Thank you all - and I should have written more clearly. I mean above the wall on the berm area. I put in St. Augustine last summer around the pool itself and cannot explain how much I love it. The heat here is terrible in the summer and our pool area is so much cooler for having grass instead of cement. We have a large patio area "this side" of the pool, so seating and all that has a place. I am just trying to "pretty up" the area above the wall while not adding any more work for pool maintenance. So I went to Archies in Ft. Worth and grabbed a couple of trays of Angelina Sedum and I am going to start with that - I am hoping that I got the soil amended enough that they will live in the clay that we have here. If they look positive in a couple of weeks I will go out and buy a bunch more. I think I will end up doing a mix of ground cover up there just because the area is so big. Thinking maybe some silvery lambs ear might look nice against the yellow/green of the Angelina Sedum. I am taking a look at every single plan that has been mentioned here as I have a HUGE area to deal with up there - I measured it finally - most of the bed will be 6-8 feet deep and it is over 100 feet long. Ugh. I guess I know where you can find me if you need me. Oh, and a bit of a review for edging. I need to edge at least the back side of all of this area and the metal stuff that would normally be my go-to was just so expensive for this big of a space. I ended up buying Suncast Eco Edge ($20 for 20 feet of it) in brown and got 3 sections of it put in yesterday - It is still new but I am REALLY happy with the way it went in and the look of it. If anyone needs a cheaper edging option, you might look into it. Again, thank you all so very very much. I am working so hard to learn Texas plants! I should have paid more attention to my great grandmother when I was a child. She could convince a stick to bloom in the middle of the west Texas sun.

Here is ours. I believe this discussion has maxed out at 150 posts. See the link to Part 2 of the Calabash Cottage below the picture. Here is a link that might be useful: PART 2 - Calabash Cottage This post was edited by -Bryan on Tue, Oct 28, 14 at 8:15

Scooping the leaves with a scoop net is #1. Do you have the test results from your last testing? I need pH, alk, and CYA. I also need the size. A big bottle of Clorox is about equal to a pound of Cal Hypo of Dichlor. When adding it, pour most in the deep end and brush. Add enough to bring the pool to shock level. That would be about 75% of the CYA level. Then add about a quart per day per 20K gallons. Do this daily and brush it and skim it daily, Don't panic. It is what it is and we can only do so much. Scott Scott I would hold off on the leaf eater. There is probably enough water in the pool.

Anyone with a fairly small (14ft x 3ft) above ground pool out there? We just bought it new a few days ago. We filled it directly from the brook running through our property, which resulted in rust colored water with some fine debris settling at the bottom. The first thing I did once it was full was to put in Super Shock & let the pump & filter do it's thing for several hours. I had also bought some algaecide & stupidly decided it wouldn't hurt to add some of that. It became cloudy as milk almost immediately. Too late, I realized that I didn't need it, the super shock has it already in it & I REALLY didn't need to add almost 3 times what a pool my size needs. So, I have let the pump run steady for three days & added another dose of shock & two gallons of bleach around 3pm yesterday afternoon. Woke up this morning to zero change. so I shut the pump off. The water is very blue but very cloudy, you can just barely see the bottom of the pool. I have also replace the filters twice. I am so mad at myself for adding the algaecide, it was clearing up nicely with just the shock. Please offer suggestions of what I can do to clear it up quickly, we really were hoping to swim in it this weekend.