Hi ahelaumakani,

Do you have a digital camera? It will be easier for us visual types to picture what you're starting with, if you can post a photo or two. If you click on the "gallery" link for this forum, the first message gives instruction for posting photos.

I think you'll find that all the people who post on this forum are helpful...and full of advice. ;-) I'm in the same zone as you are, so I'll keep an eye out for your messages.

My first suggestion is to use the lasagna method to create your planting beds. It's so much easier than trying to till clay. Better for the soil, too. There's a link below, and you can search in this forum (and on Google) for more about it.

Also, you're probably going to have trouble growing vegetables if you don't get any sun. I've been able to grow cherry tomatoes in partial shade this summer, but not much else that's edible.

Welcome to the Texas gardening forum...and keep posting!

Here is a link that might be useful: lasagna gardening

What city are you in?

I'd plan a dog freindly yard. That way it'll make life easier for all. WHen it's time to let them out, just let them out, no hassle.

There a plenty of great plant that the dogs won't trample.

Good Luck!

No pics yet, my digital camera broke so I'll have to borrow my neighbor's. I made a picture of the layout though which should give an idea of the size.

First, my location:

My yard is outlined in yellow. That wooded area comes right up to my fence and shades half of the yard all day.

And this is what is there now. The dirt is the area that is covered by shade.

I live in Austin. My dogs are little (~12 lbs. each) so I'm not that worried about them trampling the plants. It's that younger one has never lived where there is a yard and is prone to putting things in her mouth. :)

How many hours of sun do you get a day? Maybe I missed it, if you mentioned it on your memberpage or elsewhere in this thread.

The single most important piece of advice I'd give a new gardener is amend your soil with as much organic matter as you can get your hands on. Shredded leaves, compost, manure, alfalfa or cornmeal, coffee grounds, etc etc. You don't necessarily need to till - I don't, and have lived in areas of Texas with different soils, first it was clay, now it's sand. Lasagna gardening is a great idea, so are raised beds and also containers. I am a big fan of raised beds, and do most of my vegetable growing in them. Larger containers tend to be a better idea in our climate (for both veg and ornamentals), because they dry out so quickly in the heat otherwise. It also helps to mulch them. Actually, mulching is just a great idea in general here as it helps to cut down on evaporation and keeps roots cooler. It's yet another way to help improve the soil as it breaks down.

I found where you've said above that half of your yard gets shaded all day. Any sun at all in that area?? If so, how many hours? Are you at least getting some dappled sun part of the day, and if so, how much?

In the half that does get more sun, how many hours?

I must have mis-read what's on your MyPage. You'll have a much larger selection of plants to choose from since you get some sun.

That shaded area back behind the holly might be a good spot for the dogs' bathroom, if you can train them to go there. Maybe just mulching that area would make clean up easier? I've never had dogs, so I'm just guessing. Or wouldn't they like walking on that?

For any sunny areas where you want lawn, buffalo grass is supposed to be relatively drought resistant, and doesn't need to be mowed very often.

I like to mix the few veggies I grow right in with my perennials, and grow my tomatoes in a different spot each year.

Here are a few sites I refer to when looking for good plants for my area:
http://www.texassuperstar.com/
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/ornamentals/
http://www.npot.org/ (Lets you search for a particular type of plant)
http://floriculture.tamu.edu:7998/urbanlandscapeguide/zipcode.html

Depending upon where you live in Austin, the soil varies.

Generally speaking, if you live in southeast Austin (east of IH35), you have clay soil that retains a lot of water and doesn't drain so well. (This is one of the reasons there are more cracked foundations in SE Austin because the soil expands/contracts with the water it gets.)

If you live in southwest Austin, it's likely you have thin soil over caliche or limestone so when you dig, you may hit a lot of rock. This soil tends to be poor and may dry out quickly.

If you live in northeast Austin, you may actually have some loam or at least the best soil in this area. There are also spots in central Austin that have deep soil.

Northeast Austin also tends to have thin soil over caliche or rock.

There are exceptions to all of this and of course, builders bring in top soil when they build. I have a geological map of the area from the 70's that shows all of this, but as you might expect the soil doesn't follow neat little lines of division between different areas of the city.

