I don't see any questions about working with interlock or natural stone. Walkways, retaining walls: these all seem to be a natural fit for "Gardening and Landscaping". Are these outside the scope of this forum or are they going elsewhere?
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Which reminds me... gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/2132/…– Peter TurnerSep 22, 2011 at 19:58
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2 Answers
These aren't technically outside the scope of the forum, and this question has been discussed before, with nothing concrete ever coming out of it. For example:
- Discussion on examples of possible borderline topics for Gardening and Landscaping site
- Are patio paver questions off topic?
- Where are the boundaries on-topic vs off-topic
The general gist of those questions is that hard landscaping questions, where you build stuff, use brick/mortar/wood, etc., are better suited to DIY & Home improvement. Also, Joe's answer suggests that the hard landscaping questions be left to DIY and all your examples fit that.
We've had some questions such as:
- Does my garden brickwork need mortar?
- What are some paving options that will not get damaged by de-icing salt?
- What is a good strategy for laying patio pavers?
- How can I drain lawn with very little slope?
But remember, this is merely 4 questions out of about 634 total as of now. The first question was cross-posted on DIY and received an answer much sooner than it did on G&L. Although cross-posting is highly discouraged, I suggested that the question be kept open in the hopes of attracting answers here. However, it has gotten only one so far, which is from you. Going by the upvotes on that answer vs. the one on DIY, I can only infer that the community there is better suited to both answer these questions and gauge the quality of the answer.
Similarly, the last question above was migrated here by requesting from the DIY community (see my comment there), but yet, it has received only a single answer with two upvotes. Since the OP hasn't accepted it, I can only assume that it wasn't the answer that he was expecting.
On the other hand, soft landscaping questions such as maintaining lawns, sprinkler setups, fast growing ground covers, etc., have been very well received here and have plenty of upvotes.
So to sum up, I honestly think that the community prefers gardening and soft landscaping questions to hard landscaping questions (the latter being on-topic on DIY) and if it eventually does end up that way, we might drop the landscaping part from the title.
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It would be awesome if SE explicitly allowed/supported cross-posting. I.e. the question shows up on both sites and answers/comments originating from either site show up on the original post. Similar to what happens when a question is (responsibly) cross-posted to a couple of different mailing lists or usenet groups. Sep 21, 2011 at 12:07
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@bstpierre I agree it would work for smaller sites like ours. I think the main hesitation with the team is that the SE engine is the same network wide and cross-posting will be a much bigger problem on SO/SU/SF. On Gardening & Landscaping, as long as it is not misused, I have no problems in keeping them open so as to 1) gauge the community's real interest and 2) help the OP get an answer quickly (wherever that might be). Sep 21, 2011 at 13:49
As yoda says, such questions are often more appropriate for DIY. The same applies for hose pipe questions - we've moved some over as they are more plumbing (how do I fix my hosepipe faucet was one I think) but then a leaky soaker hose stayed here.
It is a fine line. I have a question about adhesives and reflective safety tape on a deck. I thought about posting it here (the deck is in the garden, it is definitely an outdoors question, and I guess you could consider it a safety-in-the-landscape question) but it does seem more DIY/off topic, so I haven't posted it.
