Doing the anti-rain dance

We're moved in, unpacked (some) and thoroughly enjoying our dream home.

The next step is landscaping and the backyard. Following the advice of member Fu Manchu on the Homeone forum - I'm going to improve and feed the soil - not the plant - to make sure I have a long lasting, drought tolerant garden. He has a great topic about preparing soil for turf and plants - all about working through organic material and minerals - rather than just layering some good soil on top of crappy Sydney clay.

This approach of improving the soil is also being followed by the golf course constructors - Flemming Golf - I've been told that they haven't added any top soil for the golf course - they're focusing on cultivating and improving the existing soil.

Contrast this with almost every landscape company I've talked to/got quotes from - who believe in simply layering good top soil for 10cm on top of our hard clay and planting/turfing straight on top. What happens when your plant roots get down to the clay? They give up! I suppose this is the quicker way of doing landscaping jobs - providing "instant" results rather than ensuring long term viability.

So to cultivate our soil - we've found a great bobcat driver who has a ripper attachment who will work with us to work organic matter into our existing soil. However - the soil needs to be relatively dry - here's the weather forecast for this week:

• Mon - late thunder storm
• Tue - thunder storms
• Wed - thunder storms
• Thur - showers
• Fri - possible shower
• Sat - possible shower

Not looking so good! However - we often get forecasts of rain but only a few drops - so I'm hoping that the forecast is wrong - I'm doing the anti-rain dance!