An Experiment

My front yard is a big problem.  There are two huge mulberry trees which are beautiful and provide shade (a rarity in El Paso), but they also don't allow any grass to grow.  So what I have around the trees is a dust bowl.  Otherwise there is wonderful grass in the sunshine.  I planted mondo grass which should be tolerant to the heat, shade, and poor soil.    I don't expect that the mondo will make the area lush, but I'm hoping to eliminate a great deal of the dust.  The landscaping guys just smile when I talk with them about solutions to make this area green. 

You can see how dry the yard is - powdery sandy soil.

Just a few yards away is this tree with the "experiment".  I added just a bit of topsoil with the dwarf mondo grass.  Time will tell if some green will grow...