Deb and I have been worrying about the flower beds under the Redwood tree for a while now. The Redwood produces a mat of very fine roots that spread out to the end of the tree canopy - in this case, probably something like a 20 foot diameter circle. In addition to the mat of roots, the tree takes up most of the moisture both from rain and from the wet air, so the plants underneath don't get much natural moisture. Since the soil here in Alameda is mostly sand, it compacts to a hard crust and virtually all the water runs off and none of it soaks in.
A while ago we changed over to a soaker hose arrangement for watering around the base of the tree, and that has improved things. The azaleas were not getting enough water, so they bloomed poorly, but this year they are getting ready to put on a show! Water at the roots makes a difference.
We've gone through a couple of iterations for the flower bed in front of the tree. Last year we rescued a fuschia and dropped in two new hydrangeas. In order to make a place for them, we added pre-formed concrete wall blocks, but the slope from the base of the tree to the edge of the deck was still so great that most of the water ran off the hill and under the deck.
Today we had the bright idea of building a brick wall at the edge of the deck that would be high enough to level out the soil, forming a relatively flat planting area! We dug out the old concrete blocks, cleaned out the trench that the blocks were set in, added a 4 x 4 piece of wood coming just to the level of the bottom of the deck boards, added two courses of clay used brick and voila! a wall to hold back the dirt!
I suppose we might have come up with the idea for the brick wall from watching Marishka and John replace their driveway next door, but we changed it up a bit. Our wall is glued together using "liquid nails" instead of being cemented together. We'll see how long that glue lasts in the rain and the UV light.
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