Hardin Brothers Landscaping

The End of Winter

Overall, we had a pretty mild winter. There wasn’t a lot of snow, and the temperatures didn’t get much below zero. The wind, however, was very strong and caused a significant amount of damage. We had quite a few trees come down and they caused a significant amount of damage. Some trees fell on houses and lots of folks lost roof shingles.

Old timers would always say to cut down every tree that was tall enough to hit your house. Healthy looking trees can sometimes be rotten on the inside and lightning strikes can bring down even a healthy tree. Most houses at Amber Ranches are surrounded by large trees that can potentially fall and cause major damage. If you have any trees that you think could potentially fall and do damage to your house, please contact us. My brother and I have cut down a lot of trees together and would be happy to look at any tree/trees you have concerns about.

Winter/Spring Ditch & Culvert Cleaning & Repair

In the Fall, the sticks and leaves are removed from every road, roadside, ditch and culvert at Amber Ranches.

Throughout the winter we continue to monitor everything to make sure that they are clean of debris. Strong winter winds and rain can blow around sticks and leaves that can potentially cause ditches and culverts to clog, thus causing road damage. Here are some winter leaf maintenance photos…

As you can see in the photos below, we are constantly trying to improve our roads and roadsides at Amber Ranches by using the natural stones to create retaining walls and catch basins around our culverts.

The stones are used to filter out the sticks, leaves, gravel, silt, and other debris from the rainwater entering and clogging up our culverts. These stone walls and catch basins still have to be regularly maintained, but they do help to maintain our roads, culverts and ditches around Amber Ranches.

For an additional fee, we can also remove sticks and leaves from your personal properties. We clean gutters as well. Removing sticks and leaves away from your house not only looks good, but it also helps to keep insects and moisture away from your house. It’s not a bad idea to have your property cleaned up after all the leaves are down in the Fall and then again in the spring. Please let us know if you are interested in these services.

Plan for Roadbond in 2024

As Amber Ranches grows, so does the need for more road maintenance and roadbond.

As usual, the roads at Amber Ranches will need roadbond in 2024. We do our best to pull and push around the existing roadbond when smoothing our roads after storms and heavy traffic, but sometimes more roadbond is needed.

We typically don’t order any gravel in the winter due to the lack of traffic, construction, frozen roads and snow. As a result, late spring and summer are normally when roadbond is ordered.

Below is a map that I made of Amber Ranches that shows the different “zones” where roadbond is delivered…

Gravel/roadbond is only ordered in locations where dirt and mud are exposed after scraping/grading with the tractor. I try my best to pull and push existing roadbond to cover these areas before ordering roadbond, but sometimes there just isn’t enough.

Zone 1 receives the most roadbond due to having the most traffic. The grade of the road here is also very steep, thus causing more erosion than other areas. One load was distributed this month between 3 different locations in zone 1.

The first part was put down at the very beginning of Amber Ranches where the road first turns to gravel.

The second part was put down on the steep main drag after the front entrance sign and before the intersection with Ben’s Bend.

The third part was put down where Amber Drive intersects with Nicholas Knoll.

As always, please use 4WD and AWD vehicles when driving at Amber Ranches. I always put my truck into 4WD at the end of the paved road and encourage you all to do the same.

Also, please be aware that roads cannot be scraped and smoothed when the roads are dry. Please be patient with us during times of dry weather.

Spring & Summer Maintenance

It’s finally May, and the roadside/commons areas are being weedeated in full gear.

We weedeat roadsides in order to keep our ditches and culverts clean and exposed. It also just looks really good to have everything cut down on the sides of the road.

We don’t weedeat the powerline right of ways as often, but we try our best to keep them looking good too. By cutting these areas, it prevents the electric company from coming in and making a mess of the area and spraying chemicals. It also opens up some sharp turns in the roads which helps to improve traffic visibility. On top of that, it just looks good.

Driveway Scraping

It’s not a bad idea to have your driveway scraped at least once a year. Besides making your driveway look good and smooth, it also helps to tear up weeds and grasses that grow up through your driveway. It is strongly recommended to have your driveway scraped and graded before any new loads of gravel are put down on it. Grading your driveway can also fix and prevent any possible erosion problems.

The cost of scraping/grading your driveway varies between driveways based on the size and the condition that they are in. However, most driveway scraping cost anywhere from $60-$100. Let me know if you’d like an estimate. Here are some before and after photos…

Spring 2024 Photos