A 150 Foot Problem Solved with Free Rocks

150 Feet of Water Retention Problem

Solved with some Free Rock from an Awesome Neighbor

A brown and ugly side yard on a busy street,
at fault for precious water loss.

I've been super conscious of water conservation in my landscape since hearing a presentation by Shannon Brown from Ecosystem Regeneration Artisans on capturing this precious resource in our landscape design. 

I installed a couple of reservoir/berm combos in my back yard to take on some of the job there however I was at a loss what to do in the front yard because it's so huge and contains some very large oak trees I didn't want to disturb the root systems of. 

After a few rain showers of observation followed by a drought, my husband kindly challenged me to figure out a solution. Our green grass had a pretty severe case of dried ends, about 15 feet of nasty yellow sticker burr weeds, bare ground, and dusty soil bordering a street down which all of our water would shed quickly into a huge culvert only a stone's throw away, never to be seen again. We don't have curb and sidewalk so nothing was preventing the water from running away. 

Also, the neighbors along this street occasionally need the extra parking my side yard affords for guests and any utility vehicle servicing the area thinks it's a convenient place to park. My only complaint about this is the ruts the vehicles cause during spring rains that I then have to flatten out before mowing. 

So a creative thought started forming...

why not go along with what is happening

 and make it better?? 

I've been watching History Channel's ALONE series lately so the inspiration came when Woniya often talks about how to go with the flow of what's presented to us by our environment with respect and connection. Why not take what's happening in my side yard to the next level? Why not do it with what I enjoy doing, making rock borders and flowerbeds for native plants? If I used bigger boulders than what I've ever used before, I could pile up enough soil to flatten out the yard and capture the rain before it flows off my lawn. So my idea was born. 

My next thought was, I can't do this without some power equipment and a trailer to haul stone. Neither of which I have, so I sat on the idea, poking around for solutions and waiting for something to formulate. I found someone on Facebook marketplace giving away huge boulders about 20 minutes away but again, I'd have to rent equipment to move those. Delay again...I just didn't know if I needed to go this big. 

Also, a friend was visiting us who said, "if this was back in Muldova, we'd just have a big party and invite all our friends over to get it done, then we'd have some meat and dinner together." But, it's Covid time and I don't have the kind of friends who would come over in 90-100 degree Texas temperatures to dig up 150 feet of dirt and move tons of boulders for a BBQ. Or maybe I do, but I probably wouldn't have them as friends for long after that!

So I said to myself, "well old woman, what'cha got in ya, wanna try it?" Enter one well worn pick axe, a shovel, a trusty Gorilla Cart, and my HydraHyde gloves (youtube review here). By the way, my hydrahyde gloves are the first and only gloves I've owned that fit my hands, as a female, and aren't some wossie looking lame garden gloves that provide no protection for serious jobs. 

And since I was a prior agile coach I came up with an iterative approach for prototyping and moving forward:

1. I pulled some boulders I had piled nearby in my pre-landscape-educated days which were successfully keeping folks from driving across the corner of our yard and started pick axing the ground around where I wanted the border to start. 
2. I quickly learned I was looking at only 3 inches of topsoil before hitting base material that was used by the road crew to lay this road. Thus the mystery of the sod never taking hold was solved (we need 4-6" of topsoil over our caliche to grow sod well here) AND I realized this may be possible without big equipment. One point for prototype and learn!
3. I moved forward with my plan...dig up 5 feet of top soil from border to street, throw it (or move it in the gorilla cart) to the lawn next to the border, filling in the slight slope. No matter how far I got before being interrupted I'd always have a finished border and parking pad enough to leave the project alone if I had to. I followed my standard rock border process, only with rocks twice the size now.

This proceeded well for about 10 feet, when I ran out of boulders. By this time, I realized the boulders I needed should be around 12-18" to provide about 5-6" of elevation to the slope and still stick out enough to mow up against. On the hunt for more boulders...

Boulder border in process of being built.
Lock the limestone rock boulders together for stability.
Take care of knuckles when moving rocks this big!

Neighborhood Nextdoor and Facebook Marketplace are my go-to sources for free rock. I'm usually doing someone a favor by removing their problem rock they'd like to get rid of and at the same time getting my needed resources. I lucked out this time, I have a neighbor about 1/2 mile away taking down some natural rock retaining walls. Her boulders are the perfect size (thanks Kimberlee!!) and as long as I can convince one of my family members to help a motha' out, we can get about a dozen at a time. I even got one load with my lawn mower and gorilla cart with my daughter riding on the back! 

So I've proceeded this way: drop load of boulders, pick-axe 5-10 feet from border to street, dump soil in grass, install border rock, repeat. 

The only exception is when I started up against the driveway, I planned a flower-bed there so for a while I was throwing soil into that triangle section until it was full and adding a 2nd border of boulders to retain the soil for the bed. The soil was naturally a little deeper here because the slope was steeper, so a flower bed will work nicely.  

Limestone gravel finishes a parking pad nicely.

I finished it off with a load of limestone gravel, the only thing I needed to purchase for this project at $45 a yard. Because there was about 2" of soil against the street I removed, there's a nice little edge to keep the gravel in. I placed some leftover landscaping fabric under the gravel but only because I already had it and wanted to use it up. I've given up using this in my flowerbeds because it doesn't stop our native bermuda grass anyway, it only makes it harder to pull out. And my chickens get their talons caught in it when free-ranging.

I'm super-stoked to finish this project. My son is back from his visit to Dads so he's now helping with some of the hard work but, we can only work for an hour or two in the mornings before threatening heat stroke as it's now hovering around 100 degrees this week.

Oh, I can't forget to mention how AWESOME my neighbors have been with words of encouragement during this project. Every day I'm out working, people have been stopping their car or interrupting their jog or walk to give me a thumbs up or kind words on how good it's looking and how much they admire my hard work. It's really great to see how many people, men and women, are willing to take the extra thought to encourage me in this project. I bet I make for a bit of an unusual sight out there, but it's super nice, and it does help me to keep going. Thanks to you all!