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Vent: my brother in law put 4 inches of gravel over the fabric and now my beds are a swamp
We tore out the old concrete patio in our Fresno yard back in April and I put down weed fabric and 3 inches of base rock, but he came over and dumped another 4 inch layer of pea gravel right on top because he said it looked thin. Now water pools under there after every sprinkler run and the fabric is stretched into wrinkles I can't fix without pulling all 12 tons back out. Did I mess up by not edging the sides first, or is the extra gravel depth the real problem here?
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joel_clark3722d ago
That line about the fabric being stretched into wrinkles is the real tell here. Once that fabric wrinkles up, it stops being a separator and starts acting like a tarp, so water sits on top of it instead of draining down through to the soil below. Adding the extra 4 inches on top just made it worse because now there's more weight pressing down and more gravel for water to filter through before it even hits the clogged fabric layer. You didn't mess up by skipping the edging, edging keeps gravel in place but it wouldn't have stopped this. The depth is the problem and honestly the wrinkle part matters more than the depth. Only real fix is pulling the gravel off, smoothing the fabric flat again, and going back to 3 inches, which stinks with 12 tons but it beats a swamp every time you water.
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