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A slight play on the word "loopsland" , but you get the idea! This is a tour of my yard...
I haven't posted about my gardens in this forum for 3 years because we were in a very serious drought. I had to choose between watering gardens or my horse and dogs. Well, if your gardens are dry and the soil is rock hard, you can't even weed them. Not in soil like I have!
Some of you know, I have thick, awful, red clay ground. I never knew about red clay when I moved here and if I had, I would be living somewhere else, but alas, this is home. This is where I hang my hat and I had to either love it or leave it but I love my privacy and not many farms come up for sale at the end of a dead end road and that was my criteria when land shopping, so here I am. I had to adapt.
I had to learn which plants could take soil that didn't drain well. It didn't matter that I would dig down a foot, or even two feet in some instances. You get enough rain and the clay soil underneath turns the spot into a slow draining soup bowl.
We have had so much rain both last fall and this spring that our drought is officially over and we now have a drainage problem! My gardens have been under water for most of this spring. There is still standing water about 4 inches below the surface in places where black dirt is 12 or more inches deep.
Ok, enough with the background. My original intent was to make gardens everywhere that were connected with walkways throughout my expanse of yard which is several acres. I am now just happy with several smaller gardens that I placed in strategic spots, like one with a slope, which insured drainage. Another area between my house and studio, a former garage. An old chicken coop. A slightly raised bed along a dog kennel. An area along my deck with day lilies that you just can't kill, and using plants that most find invasive, only I find happiness that I can get them to actually grow!
I haven't posted about my gardens in this forum for 3 years because we were in a very serious drought. I had to choose between watering gardens or my horse and dogs. Well, if your gardens are dry and the soil is rock hard, you can't even weed them. Not in soil like I have!
Some of you know, I have thick, awful, red clay ground. I never knew about red clay when I moved here and if I had, I would be living somewhere else, but alas, this is home. This is where I hang my hat and I had to either love it or leave it but I love my privacy and not many farms come up for sale at the end of a dead end road and that was my criteria when land shopping, so here I am. I had to adapt.
I had to learn which plants could take soil that didn't drain well. It didn't matter that I would dig down a foot, or even two feet in some instances. You get enough rain and the clay soil underneath turns the spot into a slow draining soup bowl.
We have had so much rain both last fall and this spring that our drought is officially over and we now have a drainage problem! My gardens have been under water for most of this spring. There is still standing water about 4 inches below the surface in places where black dirt is 12 or more inches deep.
Ok, enough with the background. My original intent was to make gardens everywhere that were connected with walkways throughout my expanse of yard which is several acres. I am now just happy with several smaller gardens that I placed in strategic spots, like one with a slope, which insured drainage. Another area between my house and studio, a former garage. An old chicken coop. A slightly raised bed along a dog kennel. An area along my deck with day lilies that you just can't kill, and using plants that most find invasive, only I find happiness that I can get them to actually grow!
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