Excess water problem
As landscapes mature, adjustments have to be made. You just can’t panic like the elderly homeowner who tracked me down on site several months ago. She was insisting that I reduce her laurel by seventy percent because it was blocking her irrigation head. As a result, the water was flowing down slope and into to her basement windows. I’m not sure if there was any flooding but it was certainly a possibility.
Now, when someone asks me to reduce a perfectly fine laurel by 70%, I tend to look for other solutions.
Solutions
So, what do we do about this problem? Crushing a laurel down to 30% isn’t a great idea. It will look ugly, and the work won’t be enjoyable. Plus, the laurel will push out new growth and soon we will be back to do more pruning. I didn’t mind the work, but I didn’t want to butcher a perfectly fine evergreen shrub.
My idea was to install a riser on the irrigation head so the water would spray over the laurel. Now, I don’t do irrigation personally. I just know it’s possible to add sections on to irrigation heads, so they spray farther out. This is often necessary as plants mature in the landscape.
Since this site has its own resident irrigation technician, I suggested that he try installing a riser, so we don’t have to resort to ugly pruning.
Weeks went by, and then when I happened to be on site again, I noticed a third, and obvious, solution to this problem of excess irrigation water run-off. There was a new drain box installed with gravel inside it. And the laurel was still standing!
Problem solved. The wooded border deflects any excess irrigation water which happens to bounce off the laurel hedge; and if it doesn’t, then the gravel and drain take care of it. And the lady’s basement should stay nice and dry; and she can relax.
I’m happy that the laurel still stands; it will get clipped once or twice a year, but it won’t be anything radical like a 70% reduction.
Landscapes mature over time so you can expect problems to pop-up. And when they do, find good solutions.
