I'm curious what you all think about how I might go about preparing a bed where I could grow plants like this. Say I start with a fairly small section, maybe 30 square feet. I imagine it like this:

1. Remove the top 4" of soil and set aside.

2. Remove the remaining soil down to 12" or so.

3. Use a garden fork to make holes another 10" or so down. Pretty heavy soil down there. I have an awesome fork though.

4. Pour in Turface and/or grit and rake it into the holes.

5. Fill the bed with a mixture of the soil from step 1, lime, and something gritty: decomposed granite, chicken grit, Turface, pumice.

Does this seem like a reasonable strategy? Is 12" deep enough? What would you use in step 5?

By and large I do try to stick with plants that can handle the silty clay loam here with minimal amendment, but I like the idea of having some dryland plants in this one really sunny hot section (it's a total of about 100 square feet).

Woodstea, I'm less scientific and more of a peasant on this sort of thing. That sounds complicated and expensive to me. What I do is purchase some coarse sand and topsoil to build the bed up higher into a mound that drains down the sides rather than digging down deeper to fix or remove whats underneath. Unless its really crappy or sticky clay, its not the soil, its the drainage time. You want quick runoff.

You can buy bags of topsoil for 99 cents each and bags of concrete grade sand for cheap at Home Depot or Lowe's. The concrete sand comes in larger bags so you need less of those. I'd make it about 1/2 sand and 1/2 good topsoil. Thats what I always do when working on a new area. If its a big area, a whole ton or two of sand you pick up at a local concrete company costs about the same as a couple bags of play sand--- I guess its the bags you pay for at Home Depot or maybe the convenience? A ton sounds like a lot, but its really not once you spread it out. Do you have a pickup? Sometimes we have to make more than one trip, depending on the size of the area.

If its a really big area a whole or half of a dump truck load is inexpensive but you have to pay to have them deliver it in a pile. You have to use a wheel barrow to move it where you want it. We had three piles in the street right in front of the house when we did the back, large pile of sand, one of topsoil and one of gravel. We hired a guy for a day with a cat to bring loads down the driveway to the back yard as we used rakes to spread it out and we got it done in a day. I can do a small area by myself in a few hours, seems like a piece of cake after doing the whole back yard. .

The only caveat I can conjure up is one of "the bathtub effect", whereby extremely free-draining material is used as backfill around plants otherwise situated in soil of slower-draining quality, the result being that the very bed you wish to have drain out faster can, in some instances, actually become a waterlogged retention area. Hopefully I'm explaining this well enough. And I'm not at all saying don't do it. I'm inspired to try to grow such plants myself. Just be aware-dissimilar soil types, when used directly adjacent to one another, can behave strangely when it comes to drainage of water. I would give strong consideration to a raised bed as opposed to a trench of free-draining material.

TR -- the problem in this location is that there is no leeway for building up the bed because the back side is against the house foundation and I'm already closer to the top of that than I'd like. There's a slight grade away from the foundation, but that's about all I can manage. Ideally the driveway would be lowered, but that won't happen any time soon.

Tom -- I suppose one possibility would be to have the soil-to-grit ratio increase as you went farther down, so there wouldn't be an abrupt transition. Past a certain point though the amount of grit might not be enough to make any real difference -- like that marbles in pudding analogy.

Also I thought having the grit-filled holes at the bottom might help somewhat. It's similar to an aerate+Turface strategy that's used sometimes on sports fields.

Yes, I see that. It's just that all around the sides of the "trench"-I can't think of a better word-would be less free-draining material, still allowing for the dreaded "bathtub effect". On the other hand, this is an attempt at a garden bed, not the construction of a new nuclear power plant! The downside is just your own disappointment and perhaps some wasted time, although time is never wasted if something has been learned.

I do not think that using surface burred in the ground is a good choice. I think gravel would be better. In my listening to people on the C&S forum discuss gritty mix. The surface does not hold up past a couple of years it breaks down into a clay glob after awhile and sticks to the side of the pot. I am not sure what it will do in your application..

Back on topic. Moving my seedlings out when tiny did not work. even with gentle water twice a day. They damped off. Too early. I have more. I think I did the same thing 5 years ago. I will wait and do it with cardboard box shields in a couple of weeks. I guess I will fertilize the 4" pots with weak 1/4 strength fertilizers in some of the waterings.

