Third Time's A Charm

Well, here goes nothing. Unfortunately, in past few years we unknowingly planted evergreen shrubs (Dwarf Alberta Spruce) in a drainage area on our property. At first, I thought a lot of water would be great for these bushes even if they didn't need much water. This is Colorado after all, and too much water isn't exactly a common problem here. This area though, is like a swimming pool underground when it rains or it snows. Literally, the grass has looked like a water bed in the past after a heavy rain. The problem is enhanced since the soil is full of clay. The water just sits in this area because the clay won't absorb it.

So, I came up with my own solution since we're determined to grow these shrubs along our driveway. Call it container gardening or specimens in the ground. Thanks to Josh, I bought a bunch of rubber feed buckets at Big R outside of Falcon. These containers have no holes in them and were put in the ground to keep the water out. I then filled the bottom and sides of the feed bucket with pea gravel for drainage and to hold the assembly together. Then, I placed the shrubs in their original containers (with holes) in the feed bucket. My goal is to control the amount of moisture getting to the tree. The best part about the system is that both containers are completely removable. Since the ground is full of clay, I can pull the rubber feed buckets out whenever I want and the hole will stay there perfectly. I can even pull the trees out of the rubber buckets (should too much water get in) and let them dry out. Over time, if this works, we can continually up size the containers until the trees reach maturity. I'd like to keep them small, so I may just wait and see and not up the planter size until they show signs of stress.

As you can see in one of the pictures, one of the original trees survived (it's in a different section). Think this will work? I do. This will also allow me to water the grass appropriately without drowning the trees. Christmas lights here we come.