Common Property Problems in Bucks County

Most people do not call a landscaper because they want landscaping. They call because something is wrong and they are not sure what it is. Here is what we get called about most on Bucks County properties, what it usually turns out to be, and where to read more.

Some of these have a cheap fix you can do yourself, and we have said so where that is true. We would rather tell you that now than charge you to find out.

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Water gets into my basement when it rains

Far more often than people expect, this is a surface problem rather than a foundation problem — a downspout discharging at the corner of the house, or ground that has settled over the years until it slopes back toward the foundation instead of away from it. Both are fixable from outside, and the downspout version can cost very little. If the water is coming up through the slab rather than in at the walls, that is a waterproofing contractor’s job and we will tell you so rather than sell you a trench. Drainage and grading →

There is a wet spot in the lawn that never dries out

Three usual suspects, and they need different fixes. Compacted clay that sheds water instead of absorbing it — core aeration often solves that on its own. A low point that the original grading created and seventy years of settling made worse. Or a genuinely high water table, which is common close to the Delaware in Yardley, Morrisville and Croydon, and is a condition to plant around rather than fight. Worth looking at during or just after heavy rain, when the answer is obvious. Drainage and grading →

My patio has sunk, or the pavers have gone wavy

This almost always failed underground, years before you noticed. Either the base was too thin, or it was not compacted in layers, or water was never given anywhere to drain. Pennsylvania freeze-thaw then lifts the surface a little more each winter. Whether it can be relaid over the existing base or needs excavating and rebuilding depends on what we find when we lift a section — which is a twenty-minute answer, not a guess. Patios, walkways and walls →

Nothing will grow under my big tree

It is a light problem, and no fertilizer program fixes a light problem. Below a certain level of shade, grass will not hold no matter what you seed. Where there is still reasonable light, a shade-tolerant blend and fall overseeding will work. Where the canopy has genuinely closed, the honest answer is to stop fighting it — bed the area properly or use a shade groundcover — which also stops the string trimmer from quietly stripping the bark off the base of the tree. Lawn care and maintenance →

The shrubs have swallowed the front of the house

Usually 1970s or 1980s foundation planting that was sheared rather than pruned for decades, so it is now a dense shell around a dead, hollow interior. Most of it can be brought back with staged renovation pruning over two or three seasons, keeping decades of root system and costing a fraction of replacement. The main exception is junipers, which do not regenerate from bare wood — once hollow they cannot be reduced, and replacement is the honest answer. Tree and shrub care →

The grass dies every August no matter what I do

Usually shallow roots, and usually caused by watering a little every day rather than deeply and less often. Short daily watering trains roots to stay at the surface, where they are the first thing to go in a drought. It can also be grub damage — if the dead patches roll back like carpet in late summer, that is grubs, and prevention in early summer costs a fraction of repairing it in September. Both are worth ruling out before anyone sells you a new lawn. Lawn care and maintenance →

The deer eat everything I plant

North and east of Langhorne — Newtown, Upper Makefield, Washington Crossing, and anywhere backing up to Tyler State Park or the Churchville Nature Center — this is severe enough that it should decide the plant list rather than be worked around afterward. Arborvitae, yew, hosta and tulips are, in those townships, an expensive way to feed wildlife. There is a long list of plants that hold up and still look considered, and swapping them is cheaper than repeating the loss every winter. Landscape design and installation →

My beds look tired and the mulch keeps washing away

If mulch moves in a storm it is usually too deep, laid on a slope without a cut edge to hold it, or the wrong grade of material for the situation. And if you cannot see where each shrub widens into its roots at the base, there is too much of it — beds that have been topped off every spring for fifteen years are often six or eight inches deep, which is slowly killing the plants. The first job on those properties is taking material off, not putting more on. It costs less than a mulching and does more good. Mulch and bed maintenance →

The driveway and walk ice up every winter

Partly treatment and partly drainage. If water runs across the driveway before it freezes, no amount of salt keeps ahead of it, and the fix is upstream. Where treatment is the answer, plain rock salt stops working below about 15°F, which happens here most winters, and it is also what causes the brown dead strip along the edges every March. That strip is salt damage, not winter kill. Snow and ice management →

The whole front of the house looks tired and I do not know where to start

This is a completely reasonable thing to say and we hear it often. Usually the answer is not a redesign. On most properties, re-cutting the bed edges, weeding properly, correcting mulch depth and pruning what has outgrown its spot will transform how the place reads from the street for a fraction of what people expect. If a redesign genuinely is the right call after that, it will be obvious to both of us — and you will have a much better idea of what you actually want. Landscape design and installation →

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Not sure which of these it is?

That is normal, and it is exactly what the free walk-through is for. Several of these look identical from a kitchen window and need completely different work — and quite often the thing people call about turns out to be a symptom of something else. We would rather work that out standing on the property than guess at it.