Sorry for getting sidetracked, I deleted my ramble. Honestly, I don't know what else to say at this point except you know your own situation best. I never fertilize wild plants myself but, whatever you think works or want to try, go for it.

Hmm, damping off, there's something I always meant to learn about. How can you tell that's what killed your seedlings? Is there a visible fungus, or can you tell by the appearance of the seedlings/roots?

I use Turface for container plants (Al's gritty mix). It's apparently important that it's screened before use in that context, but I haven't been using it long enough to say much more about it. I do know that it's intended to be incorporated into soil for athletic fields, so I would hope that it would stay granular longer than a couple of years. But I'm not sure it would be the right fit for this situation.

Ah well -- the xeric bed thing is not going to happen this year anyway. I've got a fence to build and a more mesic bed on the east side of the house to plant this year.

I do not normally fertilize wild plants but I was thinking I need to get these up quick so I can move them out quick , but I need to wait till they are bigger,

Drat, I missed a TR ramble, According to my world, People are allowed to get Off topic and ramble with me. I am queen of doing the rambling off topic . I think conversations should drift around.

Woods T, the damping off... I am probably misusing it. I use it when my seedling disappear on me. I use it generally. I did not peer down to see any fungus. I am inexact human at best.

The ramble was about easily and cheaply amending soil and a description of how I handled water runoff, boring stuff not to mention repetitious. Besides, I've yet to run across one single solitary person on GW who's open to trying the same approach in the 8 years or more I've posted. I've also read all the reasons why it won't work or why they wouldn't or can't do it. Frankly, I'd decided its futile to make suggestions about what to do on certain subjects, especially this subject, and I swore the last time the subject came that it was the last time I'd waste the time with input. I'll leave it at that.

Watering twice a day is too much. When they damp off, the stem gets weak and thin right by the soil line, then the plant falls over and croaks, I've never actually seen fungus or anything like that. Usually its from too much water or unsterile soil. I start mine indoors in sterile seed starting mix, avoid too much watering and run a ceiling fan to prevent damping off. I germinated mine in mid January using coffee filters this year and then planted the sprouted seeds in clean pots. In the past I directly sowed in pots with baggies on top but this saved space and worked faster because it was easy to keep many seeds warm in a small place. Once germinated, I put the pots by a south window to grow on for a couple months. Yesterday I moved them outdoors in a spot that gets early morning & late afternoon sun. They are fairly decent sizes and I plan to plant them in mid March. I do the same thing every year because it works. Seeds needing cold are sowed outdoors.

Wanto, I think I am too much the other way, always wanting to know more about the underlying specifics than is really useful for me to know. I spend way too much time thinking and not enough doing.

TR, I do something very similar to what you described for runoff in the backyard. I've got a gravel-lined swale leading from the driveway to the rain garden, and then another to handle overflow. I didn't put sand down first, though. The gravel is a mix of pea gravel as well as a larger size. There are a few sedges in it now, may add more in the future.

I think it's somewhat hard for me to get enthusiastic about your use of sand because I've read so many things warning about how sand + clay = brick. I realize that with enough sand that problem wouldn't occur, but I am still hesitant. Also I am always reading descriptions of plants I want to use that are native to rocky places in southern Missouri: limestone glades, etc. Not so much sandy as rocky. So then I think gravel would be the way to go. Gravel and maybe ground pine bark.

Solidago drummondi

In any case what you are doing is clearly working!

Have you ever tried to dig through gravelly soil? Its hard to get a shovel through. I'm sure all those people who say mixing in sand and topsoil and/or compost have actually experimented and done it to prove you end up with concrete. I'm the anomaly.

I am more of a Solidago nemoralis girl. They grow on a slope on caliche , gravel...no real soil to speak of and in full sun. Solidago altissimo rambles under the oaks here fairly manageably.

I bought the S. drummondi for the cascade effect -- planted some last year at the top of a stone wall, hoping for this kind of thing:

http://mowildflowers.net/Cliff-Goldenrod-Solidago-drummondii_p_265.html

TR, your point is well taken. It's always perplexed me, to tell the truth. There's that sand-silt-clay soil triangle, seems like if you are at a certain point on that and add a bit of sand, it should move you towards the sand vertex (lower left) and potentially into a better soil category. The triangle model is probably too simplistic, though -- says nothing about sand particle size.

