West Lawn Sedge

The landscape plan calls for Inland Sea Oats and Texas Sedge in the West Lawn.  We have seeds for the Inland Sea Oats and have tried planting those.  The next step is the Texas Sedge.   Texas Sedge should be drougth tolerant, shade tolerant, and low maintenance.

Linda found some Texas Sedge at McNeal Growers, in Manchaca, Texas, a short drive from Austin.  We bought 27 flats of Sedge.  Each flat is 1 foot by 2 feet, containing 18 4-inch containers.  That's 486 4-inch containers.  $742.50

Linda suggested that we put one container per square foot.  So we laid them out starting at the front edge, next to the Retaining Wall and the River of Rocks and extending West to the big Oak tree.

Since this looked okay, we spent the next day taking them out of the containers and putting them in the ground.

Once they were in the ground, we used Zone 8 of the irrigation system to water them into the ground.  Running Zone 8 for 30 minutes took 770 gallons.

More Dirt for the West Lawn

We ordered another 8 cubic yards of Professional Mix dirt from Whittlesey Landscape Supply.  $439.71 including delivery ($85) and taxes. 

This is to provide the dirt needed to level the last section of the West Lawn between the River of Rocks and the big Oak tree.

It took about 80 wheel-barrow loads to get it from the front of the house around to the back.   That area should now be ready for planting with the Texas Sedge that the landscape plan calls for.

We probably needed about 3 cubic yards for that area, so we had lots of left-over dirt.  We are going to need dirt to fill in the Bottoms, between the Rock Retaining Wall and the Jungle, so we just dumped the rest of the dirt over the Rock Retaining Wall into the Bottoms.

We will need to distribute it around and smooth it out, but it's a start on rebuilding the Bottoms.

Mulching all the beds and trees

Home Depot has the Austin Native Hardwood mulch that we like on sale for $2 a bag, so it's time to mulch all the trees and beds.  We bought 99 bags over several days -- can only fit 18 to 20 in the car at a time.

The Lavender Bed took 11 bags (although almost all the lavender has died).

 The right side of the greenhouse took 7 bags

while the left side of the greenhouse took 10 bags.

 The bed around the Monterrey Oak took 8.

The 3 Elm trees on the West side of the house took 8 bags.

 

 The big Oak in the back yard took 4 bags.

 The front bed, on the right, took 10 bags.

 The front bed, on the left took 5 bags.

 The big oak in the front took 4 bags.

 The peninsula between the two driveways took 17 bags.

There's a new bed around the Shin Oaks in the back, between the two branches of the River of Rocks.  It needed 4 bags.

And then we needed 1 bag for the Pecan in the back,

and 6 bags (so far) for Zone 2.