Congratulations, Jackie! It's been wet here in Central California, too. So much so the side yard has quit draining so there is a standing lake on the engineered soil. Something I intend to remedy with a French drain when the front yard is graded and the large tree roots removed, which remain from the removal of the original stumps and shrubbery. Now the stucco and front windows are completed, that's the next project...WHEN it stops raining!

Yes, I find myself saying that a lot lately - ..."when it stops raining". However, I grew up here, and I know that this winter is "normal" for this part of Marin County - that is why the drought was so disturbing.

Jackie

Roseseek, you write, "there is a standing lake on the engineered soil. Something I intend to remedy with a French drain." I'm curious why you would do that. In our small walled yard we have a graveled depression that after a rain is a mini-pond in the middle of our garden. The water drains into the ground beneath. We've been told the rain sink is a Good Thing for our plants to draw on in our hot rain-free summer.

Hi Jackie and Kim, I have placed a link below of our temps for the next week, just scroll down a bit when it opens, we have had the week prious and this week and next, can I send some of it your way and in return some of your rain plaese.

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/nsw/central-tablelands/mudgee

Hi Dara, after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, California began upgrading their seismic construction standards. The newer the construction, the more highly, mechanically compacted the soil. Looser soil holds more water due to the greater air spaces between the soil particles. That's great for drainage and for root growth, but disadvantageous for seismic activity. The looser and wetter the soil, the greater the liquefaction and increase in physical movement. The harder the physical compaction, the smaller the air spaces in the soil and the worse the drainage, but when shock waves encounter that hard packed soil, they continue moving quickly through it, as they do through bed rock, with significantly reduced shaking and much less potential for liquefaction. Hence, the harder the soil, the less shaking and the less damage from earthquakes. We deliberately bought a newer home in a newer neighborhood, knowing the soil was engineered to be more seismically stable, specifically for that reason. In case of earthquake, we SHOULD have less physical shaking and less damage. It SHOULD be safer. But, with less air space between the soil particles, there is much less drainage for the water to soak into, so it can easily sit until it evaporates, growing algae and other organisms (including mosquitoes if the weather was warmer, later in the year). When the little drainage available is saturated, this will stand until it is provided an escape route, hence the French drain into another area where it can either sit in a sump filled with rocks or run off into the gutters as the drains from many neighbors' back yards do.

I had dealt with this, and worse, situation in several clients' gardens before. The newer the construction, the greater the required seismic compaction. This house is thirty years old and our soil isn't as tightly compressed as those build twenty years later, nor those being built now. Tree roots don't penetrate it just as they don't penetrate bed rock (unless there are fissures for them to exploit, which won't occur in physically compacted, engineered soil). They go down as far as possible, then run laterally, under the sod and lift hard scape as they grow. The City planted a Little Gem Magnolia thirty-plus years ago in my neighbor's front yard. It's lifted his drive way and garage floor and now he has to deal with them for repairs. The liquid amber trees someone planted in our back yard has roots all the way across the yard to the patio and are causing stress cracks in the block wall surrounding the community. They must be removed this year before they do any more damage. They've lifted hard scape in the back yard already. They can't grow in to the soil because the water can't penetrate into the soil due to the engineering. I fully agree with you that all the rain water that can be allowed to penetrate into the ground, should be encouraged and allowed. Fortunately, because we are on an aquifer and utilize a lot of the ground water for city water, this city was designed so that all of the public parks are collection ponds for all the storm run off so it doesn't go into the river and out to the ocean, unless it over flows the collection ponds. Every newer community along the Central Coast here also contains storm water run off collection spaces so they become lakes and then are used for other things when dry.

We have an easement across the first three feet of the front yard for the phone company, so I can't really utilize that strip for much of anything, but I CAN hollow it out and fill it with rocks to reduce the "lawn" area I have to irrigate and maintain and I can direct the drain to collect that water down by the sidewalk to sit until it does what it's going to do. That's where people allow their dogs to "potty", too, so if they want to do it on a strip of rocks, so be it.