Soil triangle

Again I think the key thing is that you incorporated a lot of sand, yes? Often I see statements like "you'd have to add sand at a 1-1 ratio, which would be impractical".

Speaking of which, not far from here is a house where the owner covered the whole yard with some number of inches of sand. There are beach chairs and flamingos and what not -- no plants. A lot of the sand washed down the gently sloping yard on to the sidewalk in the first big rain.

Woods, You are reading all the standard stuff about soil that pertains to soil improvement with the idea of planting a conventional garden or landscape. Most people think that way. Nine years ago when I first started a drastic change in gardening my goal was to grow plants that like lean, infertile soil. Seemed every plant I wanted specified this as it turned out. You know how you always complain your grasses get too big, plants flop etc? Think in terms of that.

I wanted to create "The Ungarden" and had no desire to use typical nursery plants or achieve a lush look. In fact I dug all those out and ended up with a pile of plants along the hell strip the entire length of it and about 5ft high of stuff I dug out. I wanted no flower beds. No lawn. Rather I was after a garden that was wild, grassy, scrubby and native with cactus and such plants as opposed to green, leafy and lush and well trimmed. The point is, I had a definite goal in mind.

What I started calling my process from the beginning was "Dumbing Down the Dirt". I still call it that and I still call the landscape The Ungarden-garden. Its mostly roadside 'weeds" for all practical purposes, I make no bones about it. The goal was to grow xeric, prairie, native grasses etc. How does a person do this? It was completely opposite of how I'd thought of soil previously.

You don't don't get this kind of result by looking up ways to create good rich garden soil or keeping on top of improving it yearly with organic mulches, compost, fertilizers etc., approaching it from the well worn path of acceptable, good gardening principles like 99.9% of gardeners talk about religiously. Anyway, from my point of view, none of that fit my goal any longer. I wanted lean soil soil, good drainage and dry specifically so plants would not flop or the xeric ones wouldn't rot and I definitely wanted to avoid having plants get large and lanky which they tend to do in good garden situations.

The best and stiffest vertical bluestem here seems to grow in the harshest places along the roadside for instance along with several other attractive 'weeds'. Some of the most gorgeous wild plants growing in New Mexico seem to be growing in soil that definitely does resemble concrete which sort of makes me want to achieve an area like that for stunted plants where the size of the plant is much smaller than whats going on underground now that I think about it....but anyway..

Your question was about creating an area for the kinds of plants that prefer lean, fast draining soil. You have often posted comments about plants tending to get too large or tall and you were worried they'd flop and I assumed you knew what I had done and why since I've brought it up in several posts and shown pictures.

When I read about creating concrete it was years after the fact of adding sand. It never happened to me. Maybe its true and probably it is but actually I don't really care. All I know is what I've experienced here. Whether I added a little to a small area or a lot to a big area, I have not seen concrete in 9 years or previously back when I had a conventional landscape and used to add bags of amendment + play sand whenever I'd work on a new area or plant something in less than great soil using both as a planting hole amendment.

Sorry about the blatant highjack Mara. ;((

I just bought some expanded shale, washed decomposed granite and compost to add to an area of red death calcarious clay tomorrow. An Agave photo-americana will go there . This agave is partial to clay but they don't call it red death for nothing. I still like to play it safe and keep the crown raised with some drainage in the soil.

Have a look at crevasse gardens using shale, slate, any stone which splits in sedimentary layers. The little plants will extend their roots deep, deep into crevasses and it is a way you can add depth without requiring massive digging out and backfill. I used to have a few scree gardens - alpine gardening with saxifrages, androsace, dryas, gentians, which have always had a small group of devotees and seems to be increasing in popularity. No reason not to try this as a xeric landscape.

I wish we could grow alpine plants but thats really stretching things too far down here, in Austin it would be even worse especially on what sounds to me like an infertile bit of land where almost nothing can grow well. I can't even grow chicks and hens in the sun and ice plant looks pretty ragged in summer.

Mara, is that red clay where you are planning to grow the Gulf Muhly you mentioned? I'm pessimistic. I don't think you'd get much in the way of blooms. Mine is punk in the dry years. I'm liking the Sacaton alkali though, I wish I had more room to plant a drift of it. On that note, I wish I had room for Giant Sacaton where it could be more isolated and seen from a distance. Wonder how it would do in that red clay?

