living space to the fullest.
With the existing landscape a mix of uneven, unhealthy lawn, broken up by a failing retaining wall an aging never utilized garage pad in the middle of the yard at the back. With, another bad lawn and improvised entry step at the front. A reset was in need.
Project Details
- Leveled, irrigated sodded lawn with considered plantings to provide a warm welcome home.
- Improved entry comfort and space.
- Almost zero maintenance entertaining and lawn game area at the back of the property with irrigated planters and privacy trees.
- Chain link fence to provide enclosure for the dog with improvements to the existing weathered fence.
Having spent some time getting used to the house and space. The clients had some ideas and were ready to see what is important to them be put in place. We worked together to hone in on materials and layouts with help from D-Can Concrete to provide the placement and finish of the new patio areas and entry step.
A balance of organic and synthetic features
With so much to enjoy in Fernie, along with your own properties attributes you’d often like to keep the maintenance limited. With the solutions we provided, our clients can arrive home and enjoy the usable space in the back while still enjoy some yard and plant maintenance activity at the front.
Key Design Features
- Stamped concrete patio, entry step and auxiliary building steps.
- Irrigated lawn, planters, and trees with Rymar synthetic lawn space for lawn games.
Drainage a concern
Like many properties in our area the house is located downhill from the rest of the lot, so controlling the flow and exit of water had to be considered. Attention to grade, placement of drain system and connecting to existing drain systems will help move the majority of surface water away from the house, auxiliary building and prevent it from sitting and pooling in the high traffic areas.
Stamped concrete
With the low maintenance aspect a key requirement for the patio and step areas, stamped concrete would tick all the boxes. We did consider clean aggregate ground cover and engineered patio stones. Both options need occasional maintenance and weed management. By resetting the grade and installing new sub base a concrete form was built with concrete placed in two stages with a stamped finish the compliment the exterior colours of the building. We worked with D-Can concrete to layout, excavate and provide subbase for them to finish the surface. All concrete areas include a steps to bring the elevation changes together to improve access around the property.
Synthetic lawn
Synthetic lawn takes a lot of work! But, once installed we can expect little maintenance. Any windblown debris removed from time to time and every few years the infill material may need topping up depending on the amount of surface water that travels over the surface. But, the preparation and install is where the work is.
Here, soil and clay needed to be removed and be replaced with compacted drainable subsurface that has finer aggregate materials at the surface to provide a smoother surface for the lawn to sit on. For the lawn game playability, we needed to provide a certain level of flatness. In order to manage water we graded the surface to one side so the water can drain naturally though the shale apron. Extensive water can be captured in the below surface drain pipe which exits at the apron.
The finished lawn has a blade length of 2’’ with a synthetic thatch. Together they provide a softer walking surface for foot traffic and game play.
Irrigation
To keep the living sodded lawn and new planting healthy we designed an irrigation system that included a wifi smart controller that can be set to water at reduced rates depending on the forecasted rain and temperature. A smart phone app is also included. This makes all the functions of the system controllable remotely. The system consisted of a lawn specific zone, a plant bed shrubbler zone, a veggie garden shrubbler zone and a perimeter tree zone. With an additional free zone for potential expansion for other planting or hanging baskets.
If any of these products or solutions interest you please feel free to call or email us for more information. We’d love to bring these kinds of solutions to more of our community and surrounding area.
