Harrow & Hill
Plan your property

The cedar cut

Eleven acres of caliche and Ashe juniper above a dry draw, replanned as meadow and the live oaks that already held the ridge.

Plan your property
Tall grasses and late-summer flowers along a narrow path, with a tree line beyond.

The problem

Rain left the west slope the same afternoon it fell.

Ashe juniper came off in lanes, not as a clear-cut. Little bluestem and sideoats went onto the caliche the first fall, and again the next. The live oaks stayed. Two cisterns take the barn roof. Drip runs two seasons, then a monthly soak on the young trees only.

Open dusk sky over the barn roof, with the prairie beyond the ridge.

The site

11 acres in Driftwood.

SoilBrackett and Tarrant. Shallow, with caliche at the surface.
SlopeEight to fifteen percent, falling west into the draw.
WaterNo dependable well. Two 5,000-gallon cisterns. Drip through year two.
Started2021
The cedar cut plan diagram

The plan

Drawn for year ten.

A diagram, not the survey. North is up. The bar is 40 feet.

  • Barn and houseKept. The roof is the water source.
  • MeadowSeeded the falls of year 0 and year 1.
  • Live oaksAlready on the ridge. Fenced through year 1.
  • Dry drawLeft as a draw. Cover is the work.
  • CisternsTwo, 5,000 gallons each, at the barn.
  • PathGravel, to the overlook. No concrete.

The same ground

Year 0, year 3, year 10.

Open grass and a barn at dusk, before the meadow has closed.
Install day. The old court, and grass that is mostly still waiting. It is supposed to look thin.
A young planted bed beside a stone path, with grasses starting to fill.
The path is in. Establishment watering is twice a week, and the deer fence is still up.
A closed stand of grasses and summer flowers where the slope used to run bare.
The meadow holds through August. Watering is monthly. There is no lawn to mow.

Plant list

What we actually specified.

Eighty percent of the list, by count, is native to the Edwards Plateau. The deer fence stays through the first spring.

  • Little bluestemSchizachyrium scopariumLow after year one
  • Sideoats gramaBouteloua curtipendulaLow after year one
  • Lindheimer muhlyMuhlenbergia lindheimeriLow
  • Mealy blue sageSalvia farinaceaLow
  • Four-nerve daisyTetraneuris scaposaLow
  • Flame acanthusAnisacanthus quadrifidusLow
  • Plateau live oakQuercus fusiformisDeep, infrequent. The existing trees.

The work

Scope, money, and the years.

ScopeJuniper lanes, meadow seeding, oak protection, two cisterns, and a gravel path to the draw.
Budget$180,000–$240,000 built, master plan $18,000.
DurationPlan in five weeks, spring 2021. Planted fall 2021 and fall 2022. Stewardship through 2031.

From the owner

August of year three, the draw still had cover. We never ran a hose to it.

MaraDriftwood