The red clay I have here is way down deep in a sublayer, about 2' under the topsoil. We had to put in some underground wiring and there it was. I can't imagine trying to amend it or grow anything in it. It stains everything and sticks like glue to your shoes but its good to build foundations of structures on or install swimming pools.

The red clay is on the top of the ground in the field area of my land. I am planting the agave there. The pick hit with thud like plunk. It is compressed right where I wanted to plant. I was racing the forecasted week of rain because the ground will stick to my shovel and shoes in wads of glop if I wait.,. I did get the gypsum, expanded shale, decomposed granite and compost mixed in and it feels much better and it did form a bit of a mound.. I am watering gypsum in the ground around it.

The mention of the pink muhly was more of a fantasizing then any real plan. More just wishful thinking. I did grow some M. capillaries in the area of Caliche based Marl and it lived but did not bloom convincingly ever. Maybe the clay would work better. It stays wetter longer and is more rich and fertile.

Here is where I am working The agave went in dead center near the cedars by the curve of the grass road. It is a pup from the close agave.

I have used the Sacaton grass as an accent far away. They have not reached any size yet. Mater of fact I have LOST 2 out of three due to not being able to tell where I put them amongst the other grass. Actually there is some on the other side of the agaves on the right. They have disappeared into the muddle of the field. I can make out the Dallas Blue I planted but the Sacaton is invisible or just plain gone.

I have three in another vista and one is thriving but I lost 2 others. Things planted too far away, get forgotten in the summer.

TR, I definitely get where you are coming from, and I realize that some of the things I've done with compost, etc. weren't ideal for plantings like the hell strip where I've got prairie plants going.

I am going for a somewhat more lush look than you are, which I think is appropriate given the zone and the greater amount of precipitation here. Except for small areas, I'm not willing to do the serious work of dumbing down the soil.

The other thing though is that parts of the yard get a fair amount of shade, and I'm also dealing with that massive amount of tree debris each year. I've got 30+ lawn bags of it in my garage right now, waiting for the curbside pickup season to begin, and I've got maybe 15-20 more bags to rake up. It makes me think that full sun prairie isn't a terribly realistic model for most of my yard. I would ideally like to start grinding all this debris down and using it as mulch or compost for the plantings where it would be appropriate.

Lately I have been thinking more in terms of a savanna/open forest/glade model.

Mara, I love the look of that agave as an accent in your field. If I had a similar space I would probably do something similar with prairie dock. That grass road is cool too with the warm tones of the taller grass around it.

I've been an adjunct educator at the local technical college from time to time. When I was teaching soil textures, my basic guideline was that in order for the addition of sharp builder's sand to do any good in lightening a heavier soil, it had to reach the 70% of total mark, this because the only reason things like sharp sand drain well is that the individual particles that make it up are huge compared to individual particles of clay or silt, and that therefor, they lodge against each other, leaving relatively large macropores that air tends to fill. I don't have any reason to think that just adding sand-at a lesser rate-would do anything like this. Remember, it's the lodging of individual particles against one another that creates these larger pore spaces. Otherwise, to quote from above, it's just marbles in pudding! I like that, and wish I'd had that phrase in mind back when I was teaching!

As to savants like Tex, with her extraordinarily beautiful landscape, what can I say? You can't argue with success, they say, and her un-garden is just great if you ask me.

Don't mind me woodstea, I'm just battle weary of hearing over and over the well established campaign against adding builders sand and really, that above post was the last time I will suggest doing it (or defending it) to anyone because I now find it utterly tiresome, pointless and frustrating. Adding this amendment vs adding that amendment-- whatever---it all takes time & usually money to do it. Its more a matter of the local soil and topography we are dealing with, goals and even taste in plants more so than measuring annual rainfall within the midwest which is only about a tit for tat 3" of difference on average from here to there. Most urban yards are not indicative of the original soil in the surrounding land since they are graded with concrete sidewalks, foundations, drives and topsoil has typically been added.

Discussions about certain aspects of gardening between people living in different parts of the country (or the UK) with different climates, taste in plants, situations etc often remind me of religious debates such as you would hear between say a Baptist, a Roman Catholic, an Eastern Orthodox, a Methodist, a 'non denominational' (whatever that is) etc. They usually go nowhere and often set up people's defenses.

