Potted Plant Bed

Background

After

Before

We have a lot of potted plants that need a lot of sun. We have many trees in our yard so there are limited areas that get all day sun. This sunny area is only near the shallow end of our pool. The only choices are to put them on the concrete pool deck or on the grass. It would kill the grass and make lawn maintenance harder, so we have always put them on the pool deck.

The problem, is that the pool deck is only three feet wide. With the (many large) plants we have, this makes navigating that end of the pool tricky to impossible. This is a problem for pool maintenance or simply navigating around the pool without having to be diverted to walk on the grass.

After many years of struggling to skim or brush the pool with these plants as obstacles, we decided to sacrifice some of the grass are to make a dedicated home for these plants.

A recurring theme in all my house projects is: "I hate digging". This project was nothing but digging.

Grass Removal and Transfer

The other end of the pool from this area is very shaded and sloped and has large patches of dirt. We duf up the grass in patches and transplated it to that area.

Before - north view

Initial grass removal - north

Grass patch dug up

Initial grass removal - south

Grass removal nearing the end (closer)

Initial grass removal area (closer)

Edging Installation

When we fill the area with mulch, we did not want it to be overflowing onto the pool deck or lawn area. So we dug out the area a few inches deep. We also needed to install some form of edging to contain the mulch and prevent grass incursions.

Initial edging in place (wide)

Initial edging in place (closer)

More edging in place

The edging is supposed to be flexible, which is good for our curved area. However, the metal was fairly thick and even bending it a little bit required a bit of force. This would have been a problem for the tight curves at the ends. Luckily, they sold pre-curved sections for use around trees. These saved a lot of headaches.

North end curved edging placement

South end curved edging placement

All edging placements - north view

All edging placements - south view

Edging intersection closeup

Extending Irrigation System

A problem we have always had is keeping the potted plants watered, especially when we go away for one or more weeks. Rather than some dedicated watering system, I had leveraged the existing lawn irrigation system. To get into the (tall) pots, I added risers to the sprinkler near where we keep the plants. However, the south end of this new area did not have any sprinkler coverage.

Existing sprinkler riser

Existing sprinkler dug out

Existing sprinkler dug out (closeup)

As much as I hate digging, the right solution was to extend the irrigation system and put a new riser and sprinkler to cover the south end. More digging, which mean more battles with rocks and roots. There's no trees within 30 feet of that area, but that seems to be irrelevant when it comes to encountering roots when you dig.

Many roots in irrigation line trench

Initial irrigation tee pipe installed

New irrigation line installed

New irrigation line and riser

New irrigation plumbing closeup

Irrigation plumbing junction closeup

Leveling and Compacting

We tried to get as uniform depth as we could and used a compactor to make sure the ground stayed somewhat even. After compacting, we added some non-woven geotextile fabric to help prevent growth under the mulch.