How I got here.

My front yard last year. I had been trying to establish a garden for the previous three years and had finally defined the beds and reduced the lawn by about a third. I have been trying to work with the soil already there partly out of a desire to see if I could and partly to save money, as it would cost a fortune to truck in dirt. I still have quite a lot of St. Augustine grass and my plan is to enlarge the beds at a later date.

I am located just east of Mopac and north of 45th Street in the Rosedale area of Austin. I, and my garden are sitting on a solid limestone ledge covered with black clay, no deeper than ten inches and frequently shallower. I collected every bag of leaves I could find two years ago and had a huge compost heap mostly composed of leaves. Luckily the wet summer help decompose the compost pretty quickly so that I could put wheelbarrow loads of the stuff on every bed. Added to that was a load of horse manure, decomposed granite and when I planted, a yoghurt pot of peat moss. Gradually the soil is looking better and after loosing about fifty percent of all my plantings I've got a much better average. At least ninety percent of my plants survive. I'm still trying to get that established look where the plants cover all the dirt and beds look as if they're errupting out of the garden. I live in hope.

This is another view of my garden which shows my front walkway and my hardscape of decomposed granite and concrete pavers with river rocks to soften the edges. At the moment I have the front garden and one side of the house pretty well organized, it just needs filling in as I come across suitable plants. I still have the back garden and the other side of the house to get established.