Well, I planted the third agave and am now picking out 2 other places for Two more Pups.

The grass road is where our 16 wheel delivery trucks drive to get out. That road will fill in with KR bluestem later in the summer and will become not evident later..

YEA! I did find 2 of the Giant Sacatons that I lost. I want more , always more. LOL. None of the ones in clay made it. HMMMMMM. The ones in the raised marl hillock did very nicely. It gets no runoff up there.

Savant? "A person who does not have normal intelligence but who has very unusual mental abilities that other people do not have." You know, I would be insulted except that this is very true and my husband would get a good laugh on this, so would my twin sister who is savant in the same way. If you got to know me, you'd understand exactly what I am talking about.

Gee mara, I had a big Sacaton wrightii I dug up last spring that sat haphazard and crooked on top of the pot because it was too big to fit inside with the dried out clay dirt clinging to its ripped out roots like a brick and the plant actually grew in that exposed hard rootball all summer in the heat, no less, although it was in shade behind the shed with the pile of pots. Thats a testament to drought tolerance.

I would be complimented if anyone called me a "savant". Nothing there about below normal intelligence.

The sacaton was watered once or twice last summer but then forgot in the later fall and we did not get rain till LATE October. I think I had lost the smaller ones that were in the clay. they were much smaller in size when planted.

OH and I just now found the Sacaton grass seed that I collected at the Three Rivers archeological site (north of Tularosa) that I thought I had lost. This also makes me happy. I lost that bag for several weeks in my woodshed. Now if I can only find my car keys that I lost.

Here it is in Habitat

Tex, I didn't intend that at all. I just grabbed that word as it floated past the inside of my eyelids. Maybe I better look it up in the dictionary!

Tom, I got a kick out of it. It was new word on me and being a dictionary nerd, I had to look it up. Made me laugh.

The sacaton in the picture looks exactly like the ones I grew from seed I got from PoSW. You will always have trouble getting plants germinated and up to good growing size in those kinds of conditions, no matter how accustomed to harsh soil and drought hardy they are. Take that picture as a prime example. Mine seed abundantly around the plants in a gravel path and if that one in the photo was in fertile soil with adequate moisture, there would be hundreds of them growing wild in that spot. The picture says it all. The way I would approach it is based on what I always say. If you want to end up with one plant, sow 20+ seeds---In a situation like yours sow 1000's. Otherwise, you really will have to commit yourself to regular watering until they establish because obviously not doing that results in no success as you reported from past plantings.

What a cool picture! I could like the dry, scrubby lands. My one trip to New Mexico was a real eye-opener. I'd pretty much never been in the desert. We stayed in Albuquerque-I have to look up the spelling for that city every time-and made some side trips into the foothills of the Sandia Peaks, right around the old mining town of Madrid. Awesome scenery.

The movie Rainman ruined the word "savant" by coupling it with "idiot". Separated from this odd partnership, idiot has left an indelible stain on the original meaning of Savant. Tom, you did use the word right. I double checked in the dictionary. Sometimes we get word meanings by their associations and not the dictionary. I am guilty, I have to watch out for that.

The picture is of an area northeast of the White Sands area, due west of the missile range and below Riudosa in the mountains. It is very dry here compared to the mountains..Don't feel bad, my spell checker can't spell Albuguergue either. I have to look Albuguergue up every time.

I have been remiss about planting my seed out in the rocky area. We have had two days of a week of rain and I have been in bed sick with the flue, my body feeling like a sack of unattached bones grinding up against each other. I am better today so I think I will put on my rubber boots and work out in the wet soil. Isn't that a no no? Well beggars can't be choosers. This might be the only moisture we get all spring. I hear a strong La Niña is on the way by summer's end and that means a bad drought for us.

I want these plants to not seed themselves to easily. I have seen pictures of totally inundated riparian valleys in the Desert West Texas. It was so thick that cows could not get into it. If that happens here, I will be yanking like a banshi. Those seeds are really small and there are MILLIONS on a inflorescence. Ranchers do not like this grass. Nor do they like the snake broom at its feet. This might be a mistake. I did plant a bunch of seed out in the clay field a couple of years back but I did not get any that I know of. True, I can't tell one grass from another sometimes, especially when they are young. I won't be certain till it blooms. I need to take a course or two to elevate me from dilettante-hood.

