Pool landscaping

World gone mad! Anyhow..

I have planted successfully most of the plants discussed above.. really depends on the climate, soil composition, and amount of water they are going to get.

Cycad palms are super super slow growing and very spikey/don't brush past. If you want something that will get big in the next 10 years, sure.

Yuccas will grow pretty fast with water, or slow without. But very hard to kill. Don't have to plant the "giant" type. Can also consider clumps of dracaneas.

Cannas are very fast growing (3 months should grow plentiful with water), and varieties have yellow, pink or orange flowers that grow beautiful flowers frequently. Only problem is during winter/cold they will die right back, and you'll have to cut them to ground (renzime will grow back next year).

Strelitzia also worth considering...slow for first 12-18 months, but then boom

Have a couple of small gem magnolias and also quite hardy and fast growing with water. They drop leaves as they get older but not heaps. Always bright green leaves with small flowers.

With most plants, just constrain the roots and they won't grow too large.

With out climate ****ed probably time to consider very drought tolerant plants foremost. Unless of course you don't mind setting up complex sprinkler systems/etc/high water bills.

 

x2 Magnolias. We have them also along the pool and they’re great!

 

Awesome thanks for all the advice guys much appreciated!

 

Hello All,

Thanks @Thedoc for starting this thread, imstrad of starting new I am hoping to get some opinions too

We bought our family home and it came with a pool. Pool was never in our requirements but it ticked all our boxes so compromised on pool.

It doesn't have standard shape so finding pool covers are challenging and shades not gonna help either so leaves wilk be falling in spring and autumn.

Main issue we are facing is rain, will upload pics as well (usual looking pool and after rain) for you to see and give opinions/advice.

We thought about turning into sand pitt (droped that idea) thrn thought about removing it/closing it- seems like a long and costly project (based on 1 of the thread here).

Appreciate if someone can recommend any professionals who can advise on best cost effective option..(bcoz ongoing chemical spend etc also plays a part )

 

Looks like you’ve got drainage issues around your pool. If you fix that so no overland flow goes into the pool and you just get the rain water you’ll feel a lot better about it.

 

Thanks @QldKoolies for your reply.

Any landscaper can help?

 

Probably, the culprit is gravity so that will give you some hints! You could hose test the top of the rock wall and the garden bed and see where the water is getting in through the rocks closest to the pool edge. You want to seal an edge around the pool higher than the gardens and make sure water can flow around and not pool over the rock edge. Its possible that the rocks are concreted in and its cracked or something similar.

Once you’ve done that and get your chemical mix right it’ll be easy keeping it sparkling.

 

Thanks mate, appreciate it!

 

Your best bet is to buy one of the ones you cut to size. Daisy is the brand i think. I've done that for ours and it is great for keeping it warm. No pool cover will stop your runoff issues though.

 

Re Pool cover-thanks for the tip mate, will look into it. I did go to local Swim-mart and issue is the rooler due to landscaping -it can only be where the enterance is so still thinking...

Re runoff- I have contacted few lanscapers to come and wuote to add strip drains etc but not much solid response....

 

My first port of call would be to check where the water is draining from when it's raining. The hose technique would be alright but I reckon you might be getting some coming from the neighbours yard to so I'd do the check when it's pouring rain. Then once it's all dry I would use an angle grinder with a good quality disc to cut a channel in the rock if possible close to the pool that will drain for you. If you cut it around the edge and make sure to use gravity to drain it to where you want it to go (i.e. slowly increase the depth towards where you want to drain it) you should solve a lot of your issues. You might only need one or two channels.

That might be good enough until you're ready to re-landscape, at which point you'll be wanting to rip out all the rocks etc. I'd imagine and go a more standard pool area. I think getting a landscaper to do drains now will just be throwing money at something that you'll probably want to change later anyway.

 

Hi,

This happened after the recent Sydney heavy rain for 3/4 days and this is the 1st time since we moved in July.

Neighbours backyard at the back is higher than the pool area and next door neighbour is lower than us...(in Jan next door neighbour complaint to Council about flooding in their backyard due to previous owners landscaping-this matter is settled as vendor removed one line of stones for better water flow at the fence)

Around the pool there are couple of small drains but does nothing and I am not much of a handy man and was looking to do the hose test, will take some pics and upload.

@wylie -I also did floc treatment on Sat and did vaccum wuth waste yesterday-may need to do 1 more vaccum and waste before I can run filter for 24 hours

@Ross36 -I will newd to get some training on griders etc

 

Hi ,

I went around searcing investigating and managed to find thia crack however willonitor if water does come out and get in as both these marked up pics are close to each other....

 

Only two small drains im the area...

 

Backside and next door Neighbour side and some other landscaping wall shots...

 

Hey mate, i wouldn’t be spending cash on a landscaper unless it was part of a bigger reno plan as said earlier. You don’t have to be handy to fix this unless your drains are blocked, test that first. If your drains are blocked you may need a plumber to find out what it is with a camera. They blast them open and if damaged throw a sock down there that expands to reseal it - could be $1-$3k if damaged/collapsed under ground pipes.

What I would do if your drains aren’t blocked is scrape back a small amount of that top surface of the garden bed away from the rock gutters around the pool so you can fill it with a hose and see where your likely problem is. This will also give you an indication of which direction the fall is. Some of the gardens look too high and could have been built up to look nice when they prepped for sale. Make sure the height of your rock wall is clearly above that of your garden bed. You can buy a concrete crack filler to fix any cracks in your concrete/rock gutter from bunnings and the stuff is pretty self explanatory.

If you have issues with lots of water from neighbours a DIY solution is to put in a ‘french gutter’ in the garden around the pool where the water comes in from the boundary. You dig a channel and put a thin layer of drainage gravel into it and then put perforated pipe (ag pipe with holes) in the channel ensuring the fall is toward a well drained part of your yard. Top it up with the drainage gravel so it goes around and just over the pipe. The top of the pipe should be only just under ground level you don’t need to dig too much and you won’t even know its there. This should see you out for quite a while until you want to do something major.

 

The neighbours appear to have a garden on the other side of the green fence. The dirt will potentially be coming straight through there.

Rock retaining walls have to be open to allow rain water run off otherwise the earth behind them will push the wall over and your pool will be full of their dirt.

Being downhill, your property requires major drainage. Maybe get an engineer to take a look.