No leaves yet, the 2 trees I planted are too small. I just found out that we are required to keep about a foot wide path beside the fence free of anything. The fence is built right into the swail (Is that the word?) and the bottom of the fence is too low. I don't want to rot the fence with soil and apparently I am not allowed to pile anything against the fence anyway. I already took out about 2 feet wide of grass and planted some
flowers and bushes and whatever I could divide last fall to make sure I had more plants this
spring.
So I think we will come away from the fence about a foot, we will leave the swail alone, and my husband will build a retaining wall so we can pile some dirt up, the retainer won't show and our side of the
flower bed will have rocks to keep the dirt until the ground cover is strong enough to keep the soil. He says we should put a retaining wall on the front too until it is established and then we can remove it and use it on the other side of the yard which is lower and has a huge run off problem. Half a truckload of top soil was washed off in a storm last year and I was watching it in horror to go down the drain on the street from the window.
Ok we can fill the space between the fence and the retaining wall with rocks. rocks are porous enough that they would let the water through in between the problem with rocks is that they let the soil wash out in between too when it rains. What would be a good ground cover that likes scorching heat in the summer, and grows fast? There is no shade until later in the afternoon and the shade is from the fence only. No trees here.
2 pictures, this one shows the sand coming from the neighbor under the fence (we are telling them as soon as they get home):
This one shows the standing water. the top soil already washed off before winter.