Here is the word that fits. I'm not a savant, thats for sure. I like that 2nd definition about without regard for system or theory. I like it a lot.

who's to say savants aren't empirical. How else do they get to be savants in the first place.

Ya'll seem plenty savvy to me!

I'd say I'm more theoretical than empirical. I can totally believe that builder's sand works great for you, TR, but I can't stop my brain wanting to know why it works in your situation, but in others it causes problems (concrete, bathtub effect, etc.). Recently I read a whole text on soils for golf courses trying to come to a better understanding of porosity, drainage, compaction, etc.:

Golf Course Soil and Water Science

USGA-recommended soil mixes for putting greens are more than 90% sand! Which is irrelevant to our discussion, of course, but it's interesting.

TR, you mentioned building up instead of mixing down, and I see that your front yard appears to slope down from the house to the street. That seems like an important factor -- once the water drains down through your sandy mix, it reaches the denser, original soil layer, but the excess water that can't be absorbed fast enough is still able to run downhill under the sandy layer.

Without a slope my idea of digging down into the existing soil is probably a bad one. My front yard and the front half of the sides are pretty much flat. The house is too low, something I wish I had noticed before I bought it. Sometimes I think I should just pave the whole strip between the south side of the house and driveway and put some big containers out there. Then maybe I could grow some of those super cool blue Opuntias like you have.

I am not talking about the kind of infertile sticky clay wantanamara is dealing with (except not on that scale, I'm talking about an average sized urban yard) or the dense red clay you could fire in a kiln that I see around here when holes are dug for building foundations to pour concrete into or when swimming pools are installed so maybe thats why. If I had that sort of clay, I'd bring in a lot of topsoil because I consider that a sub layer where the soil missing. Wantanamara is doing is working with the situation as she stands. I'd do the same.

Mine was ordinary garden soil going down pretty deep. Now its sandier garden soil. Simple as that. I have no idea what you are talking about with water now running downhill differently, it always ran downhill in a heavy rain except it used to run through a lawn and over the hellstrip onto the street and driveway The lawn grass always looked dried up and awful in summer on the hell strip and we'd waste water with a sprinkler, most of the water ends up on the street and sidewalk not to mention the ridiculous hassle of watering those rectangles or mowing & edging them.

It is easier and fast to water deeply in July and August when I have to because the water soaks right into the soil no matter how dry it is, it stays moist much longer than it did when it used to be dried out top soil that took endless hours with the hose on low to deep soak rather than run downhill (which it always did). If whats underneath or around the area is very dry, you have 'The Sponge Effect' meaning it is an exercise in futility trying to keep things watered and a big waste of water.

I no longer get big cracks in the yard when we have serious drought either.

My water bill went way down and thats not because of growing xeric plants. Its because the roots grow 100% better in the looser amended soil and the plants are healthier as a result, they grow faster when the soil is not compacted and so dense. I've seen that by comparing the same plants planted out back on that unamended strip on the west side. Same plant, but always half as big, slower growing and not as healthy.

I used to dig holes by plants or trenches around them just to get water down deeper than a couple inches. You want to talk about extra work? That was a yearly hassle because being on a slope, the slope is slight by the way, the ridges of the trench just washed downhill and besides, it didn't help much because if you don't deeply water the whole area, it just dries out after a day = water waste.

What I meant about instead of digging down was to make a raised bed instead of a same level flat bed for better drainage. I made three big hills in the back, meaning big around but not very high, sort of gentle slopes.

I guess all I can say is if you really fear sand due to what you read and theorize, just don't do it. A simple test area and a few bags of play sand told me what I needed to know about what happens to my soil if I mixed in sand saving me from worrying or wondering or plowing through a lot of technical documents which frankly, I'd find boring to read if I even had the time to do it, only cost me a few bags of play sand from Home Depot to find out.

All I'm saying is that if you get tons of rain like you did last year, too much for the subsoil to absorb all at once, the water can still move down slope towards the street, whether it is on top of the soil or through the sandy layer.

