I think there are phone and cable television lines buried underneath my new house. I see where the lines enter the house in the back. How can I avoid damaging them as I dig out plants and install new ones this spring?
— David Brandis, Niles
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It’s a good idea to have utilities in your garden marked to avoid damaging them when you have projects that involve digging in the soil. Some examples of work for which you should have your utilities located are digging with a shovel, planting, tilling and installing posts. If you are planting annuals or ground covers with a garden trowel, it is unlikely that you would damage a television cable or phone line, so locating them for this work is not as important. However, if you are spading compost into a garden bed first, you should have them located. Cable television and phone lines tend to be very shallow (1- to 2-inches deep) and very easy to cut with a spade. Place additional utility locate requests if your project is going to last longer than 14 days. I unknowingly cut a cable television line once while edging a bed and have cut a few cable lines while planting small shrubs and perennials. Natural gas lines are usually installed more deeply, but I cut a gas line once at about a 4-inch depth 20 feet away from the house. Natural gas doesn’t have any odor, but most gas companies add small quantities of a compound called mercaptan to give it a distinctive smell of rotten eggs as an alert of a leak. If in doubt as to whether there are utility lines present, err on the side of calling to have the utilities located for your property.
JULIE stands for Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators. It is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to keeping Illinois safe and connected. JULIE staff does not visit sites to mark the utility lines but informs member utility companies so that they can mark your garden for safe digging. They send a professional locator to mark your lines using color-coded flags and paint. Red is for electric, yellow is for gas, orange is for communications, blue is for potable (drinking) water and green is for sewer lines. The member companies only mark the underground lines that they own and not any lines that you have installed or privately own. Some examples include gas lines for a fire pit, grill or light, landscape lighting electric lines, and irrigation piping. I cut the gas supply line for a swimming pool heater as it was not located by JULIE. If your site is clear of a particular utility line, you will find a flag with OK on it or OK painted on the ground. Other lines will be marked with paint and flags. It is a good idea to use a white flag or white paint to mark where you plan to dig before contacting JULIE.
Contact JULIE, Inc. to mark your utilities by calling 8-1-1 or 1-800-892-0123 two business days before you plan to begin digging (exclude weekend days and holidays as part of the count). It is best to allow more than two business days after contacting JULIE before planning to start your project as the marking can take longer during busy construction periods. I have found it has generally taken longer than two business days over the last couple of years to get the utilities marked. It is a free service. The JULIE call centers are staffed 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You can also submit a locate request through the JULIE website, at www.illinois1call.com. I have processed locate requests using both methods and found them very easy to use and convenient. JULIE covers the state of Illinois, outside the city of Chicago. If you are digging in Chicago, call 8-1-1 or 312-744-7000.
Dig carefully by hand when you are working within 18 inches of any marked underground utilities. On occasion, I will carefully dig and expose cable television and phone lines and move them to the side when planting very close to them. These lines are very easy to damage and cut through with a spade. If you end up damaging a utility line, contact that utility company for repairs. Also, be careful when digging in gardens with underground sprinklers, as the black polyvinyl piping commonly used for sprinkler systems is also easy to cut with a spade and generally very shallow. Look for irrigation heads for clues as to where the pipes are located — they are generally installed in straight lines from irrigation head to irrigation head.
For more plant advice, contact the Plant Information Service at the Chicago Botanic Garden at [email protected]. Tim Johnson is senior director of horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Garden.