Landscaping in Louisiana is ditches, live oaks, and soil that stays wet. A yard that looks flat can still send a week of rain under a pier or against a slab. Oak roots heave the walk and invade the sewer. Mulch against siding keeps termites and rot in the same damp pocket. Start with where the water sits after a hard rain, not with a plant list.
South Louisiana drainage is borrowed. If the ditch and the street are full, a French drain in the yard has nowhere to go and becomes a buried bucket. Raised houses need the water to pass under and out, not to pond in the lattice. Slab yards in Baton Rouge and Lafayette need the grade to fall away from the brick. North Louisiana adds red dirt that washes out of a slope and piles against the house.
Live oaks are the other half of the job. They shade grass to death, drop limbs on roofs, and send roots into old lines. Gutters under them fill, overflow, and undermine piers. Bald cypress and other wet-ground trees belong where the soil is sour, and a turf that wants sun will not survive that shade. Fire ants take the open dry mound. Mosquitoes take the sagging gutter and the container under the house. Algae on a wall means the bed is too close.
Watering clay in a dry month can swell soil against a slab and stick doors. That movement shows up in walks and in brick cracks. A fence that leans in gumbo is the soil, not the latch. Edging that traps water on the house side of a walk is a puddle with a clean border.
When you call, describe the rain path. It stands under the house, it runs to the slab, or the ditch at the road is the thing that is full. Name the oaks on the roof and the beds touching wood or brick. Mention a sour pier, a heaved walk, or a sewer that slows when roots are likely. The work is to live with the water table and the trees without feeding rot. Planting comes after the house is out of the pond. Call the number on this page.