It's a really hard thing to do! The dirt here is like concrete. A "bunker-buster" bomb would just bounce off this dirt. Jeff thinks that's why Nellis AFB uses the skies over our heads for flight practice. If they accidentally dropped a bomb, it wouldn't even disturb this ground!
We bought 10 plants to put in the front yard and a shovel. The shovel wouldn't go into the ground further than about 2 inches. We had to go back to the store and buy a pick axe! We were then able to dig and got the plants in. Now we water twice a day to keep them alive. This is a pretty hardcore place to try to keep anything alive without significant work. However, the rest of the plants are doing great and we're waiting for them now to grow into trees/large bushes over time.
We still need to bring in rock for a walkway from the driveways (one on each side) to the front door. We also need to bring in decorative rock to go in and amongst our new plants. We need to do it by fall, as we won't have any rain until then. When it's dry, no problem walking on the current gravel walkway that has partially sunk into the ground.... but when it raining, it's a mess. I've completely ruined a pair of shoes just walking from the car to the house! There are so many options for decorative rock, that we're still deciding which we want to use, and where we'll use it. It will take several years to "develop" this stark empty acre, so we're not trying to rush it and make the wrong decisions on what we want to do.
I am going to try to create artifical large boulders and rocks. Buying them is out of the question as they are SO expensive. Got the info on how to make them.... fairly simple looking, but I won't know for sure until I start. (Painting them to look like real rocks is probably going to be the hardest part....) Will begin with smaller rocks and work my way up to creating boulders. I do have a vision of how/where they'll be in the front yard. Now, we'll see if I can actually create something that looks like what I have in mind!
