Texas Soil? (Plano, Howe, Wells: Home Depot, buy, contractors)

[Robzherenow]

I need to have the flower beds and tree rings in my front yard cleaned out before soil/dirt is layed out before I plant shrubs and flowers.

So far I got quotes ranging from $200-$600! I was told by the higher priced contractors that they use high quality dirt/fertilizer/soil, whereas the $200 contractor uses dirt brought at Home Depot/Lowes. I was further told that shrubs and flowers do not grow well in Texas without quality fertilizer/dirt.

Can someone verify this? Is Texas soil that bad?

[Mardrew]

Originally Posted by Robzherenow

I need to have the flower beds and tree rings in my front yard cleaned out before soil/dirt is layed out before I plant shrubs and flowers.

So far I got quotes ranging from $200-$600! I was told by the higher priced contractors that they use high quality dirt/fertilizer/soil, whereas the $200 contractor uses dirt brought at Home Depot/Lowes. I was further told that shrubs and flowers do not grow well in Texas without quality fertilizer/dirt.

Can someone verify this? Is Texas soil that bad?

You can't really generalize about soil conditions in all of Texas. Soil conditions can vary in even small geographic areas.

However, if a contractor is telling you that his dirt is better and thats the reason he costs $400 more he is probably not the most honest person around.

You can just amend the soil you have to improve it. Simplest way is to just add compost and till it into your soil. (about 3-4 inches of compost and till to a depth of 6-8 inches) You can further improve the soil by adding some greensand, lavasand, corn meal, and dried molasses. see Natural Organic Home Garden Health Howard Garrett Dirt Doctor - DirtDoctor.com - Howard Garrett - The Dirt Doctor for more information. The "Dirt Doctor" is a local gardeing guru with a popular radio program.

You can buy all this stuff at Wells Brothers in Plano and probably lots of other places. If you need a lot of compost you can order truckloads of it from the city of Plano compost facillity. The City of Plano, Texas Official Website
They also sell soil mixes if you really want to remove your current soil but for the most part you do not need to do that.

[loves2read]

the contractor might be telling the truth about bringing in better quality dirt--there is a definite different in growing quality if someone actually adds top soil to flower beds or even lawns vs just dirt--some dirt might be mainly clay with no redeeming nutrients and poor ability to absorb rain/irrigation water for your plants...
but as to a $400 difference I don't know about that--
check out the prices on that web site for city of Plano and see if you can't just pay for the contractor to pick it up there--especially if they will mix your order with dirt and compost...your plants will determine to some extent the acidity or alkalinity of the soil you add back...

what you don't want to do is add back too much dirt and cover up the foundation line of your house--
you also should not add plants too close to the foundation line either

read up on The Dirt Dr site--good local info...

[cdelena]

A good portion of North Texas has a heavy alkaline black clay soil that is difficult to garden in without substantial amendments. They can be assuming that is what you have, or that is actually the issue. You will only know if you get out there (with an experienced person if needed) and look at the soil.