Hi David! You're supposed to get those temps this time of year. Fortunately, where I am, we seldom receive them, but that's why I moved here instead of living where I moved away from. After forty years, I was worn out with that, and worse, particularly as it was getting HOTTER and staying hotter year round. Though we historically receive about an inch less rain here than the old neighborhood, we also remain twenty-five degrees cooler on average with slightly warmer nights than further south. Not to be selfish, but we're still under "normal" for rainfall for the year, so if we get the norm, I'll figure out a way to share. Until then, please just let me enjoy complaining about it raining! LOL!

It has been raining in OC, SoCal...I don't remember the last time I've seen so much rain!

Cannot come anywhere to competing with your 30"... but I'm very happy with our 15-20" so far since July (we are between rain gauge stations so we are somewhere between 15-20).

And super happy with the drainage of our new handscape and landscape project! What a winter to test it! :)

Kim, you know you can complain away. Its just we have not had a run of heat like this for something like 20 years, I take what Mother Nature offers.

Kim what about sneaking some daffodils into the easement? It would get better every year. Lupines are pretty too and look after themselves. I'm happy about the rain too. Irvine lake didn't look too bad yesterday when I passed by. Mojeska canyon and Silverado canyon creeks were full and I enjoyed watching them flow along. We could still use more but I'm grateful we received what we did. I wish there was a way to move the extra water south to farmland in the valley or here but maybe soon CA will consider it.

Thanks for the idea, Kitty. That strip also contains two, ginormous Mexican Trash Palms which the city planted three decades ago and which they occasionally clean. Washingtonia roots and engineered soil...two conditions very unconducive to planting anything. Rock mulch is used everywhere to reduce maintenance and water and this is the ideal strip to utilize them. Plus, dogs aren't generally attracted to irregular, hard rock surfaces to leave "presents", so I should be able to reduce my labor, attention and water by abandoning it to that material. They looked like the neighbor's

Finally, Great news Ingrid. Hoping you get more.

Jackie, your rain is our snow up here in OR! Blush Noisette and birdhouse in the wonderland. :-) Carol

I had a fan palm once that came with the house. Rocks are a superior choice to deter dogs. Did you have to put plastic down first to discourage palm sprouts? I used to pull them by the thousands from the bases of roses every year. Lately I have seen squirrels bringing dates from across the street to eat. Nothing like the seeding ability of those fan palms though. I have seen them growing in cracks in the freeway! They will be some of the survivors along with a few choice insects if any big extinction happens. I think about how Los Angeles would look if we all went to the moon or something. Everything would die except fan palms, Bermuda and cactus. Maybe my aunt's jade plants.

I know this is a bummer thought, but next summer the talk will be about all the fuel for wildfires created by the rain. Don't get me wrong, I love the rain. Lisa

We had an enormous Washingtonia in Encino that flowered and fruited two to three times a year, Kitty. It was well established when the house was bought in 1975. Some years after the rains, the seedlings were as dense as Rye Grass and were actually quite pretty. I yanked those devils by the bazillians. I still find them in my potted roses brought from there. Weed cloth was put down under the rocks originally laid around these, but it takes just a little while for dirt and dust to blow and wash in over that stuff sufficiently to permit seedlings of all sorts to germinate. I intend to lay the rocks deeply, without any "weed barrier", which should prevent many from germinating. Even though it's engineered, the soil here is very sandy. Every place I can actually see the weed barrier, the ants have used it as a roof for their colonies. Some of them have been MASSIVE! I completely agree with you about the eventual survivors of any major disaster. Add to that list prickly cucumber, yellow mustard and fox tail!

Agreed, Lisa. Pests and weeds lag behind the weather by a season. Predators lag behind them by at least another. This and next year, we will have an explosion of weeds, insects, rats, gophers, moles, rabbits, etc. Next year, and the following, expect to see many more coyotes, hawks and other predators (including snakes), as well as significantly greater levels of fuel on the hills. It's the natural, perverse cycle we go through, only magnified and out of season.