Hi!

My family recently purchased a home, but we have to landscape our own
backyard. We have clay soil, and a slope on which the back fence
sits. The climate during the winter's pretty damp and foggy so it's
pretty muddy lately. However, now that the weather's getting warm,
we're having a lot of marsh grass infesting our yard. After weeks of
backbreaking weeding, we decided to weedmat a significant portion of
the yard and cover the mat with woodchips. My question is is weedmat
on the back slope, or for that matter clay soil, a bad idea? Won't it
retain more water?

We've also decided to have a pavingstone patio. Does anyone know how
much a patio about 12x 15 or more should cost to build? Does anyone
know any major chain home improvement store will install a paito for
us?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Lil