The guy who built our house used terrible fill dirt in the front and back yards. Just plain dirt, no organic material in it at all best we can tell. Not only does it not nourish plants, water runs through it like a sieve before plants can absorb much. So says the people who worked on our landscaping when I started complaining to them about how poorly our plants were doing.
One thing is clear to me. Having a ring of evergreens around our back yard and basic plants along the house on the same drip line (as it was installed) makes no sense. Can't control soil moisture well via only one drip line for trees that need deep watering and plants that need less. So I want to get the ring of trees on a separate drip line. Per a local sprinkler system installer, one new valve (including running wire to the existing controller), a water filter and misc connection materials ... $500! Gads! Who can afford that in this economy?
I looked into the cost of doing it myself ... $80. Is it worth crawling around in the dirt and digging stuff up? Let's see ... $420 savings = no-brainer! Plus, what red-blooded American male doesn't like playing in dirt and, if he's lucky, mud? Ha! Then there's tearing apart the existing contraption followed by gluing stuff together. The boy in me is happy. It also involves figuring out a clever way to fit more stuff into the 'vault' currently housing other valves so I have to design something that actually works. The engineer in me is happy too.
Got the parts. Next time it hasn't rained for a couple days this thing gets done!
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