dry creek bed

[muscadine]

Have any of you created a dry creek bed? With all the rain this summer, we have several places that would benefit from this, but I'm not sure how to get started. I have bought some river rock, and it looks real nice in the giant pile that it's in now. :rolleyes: Any help would be appreciated!

[Sophie]

I don't have one myself, but I do have a neighbor who has a couple in her yard. One thing to remember, and this is the primary purpose for my neighbor's dry creek bed, is that it will have run off in heavy rains. If you are already having run off in that area, you will have it in your new dry creek bed. So remember to have an area where the run off at the end of the cry creek bed will be okay and can disperse without flooding or having large water or mud puddles. I want to say that maybe she used a liner of some sort under her river rocks. But I'm not sure of what kind. Maybe a heavy landscape plastic or something. Otherwise, I think you would have grass growing up between the rocks, which doesn't have to be a bad thing but you would need to cut it somehow. And erosion would continue in rain. I think after she did her liner, she just covered it well with the rocks. Her's looks very nice and looks almost like a rock path. You could also go somewhere like Home Depot or Lowe's and take a look at their landscape books and I'll bet you will find a guide to doing this. Maybe even SL's Landscape book has it in there. If you want I can take a look at my SL Landscape book for you.

[Capucine]

Personally I think I would line the area with pond liner. You can buy that at Home Depot or Lowe's. It's a heavy black material. And then, just lay the rocks down on it, covering it completely. The purpose of the liner is to keep weeds, etc., from growing up through the rocks.

I'm dying to make a dry bed in my backyard. I have an area that has been draining some this year and I was just thinking the other day that it was the natural spot to put it. I definately plan to do that. ;) Along with the 50 other things I have planned for my yard. :p