Austin soil and water tends to be alkaline so plants that like acidity tend not to do as well here. Full sun for other states (not sure where you are from) is different than for Texas. Thus, plants that like full sun in Wisconsin, might fry here. We have roasting-under-a-magnifying-glass full sun. ;-)

I don't think you need to till at all. As mentioned above, lasagna gardening works well, as does a raised bed.

Adding compost to your soil is a good thing no matter where you live in Austin.

Good nurseries for Austin (and this is only my opinion) are The Natural Gardener (southwest Austin), The Great Outdoors (south Austin), Barton Springs Nursery (far southwest Austin), Plantescapes (south Austin), Gardenville (north Austin). Is it obvious which part of Austin I live in?

There is a free plant guide for Austin that a lot of nurseries (even Lowe's) carry and will often give you if they have copies of it. This guide tells you the perennials, trees, and shrubs that generally do well here. I think it's put out by the City, but I'm not 100% sure.

This is probably more info. than you wanted. Sorry!

Finally, I will link a page of some of the Austin-area garden clubs for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Austin Garden Clubs

suze - the shaded area gets virtually no sun. Maybe 10% of it gets dappled sun for a few hours.

treelover - that was one area that I was considering for the dogs. Is there a grass that will grow in pure shade?

redthistle - I'm in Far West, the soil seems really dry and rocky. That wasn't too much info, the more the better!

Everyone says I shouldn't have to till but my yard is covered in rocks, chunks of cement and other junk. I'll have to pick all that up first and then if I don't till, won't I be running into more rocks below when I start planting?

OK. I moved the above pics so they're not visible anymore. Here they are again. Plus actual shots of my yard (warning : not for the faint of heart!)

This is the area that gets sun. I have yet to take note of exactly how many hours it gets a day.

And if anyone's interested, here is my album with more detailed shots. There are some unknown vines and trees that I would like to ID (I fear that I might have poison ivy.)

http://s241.photobucket.com/albums/ff294/ahelaumakani/Backyard/

And regarding unknown tree #1, I wonder if it's bad that it's right up against my chimney. I might be able to convince the manager to have it removed if it is in danger of damaging anything.

(I also shot a video of a walkthrough that's currently being processed on youtube. I'll post a link to that when it's up.)

Thats the beauty of raised beds and bringing in your own soil and ammendment you don't have to till it in just mix it with a shovel or something. That looks like some hard rocky stuff there and tilling it will do nothing much for it. Get truckloads of compost and put on top of it and mix that with good topsoil if you want grass but I don't know what kind will grow in deep shade. Check with the city, they may sell it cheap at the landfill reclyer part. If you build large raised beds you can take them apart and move them with you when you go if you want to use nice stuff or if you want go cheap, they just won't last as long. A raised bed in like a giant pot but better. Good drainage good soil and mulch on top will conserve moisture.

Lucky you, with a view of the woods instead of the back of someone else's unit. Looks like it would be tricky to mow with the slope down to the fence. If it were mine, I wouldn't try for any kind of lawn.

I'd spend the summer getting things identified, cleared out, cleaned up, planning what to plant where, and preparing the soil. Then in the fall when plants go on sale and the weather has cooled off, you'll be ready to do your planting.

The only problem I'm aware of with raised beds is that they need to be monitored carefully since they dry out faster than grade level soil...kind of like containers do. If you decide to raise the planting level at the fence, you probably should put some boards up horizontally first, to keep soil from resting right against the fence slats.

That five-leaf photo looks like Virginia creeper, which turns bright red in the fall, but some people are allergic to. Poison ivy is three-leafed and has shiny leaves. You can always take your photos to your county extension office for identification.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:993129}}

treelover Great links!

My question... DO I see down spouts for rain? Try and find a way to collect that if possible.

A group of larger flower pots in the sunny part of the yard for your garden, might work, also would be tall enough that the 'fur-kids' will not mess with them.

I bet that Virginia Creeper was growing wild, by the looks of the little starts all over the yard.

Please be careful what you do plant, as some are not good for 'fur-kids' to eat!

Container.... container.... container....

wish you were closer to Grapevine up by Ft Worth, as I have access to 5 nice large plastic container ... like trees are grown in ... that would be wonderful for what you need!

Also, doing a container set up you could also incorporate a water feature out there that would look very nice and sound great too.

