Solving drainage problems
The area near the pool required more prep work than the rest. As I mentioned, there was a drainage issue which we believe caused the paver wall to lean forward a bit over time. We dug a deeper trench along the wall, added drainage rock followed by a paver base, then laid landscaping material over everything before laying down the gravel.
Here you can see the slightly crooked wall that we were unable to repair despite our best efforts. Now that the project is complete, it’s hard to see that the wall is slightly tilted. My husband also dug a trench behind the wall, which we also filled with drainage rock to keep dirt from continually washing through the wall and eventually onto the gravel. I couldn’t bear that before, when I washed the wall under high pressure, the mud kept running through the cracks in the wall. I also think that this is the reason why the clumping bamboo dies because it simply received too much water. There was white lumpy mold at the base which I removed and sprayed with copper fungicide. Hopefully this will help the bamboo get healthy again.
Below is a view of the trench filled with drainage rocks. On the right side we added the paver base. This was one of the areas that had the most arguments because the man didn’t want to rake out all the small drainage stones before installing the landscaping fabric.
Below you can see the side yard where there is another area where a puddle usually forms when it rains. We even had to replace this fence post because it was rotting.
