guildfordcycads

I dont know where they came from or how to get rid of them, advice would be much appreciated.

I’m working on a small-scale project in a densely populated informal settlement (slum) in Djibouti. We have a serious stormwater runoff problem during the rare but intense rains, which leads to flooding and contaminated standing water. Our main goal is to manage this water, but we have a critical constraint: we cannot create a standard retention pond or any feature that holds standing water. Like, at all. Mosquitoes here are a massive health risk, so traditional retention ponds are off the table.

We want to solve the water problem and create a much-needed community asset. The idea is to build a shaded, pleasant seating area that also passively manages stormwater.
So, r/landscaping, I’m throwing this to you:

Any design ideas or sketches? How would you layout a seating area that’s also a functional water sink?Will this actually work? From a technical side, how can we make sure the water infiltrates fast enough, like best practices for ensuring 100% of the water infiltrates within 24-48 hours.

I’m looking for your brilliant ideas on designs , sketches, links to similar projects, or just crazy ideas for combining seating and water infiltration.

What are some tough-as-nails, drought-tolerant plants that can handle a occasional drink? We need shade trees that won’t mind the occasional flood.Besides trees, any simple, low-cost ideas for building shade?

Thanks in advance, everyone. This community space could be a game-changer for this poor and vulnerable community This is a grassroots project, so we’re working on a tight budget. All your clever, simple, and sustainable ideas are golden.

picture shows the park’s boundary and how stormwater currently flows through the area during heavy rain.

https://preview.redd.it/sop2e9i8vxtf1.png?width=1997&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f888951a8aada598d89d33be6b4d6afd6f39066

Captured this quiet moment at Lake Musconetcong in Stanhope, NJ—swans gliding through golden reflections while bats traced the dusk sky. It felt like a living example of edge ecology: water, forest, and sky meeting in seasonal transition.

Sharing this short video as a reflection on how even small lakes can host rich biodiversity. Curious if others have noticed bat activity increasing in October?

Hello friends

I have 10 acres in Western WA. About 2.5 acres is a grass field, formally a forest (pre 1970s) that was clear cut to make way for giant high voltage power lines and poles.

Since then it has sat untouched, other than the power company coming through to spray scotch broom. I have never personally seen them do so since I purchased the property, but neighbors told me that’s what the power co does, and that would explain the lack of scotch broom in the field. I have reached out and asked the power co not to do that, I will manage it myself.

With that said, I’d like to turn this into more of a meadow/pasture than can be used as grazing land for my animals and wildlife. My only animals currently are one horse and 4 pet pigs. Currently there are grasses, ferns, and various other “weeds” that have taken over. There is significant scotch broom pressure in the area, if I do not manage this field it will certainly turn into a scotch broom waste land.

I’d like to go about this as lazy as possible. To be honest my plan is to buy a bunch of native grass and flower seed, throw it out chaos garden style, and keep doing that until I’m happy with the way it looks.

I have no equipment to utilize other than an excavator, which Is pretty useless in this context. I do not have water to the field, and do not plan on irrigating. The only thing I have is roughly 10 goats, who belong to my neighbor, but who free range the area and mostly hang out in my field. There are no fences and I do not have any means of channeling the goats energy, and I have no plans on cutting off their access to the field. I am left to work with nature and these goats as efficiently as possible.

If anyone has thoughts or ideas of how to approach this efficiently and naturally, I’m all ears!