Hey everyone. So I live in an area that is mostly clay underneath the ground. To keep my foundation from shifting when it contracts during the dry months, I have to water it regularly. I have a soaker hose that runs around the house, placed 1 foot away from the foundation.
This creates a problem with mowing where I can't just let my robot mower (or my push mower) run freely because of the risk of the soaker hose getting caught up in the blades, which has already happened once when I accidentally mowed too close.
To resolve this, I want to kill the grass (using landscaping fabric) in the 1 foot space between the foundation and hose and replace it with something else so I don't need to bother manually trimming it. At the same time, I don't want to use organic stuff like mulch because underground termites also exist in my area and I don't want it to attract them close to the foundation.
A brief search pointed me to using gravel. However, the problem with stones (especially larger ones) is that they also trap moisture underneath them, and the dark and damp areas can also maybe attract termites. Reading a bit more, I think a good compromise would be smaller and uneven gravel/rocks, as more space between them means sunlight penetrates more and moisture gets dried up quickly. Is this a good solution?
I was actually looking at a layer system myself. With stabilized earth (50% concrete and dirt) packed at an angle about 1 1/2 feet, rocks, rocks wrapped in breathable fabric, and finally more rock on top of that.
Basically just mimizing the rate at which water flows under my house but giving it a better place to go away from the house.
I also have big clay pots buried a foot or two from the house so the water can sit in there and slowly spread mix spread out.
The biggest saver is dealing with roof runoff though, rain storage plus irrigation away from the house help quite a bit