This is one of the projects that Damsel and I have undertaken to modify her rock and cactus garden on the west side of the property. This is to account for the effects of having built a retention wall adjacent to the RV drive that now diverts runoff from the hills to the north. After we built the wall last year, water now flows to the west of the property rather than across the RV drive as it has in the past.
In the image above, the west end of the wall can be seen at the right edge. We have started lining the edge of the little creek that formed last summer when we had a great monsoon rainfall last summer. The idea is to line the banks with rocks to confine the flow to within the creek bed near where the water comes out from behind the wall.
Further down the creek, the banks are less defined. We decided to use some very large boulders (seen at the left of the photo) to keep the flow going down the natural creek wash that was there before, rather than spilling toward the west where there are some decorations and the trash bins are over there too.
As you can see in the photo, we have partially completed the bank lining up near the end of the wall. Next, we will continue to bring more of the rocks and complete the lining from where the rocks end upstream to the boulders that are on the left. After that, we will dig down to where the original landscapers put the creek rocks five years ago.
We hope that we can complete this project a little at a time (rocks are heavy!) over the spring before the next monsoon season. Click on the image to enlarge.
UPDATE: March 04, 2016 – Damsel and I spent an hour or so finishing the west bank of our little runoff creek today. We gathered small boulders and round rocks from other areas on the property and continued to line the far side of the creek with reinforcements for the runoff that we expect this coming monsoon season.
The top panel is the work we completed when we posted the picture above; the bottom panel is the work we completed this afternoon. Click on the image to enlarge.