Drainage in garden question

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Here's what's going on, please tell me if I'm on the right track....

Back in the Spring, we built a planter about 20 feet long and varying in height from about 3 feet at the highest, with 4 step down to the lowest being about 9 inches. My husband has an aquaintance who's a landscaper, who told him the proportion of mix to put in there.

While I was planting (all drought tolerant flowering plants), I thought the ground looked much too rich, but, what do I know? Rolling Eyes

Well, we had a period of heavy rains, and some of the plant leaves started going yellow, especially the vinca (those I'll just replace, and put the yellow ones in the compost pile). Some others, like the Mexican Heather and Phlox, just don't look that great.

Today, I was planting a secondary bunch of plants, to fill in gaps....another stonecrop (sedum) and Mexican Heather, another small Lantana....a blue sage (salvia) ummm...antoher type of sedum and a mandevilla and a couple others I can't remember.

Actually, I planted half of them, and will do the rest tomorrow morning.

ok, while planting, I dug about 6 inches deeper than the root balls and mixed in as much sand until it looked "right" I also tried to dig up the plants that I want to keep and mixed sand under them. I hope I didn't disturb the roots too much.

Anyway, I'm worried about the really deep ground, and if it will remain too wet forwever. In order to get that deep, I'd have to destroy the entire garden.

I wondering....If I add in sand like I'm doing, and maybe every week sprinkle some more sand right below the surface, would bugs and worms and such eventually take it down that deep?

Also, do you think I've done enough for the immediate problem?

oh, I'll put more wood chips down when I'm done too.

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while we are gardeners , we really don't know much about the "science of gardening" - such as soil acidity etc.
green woodchips may not be the best medim to use , i understand they leach nutrients out of the soil ?
in our fairly acid soil in eastern ontario , "ground limestone" is highly recommended by gardeners unless you have some really acid-loving plants .
in all our plantings i usually use 1/3 black earth , 1/3 cow manure , 1/3 peatmoss - with a good dose of limestone mixed in . it works quite well in our soil .
two years ago our 40 year old spirea hedge started to turn yellow and looked rather weak - even though i applied fertilizer .
our municipal garden chief told me it probably lacked a good dose of "real fertilizer" = cow manure . so we mixed up a good batch , trimmed down the hedge to ground level and it has come up really well .

you mention "sand" - do you think the soil has enough nutrients to support the plants ?
btw ground limestone (dolomite) seems to be necessary to enable plants to pick up nutrients from the soil (ground limestone does not burn , like fertilizer might ) . when i fertilize our lawn , i use less than half the recommended dose but add plenty of ground limestone - really keeps the lawn green throughout the summer - and it's cheap .
GREEN THUMB UP !
hbg

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It must be horrible to live with such soil.

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nothing that a good dose of MANURE won't fix !
pls send some asap , gustav !

no , no , not that kind ! Shocked

hbg

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Thanks hamburger.

I just came from a greenhouse that specializes in native texan plants, and also the drought resistant ones, like I have.

I felt encouraged, because 2 different people there endorsed my sand idea.

At this point, since the soil is practically brand new, meaning fresh from just a few months ago, I don't think it's a matter of fertilizer. In fact some of the plants, like lantana, thrive in poor soil conditions.

The mix that was put in there was 25% peat moss, 25% landscapers soil and 50% top soil. It just holds the water like a sponge.

It hasn't rained for about a week, and when I dug down about a foot, the soil really really felt TOO moist, which is great unless the roots down like this, and get root rot.

gus, thanks for your kind words. These are trying times.

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I will always be there for you, Chai. If Wally were ever to leave you... look for me at your doorstep.

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When they built the planter, did they put in any weep holes or drainage pipe that daylites to outside the planter?

Not knowing what your natural soil is, or forgetting if I knew. If it's clayey and you're putting in any deep rooted stuff, that could be a future problem, what with clay's water retention. Local advice no doubt better than mine. I don't know how much rain you get... Anyway, if it is a continuing problem, and there aren't weepholes or a perforated drain w/outlet, you might consider adding them.

I didn't put perforated pipe or weeps in my new low retainer, since no one worries about such drainage here - the soil is virtually sand.

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How long was the period between the planting and the yellowing? Vinca shouldn't be that bother by wet soil.

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littlek wrote:

How long was the period between the planting and the yellowing? Vinca shouldn't be that bother by wet soil.

oh gosh.....early april?

The jerusalem sage is doing fine, which is on the lowest level.

