About two weeks ago, after being confined to containers only while living in SF, I took some of my succulents and planted them in the ground.

Playing with the soil here, we have pretty dense clay-like (wet) soil that doesn't crumble and really could give play-doh a run for their money. But tired of digging and tilling my vegetable bed, I simply took some succulents and plopped them into the ground. This area is better but not great.

Well, they obviously deteriorated -- some of them rapidly. It's just too wet there, especially with the sprinkler heads, but the huge rosemary bushes need the water. As it is, because of the drought, I decreased the water to 8 minutes only; any less and I'll have dried rosemary.

Staring at that plot for two days, I decided to make a batch of slightly monster 5-1-1 (more like 5-2-1) and "raise" the area with some cement brick thingies by all of 2 inches. I poured a huge binful of the soil on top of the dirt, and replanted all the succulents.

The spot receives sun from 11-5 or so, and despite my backyard facing west, the rosemary blocks any sun from hitting them any later right now. Come summer next year, we shall see how many of them burn to a crisp...

So....has this 2 inch tall "mini-bed" really done anything at all for the succulents? I figure when the roots reach lower and into the real dirt, it'll just be survival of the fittest around here....and hopefully, the 5-1-1 on top helps to keep the dirt below less "muddy" when the roots grow down? Or is that flawed logic?

The soil, for what it's worth, has tons of earthworms and seems quite fertile.