Park Strip Conversion Project Update

This spring I started a new project--it's been planned for a while, but this year I asked a bunch of friends to come help me. We pulled all the grass out of the parkstrips. I was able to get a chipdrop a few days later and filled the space with wood chips. Then I spent a couple weeks transplanting drought tolerant plants from other areas of the yard.

When it fills in it will be AMAZING, and in the meantime I'm not paying the city to water "their" grass three times a week. The park strips abut my property but are technically owned by the city--however, the adjacent land owner is responsible for maintenance. Grass takes a LOT of water, so I decided to take care of the problem.

I now have echinacea, groundcovers, irises, tarragon and a bunch of other drought tolerant or borderline xeric plants in there.

The rocks create a little bit of a protected zone, where the sun doesn't hit the soil directly and the water doesn't evaporate as fast.

This week I planted a sweet potato. I'm not sure if it will survive, but I figured it's worth a try.

This morning I noticed something interesting. It's wet enough out there, even in full sun, that fungus has started to grow. This was a dog vomit fungus, which is technically a slime mold and not a fungus, but it normally grows in shade and in very wet areas. What is this doing in a bed that was supposed to be dry???! In full sun, no less.

I've been watering this area for five minutes once a week and everything has been thriving even in full sun and with the summer heat (Mid to high nineties during the day)--except a few items that can't stand wet feet. They've mostly died. That should have told me what was going on.

I dug down in the soil and it's wet for a good six inches down. Probably more, but that's as far as I dug. I'm extending the watering schedule out to 9 days--I think we'd be good to go to two or even three weeks, but I want to do this gradually and let the plants get used to the change.