A tall variety of stonecrop on the highest level started getting yellow leaves at the bottem, but when I took them off, it's been happy and growing more leaves ever since. The lantana lost its flowers, but basically it's fine, you really can't kill them and it'll perk up. Did I already say the garden guy said the mexican heather would grow greener if the rains don't keep coming? There's a couple other plants I can't recall the name of that only showed a little bit of yellowing maybe a month after planting, but they are doing great.

Most of the vinca has turned yellow, I've got one or 2 on every level. There's one at the bottem that isn't yellow at all. I always though vinca loved drier conditions.... Confused

When I lived in South Florida, there was this vinca that grew wild within the fence of the townhouse I lived in, and it just grew and grew and I never did a thing to it. The thing was taller than me.

The one's I bought today to replace them are in 4 inch pots and very very green and lush. With better drainage, and relying on a supply of water from me during the dry months, I feel hopeful.

As far as the local soil....yes, clay, clay sticky clay. That's what's below the surface of the planter, so starting anywhere from a depth of 3 feet to maybe a foot. Do you thing that warrants drainage holes?

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vinca taller than you? We are thinking of two different plants or varieties.

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I would suggest what I have heard called "French drains." Get a post hole digger and go down through the clay as deep as you can go, perhaps two feet. Fill those holes with sand and gravel. The excess water that is trapped underneath your topsoil but above the clay (giving your plants wet feet) might drain down there.

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RJB Wouldn't that involving moving all the soil out of the planter?

How about if we drilled holes through the sandstone planter, and put screens there to keep the soil from coming out?

littlek...I probably am wrong and it's a different plant, we called it a periwinkle, and the flower looked like one. But...I'm no expert.

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he traditional french drain,
http://www.gardenadvice.co.uk/howto/garden-build/frenchdrain/

JPB is suggesting something like that, but below the original grade, maybe or maybe not linear.

Another type of drain, which I was talking about, also often called a french drain -
http://www.askthebuilder.com/070_Linear_French_Drains_-_Controlling_Basement_Seepage.shtml

although in my experience, the pipe, holes side toward bottom, is surrounded with 1 foot of gravel wrapped in 95% saran (shadecloth), which it isn't in this explanation. In our old practice in CA, we put these at the bottom of one side of above ground planters that had no weepholes.

Now in the pipe one, the water eventually goes out through the pipe, through a drilled hole in the planter, and to the surrounding landscape.

In the trench or hole below the original level, the water gets further down... presumably keeps the surrounding planter area soil less of mud puddle. I don't have any experience with that in this situation, so I don't know.

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No, no, Chai. Clear an area of your top soil perhaps one foot by one foot until the clay is exposed. Then, using the post hole digger go down,-vertically-as deep as you can comfortably go. Repeat periodically where it will not disrupt existing plantings.

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strange, we call our vinca periwinkle, too. Another name is myrtle. It's a low ground cover which grows anywhere.

http://www.vincaminor.org/

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The drilling holes - that would be weepholes. I have just been googling for good weephole diagrams, but keep running into them re house walls.

Anyway, yes, a screen behind them, and I'd put some 'saran' wrapped gravel too, though that's just me.

Here's a detail I just ran across on the pipe thing.
http://www.capbrick.com/proper_brick_construction.htm

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Oops, I called you JPB, RJB!

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This is certainly not my area of expertise. My suggestion was based on the notion that Austin doesn't get a huge amount of rain on a regular basis. But it can get hit at times and the clay soil can cause there to be a delay in the run-off. My suggestion was intended to be a way to get periodic surpluses of rainwater off of that impervious clay base.

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OK, here's a link about weep holes -

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tvprograms/asktoh/qaarticle/0,16588,765678,00.html

We used to do them every 32 or 48", can't remember specifically right now, but that was related to masonry block sizes and the height of the planter.

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I've always thought of periwinkle as the common name for Vinca, but I see it in Sunset Western Garden book that it is also a common name for Catharanthus rosea. Wait - see below.

Some links -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Vinca.jpg/800px-Vinca.jpg
http://www.missouriplants.com/Blueopp/Vinca_minor_plant.jpg
http://www.gifte.de/Giftpflanzen/Laien/images/Catharanthus%20roseus.jpg

Turns out that Sunset lists, under Vinca, Vinca major, Vinca minor, and Vinca rosea, in parentheses, Catharanthus rosea. So.... three Vincas, probably all called periwinkle.

That might have been V. major in Florida

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Drainage in garden question

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