FYI the trees limbs on the fire place need to go.
Limbs hanging over the fence can be cut back to the fence line if you want to go to the trouble. That is best done in the winter though.

I like the idea of raised beds and I definitely want to do that when I get the vegetable garden going. (That stray cinder block inspired me.)

But raised beds in the whole yard? Like treelover brought up, I would worry the fence would rot. Also, it's pretty low - don't want my dogs escaping. Plus the slope would make leveling difficult.

It tilling out of the question? I thought I could till just enough to rake out the rocks. Some of it looks like chunks of concrete and gravel/river rocks someone dumped out there so maybe it doesn't go too far down. I've never used a tiller so I don't want to rent one only to find out that it can't get through because of the rocks.

On Lowes.com I found Pennington 3 Lb. Dense Shade Mix Penkoted Grass Seed. I was thinking of trying that in the space behind the holly for the dog area. Maybe with some hostas around the edges. I really like this look:

There's a downspout - barely visible behind the small holly in the first picture.

I think you're right about the Virgina creeper. It's everywhere! I spend awhile the other day ripping up that and some other type of vine from half of the yard and made some progress though.

You don't think the tree by the fireplace should just be ripped out completely? Still haven't figured out what kind it is but as it gets bigger, I would think the roots would damage the foundation. I think I will try to trim those other trees too so that half of the yard won't be so shaded.

Here's the walkthrough video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPY1rAyh5Y

Hi Ahelaumakani,

If you put a raised bed directly up against your fence, then yes, you would have to worry about rotting it out. You would have to make a bit of room between the fence and whatever you used for the edging of your raised bed to prevent rot.

St. Augustine will grow in the shade. Bermuda won't grow in very shady areas (Bermuda can be a gardener's nightmare because it's very invasive. I have it.) I'm not crazy about either of these grasses because they take a lot of water to keep them green; however, these are the two most used grasses in Austin. Others are Zoysia, Buffalo grass (native) and Turfalo. Winter Rye is also sometimes over-seeded into other grasses in the fall. It grows all winter, but then you have to mow in the winter or so I've been told. :-(

As edging for a raised bed: cut dry-stacked limestone would be pretty, but might be too expensive. Wood boards work, but will eventually rot. Cinder blocks and bricks would also work. Lowe's and Home Depot also have various concrete pavers & scalloped edgers that might work as well.

Or- instead of doing a raised bed, add lots of compost to amend your existing soil or create a lasagna bed as suggested above.

Containers also work well as act-upon suggested above. Containers can be arranged and moved around in a variety of configurations, which is a plus, and you can stand one pot behind another and make it taller by putting it on a brick or cinderblock or place several pots on a wooden shelf or two supported by cinderblocks or pavers, if need be.

With our heat, I would suggest you use the largest containers possible because they will dry out quickly. Clay pots generally dry out more quickly than plastic but in my opinion, clay pots are prettier. I have plants in clay pots, wash tubs, plastic pots, and one copper pot. Even ugly black nursery pots can be painted with spray paint or house paint in fun colors to make them pretty.

I actually put mulch over the soil in some of my container plants. You can intersperse different kinds of containers/pots in a garden bed and that can look good too. You might also purchase or make a trellis for a vine and you can hang a plant wall-pocket or two on your fence to jazz it up.

As for Hostas, I haven't seen many grown in Austin, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

Treelover is right that raised beds do dry out more quickly.

Re: Hosta's - the Hosta-People will be horrified, but I finally succeeded with hostas in Austin by planting them in large fiberglass or glazed pots with blocked drainage holes...little mini-swamps! They are flourishing in the deep shade and provide pockets of bright green color.

Another excellent flowering plant for shade is Ragin' Cajun Ruellia - dependable regrowth each spring and lots of cherry-red flowers all summer long...very low water usage. Check with Emerald Gardens or Barton Springs Nursery to see if they have it in stock.

Also, I've had excellent results from several own-root garden roses that grow well in as little as 4 hours of direct sun daily - specifically, try The Fairy, Perle d'Or, Marie Daly or Marie Pavie, and (#1 in my book), Climbing Pinkie. If you don't try anything else, get the Climbing Pinker and The Fairy, (also available as the sport "Red Fairy"). Check out The Antique Rose Emporium online or go to Barton Springs Nursery or It's About Thyme locally.