Plateau soils hold water and sit over shale, so cut slopes need holding and hardscape needs drainage detailed for saturated conditions rather than average ones.
Where we work from: our shop is at 7980 OH-249, Hicksville, OH. Smithville sits outside our home counties — call and we will confirm scheduling before you commit to anything.
Soil and drainage in Smithville
Retaining structures here do real structural work, and the drainage behind them is not optional. Drain tile at the base with an outlet to daylight, twelve inches of clean angular stone against the block, geotextile keeping soil out of that stone, and geogrid into compacted fill on anything with height. Walls that lean in this county were backfilled with soil.
Hardscape on shale-derived soil has to be detailed for saturated conditions rather than average ones: deeper excavation where the subgrade is soft, geotextile separating clay from the aggregate base, and roof water tied into solid pipe and carried past the hardscape before anything is built on it.
What Smithville properties need most
Front entries do most of the visual work on a village lot and they are usually the cheapest thing to fix. A walk at least four feet wide so two people can reach the door side by side, beds deep enough that plants are not pressed against the siding, a defined edge, and a light on the entry.
The order that gets the most from a budget is almost always the same: drainage and grading first because everything else sits on top of them, then hardscape with sleeves and conduit run for anything you might add later, then structural planting, then beds and mulch, then lighting.
Winter in Smithville
Drifting is the underestimated problem on open ground here. A drive can be clear at dawn and closed by mid-morning with nothing new falling, because wind is moving what already fell. Return passes should be written into the agreement, and drive edges staked in the fall so the pavement line can be found when a drift buries it.
Routes here are built geographically and they fill during the autumn. A contractor who takes on a property outside their route in January is either not going to reach it promptly or is going to disappoint somebody who booked in October.
What Smithville properties call us for
These are the services this ground actually needs, ordered by what the soil and terrain in Wayne County demand rather than by what is easiest to sell.
- Retaining Walls & TerracingEngineered walls with real drainage behind them — turning slopes you cannot mow into space you can use.
- Drainage Solutions & Yard GradingFrench drains, swales and regrading that move water away from your foundation before it costs you a basement.
- Tree & Shrub TrimmingPruned at the right time of year, to the right cut — so plants stay in scale instead of getting sheared into boxes.
- Mulching & Landscape Bed MaintenanceCrisp cut edges, correct mulch depth, and beds that stay clean instead of needing a rescue every July.
- Landscape LightingLow-voltage LED lighting that makes the yard usable after 5pm — which in Ohio is half the year.
- Sod Installation, Seeding & Lawn RenovationNew lawns, thin lawns and construction scars — graded, amended and established properly the first time.
Why Smithville property owners choose us
We know Wayne County ground
Wayne County sits in the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, where productive silt loam on the flats and gravelly till on the ridges, generally the best-draining soil in the region. We plan around that rather than applying a template written for another part of the state.
We fix the water before anything else
Every dollar spent on plants or hardscape sitting on ground that stays wet gets spent twice. On Wayne County soil we diagnose drainage first — and often the honest answer is two downspouts rather than a system.
46 Google reviews, licensed and insured
Verbatim reviews from neighbours across the region, full coverage on every crew and machine, and financing available so a full plan can be built in one season.
One contractor for all four seasons
Landscaping April through November and snow and ice through the winter, from the same crews. The people who stake a drive in November are the people who mowed it in July.
Nearby places we also serve
Smithville sits in Wayne County. We cover these neighbouring communities too:
