Friday, February 12, 2010

Taking out Turf - Putting in Beds

I am removing sections of lawn from my front yard and putting in flower beds that will consist mostly of strawberry patches, pumpkin vines, lantana and wildflowers. The idea is to replace high water use lawn with mulched flower beds and indigenous, drought tolerant plantings:



I am also putting in a low pressure sprinkler system:



That is supplied by a shallow well and a one horsepower water pump:



In this area, using water from a pump is much more efficient economically than using city water for irrigation. The water table is not far - the Ashley River is only about 300 yards to the north. To fill out the flower beds I picked up 2200 lbs of high quality compost mulch from the city, which comes from yard clippings - I was surprised at how rich and clean the compost turned out to be:



The most difficult part was digging around and cutting out the tree roots from the large, mature oaks in the lot - I tried to put the PVC in as far from the tree as possible so as to avoid cutting out the roots when I could:



There is a cold front moving in and possible snow this evening, so I am delaying putting in the strawberries and other plants, but I will try to get a pic up of the finished flower beds when possible. Thanks for viewing!