“The Easy Job”
Every week, we have homeowners call in and tell us that their jobs are “simple” or “easy.”
They say: “All I need is…” or “It’s just a little…”
But if you ever tried to DIY those same projects, you’d quickly realize that the “easy” job is a lot more complicated than it seemed.
Just need a little mulch?
Plug your area measurements into a mulch calculator and count how many bags you’d have to buy, put in your bag, bring home, cut open, and spread out. Don’t forget that your soil level should be 2-3” below your hardscape level, or you’ll have mulch falling out of the planter areas and flying around!
Just need a little rock or gravel? You’ll probably encounter the same hiccup as you would with mulch. How many trips would it take you to transport and install the material? Bagged material costs more than yards of material poured into the back of a truck with heavy machinery. If you want the savings of buying by the yard, how would you get the material to your home, and onto your yard?
It helps to have a truck or a trailer (that can get dirty!), and a crew to shovel out your soil, mulch, or rocks from the back of the truck/trailer into wheelbarrows.
The crew would prepare the soil beforehand, removing weeds and small roots, and making sure that the grade is just right. At the same time, we check irrigation systems, for signs of pests like insects or gophers, and any other apparent issues. It takes more than a single person to apply even something as lightweight-seeming as mulch in the right places, and to clean up afterwards.
We never show up on a site expecting easy.
We’re not surprised when we encounter the broken irrigation pipe, the leaking valve, the veritable underground forest of roots.
Just today a client assured me: “You won’t find roots. We don’t have any trees.” I had a window open on my computer screen, a Google Earth satellite image of his home, absolutely surrounded by trees. We recently replaced piping in a Fullerton home that had had a leak and been infiltrated by the roots of a large, old jade plant.