Landscaping don'ts

[Devonviolet]

Wow, @Smart Red ! I'm sorry to hear about all your wind damage. What a pain!

We have one of those canvas garages, that we bought at Harbor Freight last Summer.

Before we bought our canvas garage, I read all the reviews. Some complained that the garage fell apart in high winds. Others said they used self-tapping screws to tighten all the connection points. So, before we built our garage we went to Lowe's & bought a box of self tapping screws, which we used for every connection.

The tent came with 4 soil anchors. Due to hot dry weather, the ground was dry & very hard, making it difficult to get the anchor into the ground. We ended up using 4 screw in style dog anchors on the 4 corners - after hammering rebar into the ground & gradually adding water to the holes.

To anchor the garage better, we connected 2 rachet straps & threw them over the top of the frame, anchoring it to additional 2 anchors in the middle of the sides. That red rachet strap is tight enough, that it can be strummed like a guitar string. But, not so tight it causes the top bar to bend.

We have had winds strong enough to drop tree branches, but our garage stands strong.

 

[Smart Red]

I used 4 large dog-type anchors as well. What they sent seemed way too flimsy to hold. What I didn't see before -- I put up the metal skeleton and others put the tarp on -- were the grommets for ground anchors on the tarp edges. Those should have been tied down.

It's possible that the frost leaving the ground along with lots of rainfall the past few weeks made the ground too soggy to hold the over-sized anchors, but then, we did loose trees in the blow as well.

 

[thistlebloom]

We didn't use the anchors that came with ours. Our soil is so rocky we figured it would be a pain to get them in. We went with a t-post pounded in and securely ziptied to each leg.

 

[ducks4you]

I hear you about the 50 mph wind gusts--we had them, too!!
Those ties above are heavy duty. They run about $15.00 each, are about 3-4 inches wide, and are the ones I use to ratchet down 40 bales of hay for transport. The skinny and cheaper ones just don't hold up.
I'm SO sorry for the damage. Like I wrote on another thread today, I have never gotten anything in the ground in March, so I never thought about a problem with wind. I'm gonna PLAN on a problem with wind in the future.
Maybe Next year you may have to build some small cold frames and then transfer your plants to your greenhouse in April? Just a thought.
Hope it gets better.