That bed I'm talking about has barely any slope from the house to the drive, and that makes me think a fast-draining soil would be more likely to create a bathtub effect during big rains. I don't really want more infiltration/less runoff. As it is I have water in the basement in some years. I'd be all for making a raised bed, but I can't raise it any higher on the house side.

One thought I've had is to have someone install a French drain along the length of the bed, say 18-24" down, sloping down towards the back yard and the rain garden there. Then I could fill in above the gravel with a sandy mix.

I'm not telling you what to do woodstea, I'm simply describing what I did and made a suggestion based on your comment about growing plants needing drainage. I feel like you are arguing against what I did and it makes no sense to do that.

No, that's not it at all. I think what you did is great! I am a big fan of your garden.

I'm trying to work out whether your method would be applicable to my situation. The more I think about it, it just seems like this particular location I'm considering wouldn't be a good one for your method. I can't create a slope and I need to get water away from the house.

I do think that your method could work well for my hell strip, especially if I mounded it somewhat down the center. But of course that one is already planted.

Building basements is an oddity in my area of Texas. They would complicate matters, come to think of it.

Basements cause big problems here too. People used to build cellars for canned foods and tornados too. I'm real glad we don't have a basement, the neighbor does and it fills with water like so many do when it rains enough. Slab is the way they do it now, I don't think people build basements anymore, not that I know of anyway. Our house was built in the 1920's on a foundation wall and has a crawl space that gets higher on the east end. We have a flat roof, thats our thing to deal with.

You guys in that big rain area? Holy the crap, poor N. Louisiana! 2 feet of rain......my Irish blood loves rain, but man, that's just a lot.

It has been so dark here, I feel like it is wintertime in Berlin, Alaska, or some place like Coastal Washington.. The heavy stuff is going to our east. We have only had 3.5" since monday night when it started but the air is totally saturated heavy, still and fecund to the max. I am getting cabin fever.. Every mile to the east is wetter. It rained another 5 inches at my friends house last night and this morning east of austin and it is raining there cats and dogs now. I got my rain boots but can't find my umbrella.

Our huge SXSW music festival is getting started last night and will end on Sunday. 1600 Bands, producers audiences file in from all over the world. Obama is here . Can you imagine the madhouse in town!!! What a dumb idea to have the president here for a big shindig now during a bigger shin dig.. I am not going anywhere today. Good for our rain tanks. they are at 20,000 gallons and shooting the stuff out of it. I think it clears up tomorrow here.I am being visited by a concrete electronic musician from London , later this weekend.Sister's friend's friend's son. One always gets drop ins during this festival.Even the homeless camps are overflowing with hipsters. I could rent out my shed for a thousand dollars but I just give it away.

No problems here in central Oklahoma. So far this year we have had 2.29". We got a bit day before yesterday, bright and sunny yesterday and still is as I type. We are hopefully getting some more in the next few days but are supposed to be in the 80's & sunny Monday and Tuesday.

My basement has limestone walls. It's bowed in quite a bit on the driveway side of the house, which has apparently had a lot of water problems over the years because there is no real grade away from the foundation. It's usually not too bad as long as I keep the gutters (which keep getting clogged by pin oak debris) clean.

Speaking of pin oaks, I've been involved in an argument today on a Missouri native plants forum about big shade trees on small city lots. Wish you were there to chime in, TR. The thread was started by someone considering cutting down a sweet gum. Health issues prevent her from doing much raking, the gum balls cover her neighbor's yard, and she recently slipped on one of the balls and fell into the street. Some of the natives types are saying what an awesome native tree it is, or offering suggestions for creative uses of those gum balls: mulch, Christmas ornaments, etc.

I would have liked to have been at SxSW back in its earliest days. Seems a little too crazy of late.

One of my sons has played at SXSW the last three years. He did report on the madhouse status of the town. He's not doing it this year, but last year they had some good time slots.

My best friends son is playing all nights. His mom has some 2 LA producers and one band staying at her house. Another friend and drum builder has a 3 acre field full of musicians. I have 1 British musician here. I like the things that go on outside of town.There are so many cool parties and gatherings happening that don't have the madness.

I am having better luck with the transplanting of some of the still small seedlings by creating some small rock shields on either side of them that protects them somewhat from our Texas sun.

I make rock shields to protect seedlings from squirrels. Otherwise I sometimes go out the morning after a planting to find they've dug around and the seedling is lying there with its roots half exposed.