Hi Rick ....
Thanks for adding so much information to this thread.
I went out and measured the depth inside the bed and outside of the brick. The height from the soil to the top of the lip of the brick is 9". The depth inside the bed is 20".
No, I am not going to mess with the soil outside of the bed. That is the native house pad soil of tightly compressed rocks and clay/silt. It drains perfectly. Even when the gutters over flow because of a hard rain, there are no puddles. It doesn't make sense to mess with it.
"Going up" doesn't seem like a viable option in this situation because I would end up with moist soil next to the stucco. Yes, I could also extend the sheet metal barrier up, but I really don't want to go there this fall.
Now that I know I can't really fix the drainage problem in that bed, I'll just amend the soil as uniformly as possible and plant shallow rooted, heat tolerant plants there. As I said above, I may just use the bed as a working bed to grow larger root masses for plants that will be transplanted to other parts of the garden. Instead of potting up plants to grow roots, I can use that bed.
@JuneOntario, June ... planting in gravel is an option. I am using that method down in one of the street beds. I just don't think I have it in me to haul up the amount of gravel I would need for that bed from the street level up to the house pad level. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thank you to all for the suggestions and the information you have provided. Now that I understand the concept of a perched water table and know that the bed will never drain properly I think I can go forward with amending the soil for the whole bed and will understand how to use the bed. If everything dies, I can always just put the decorative rocks there. I have rocks of all sizes and could make something look interesting.
Smiles,
Lyn
