The Back Bedroom Bed, Part 1

As the River of Rocks curves around the house and to the back sidewalk, it creates a bed between the River of Rocks and the back bedroom.  We want to excavate it, so that the plants will grow well, and extend the Zone 9 irrigation from the beds along the West side of the house (outside the computer room and the guest bedroom) into this additional bed.

So we start by digging a hole.

Then we expand and deepen that hole.

Notice that we are uncovering the main sprinkler water supply line, and the wiring that controls the various irrigation valves for Zones 6 to 11 (and the ground).  We have to dig carefully to avoid breaking this water supply line.

Digging on the other side of the water supply line, right up to the house, and the wall for the Iris bed.

We hit a solid layer of rock, about 16 to 20 inches down.  That seems almost deep enough.  Using the jackhammer, we create a hole near the Iris bed that goes thru this layer of rock to the next level.  That is another 12 inches.

So we could take out another 12 inches of rock to get to 32 inches deep.  But this rock is very solid limestone; it does not break easily.  And it is 12 inches thick.  And we are hemmed in by the house on one side and the River of Rocks on the other, so we can't really work freely in this narrow slice of the backyard.  Although it is 34 feet long, it is at most 80 inches wide, and most of it is half that width.  So we will just stay at the 16 to 20 inch level.

Keep digging, mixing the soil with leaves, and filling in the bottom half of what has already been dug out.

And keep digging.  We come across a big rock.

but using the jackhammer, we can break it into smaller pieces and pull it out, leaving more digging to do.

With more digging, we find more rock,

which is then broken up

 

and taken out.
 

Wooly Stemodia for the Retention Wall

It's not clear to me how the Retention Wall will look once both the upper and lower West Lawn areas are finished and all the plants are in place.  But it might be nice to soften it by some plants.  Maybe something that runs along the top of the wall, and cascades down it.

So I planted a Wooly Stemodia ($6.99 from Barton Springs Nursery) at the top of the Retention Wall.

It is perennial, semi-evergreen, low moisture.  The main issue will be that is likes full to partial sun.  In this spot, it should get sun in the morning, but in the afternoon it will be shaded by the big Oak tree, and the Jungle and Bamboo Grove.  We'll see how it does here.


Follow-up note:  Apparently it wants full sun.  Over a couple of weeks, it withered and died.

Monkey Grass for the River of Rocks

The River of Rocks is in place and had some time to settle.  We have the main upper West Lawn area filled with dirt and planted, so we should not have reason to be running the wheelbarrow over the River of Rocks much (well, except for excavating the last bed).

So we are transplanting the Monkey Grass that we kept over around the greenhouse into the spaces between the rocks in the River of Rocks.  We start with just dirt.

And after a couple of days of scraping the dirt out between the rocks, putting the Monkey grass down in and putting the dirt back, we have Monkey grass between the rocks.

We've continued this on around the house, but not on the section next to the last bed that needs excavating.

We will finish this last section after we excavate the last bed.

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.

Toilets and 2000 Flushes

2000 Flushes is one of those "drop in the tank" tablets that turns the water in the toilet blue, and is supposed to make it easier to keep the toilet bowl clean.  But, for us, it doesn't.

There were initial problems where it turned the water red, brown, purple, but these went away after a couple of days.  The company said that the color balance "can shift as the product settles in the toilet".

But the real issue is after things have "settled".  The product does nothing.  The reason is an interesting mixture of the product and the toilet design.  The following is after using the product for about 2 weeks, and not seeming to get anything from it.

This toilet is an American-Standard Champion 4 model, designed to be low-flow and water saving and all that, so it doesn't have the standard "flapper" design to the water closet part of the toilet -- the tank above and behind the toilet seat.  We put this one in in 2013.

If we look in the tank, we can see the tablet has crumbled, and is tinting the water blue.  The longer it sits there, the blue-er the water.  But it's always at the very bottom of the tank -- the blue tint is heavier than water.

The problem is that the flushing mechanism only drains the top 3/4 of the tank, meaning that the bottom part of the tank, where the blue tint is, is left undisturbed by flushing.

The result is that the toilet bowl itself then has none of the blue tint, but is almost completely clear water.

Now this may, or may not, be true of other blue-tinting toilet products, but certainly seems to be the case with 2000 Flushes.

Excavating the West Lawn Bottom Zone, Part 4

Excavating the West Lawn is just more digging.

Which exposes more of this big rock.  The dirt is mixed with leaves and put back further in the Bottom Zone.

More digging.

A day with the jackhammer reduces these two rocks to

and then a day getting the rocks out of the pit gives

Another day of cleaning up the debris, and moving the dirt that was under the rock out of the way.

Extending the River of Rocks

Once the ground level has been settled, and the Retaining Wall mostly done, we can outline the River of Rocks.  Then we can bring the rest of the rocks over and fill it out.

Then we need to settle the rocks down, so that they are level.

And Linda and Lauren believe that the River of Rocks looks better if it flows on both sides of the group of small oak trees.

and we can then settle these.

We borrowed the Pick-up to get 3 cubic yards of dirt (Professional Mix from Whittlesey Brothers) and poured the dirt over the River of Rocks.

We worked it down into the spaces between the rocks, leveled it off and swept the rocks to finish up the placing of the rocks.