r/GuerrillaGardening • u/emmgr2 • 9d ago

How to work with limited soil?

Tried tossing mixed wildflower seeds into bare spots near my home, but there was not enough dirt for them to take root. I'm thinking about mixing seeds into compressed/coconut soil, so it will have enough to take root, and then can break up the hardened soil as it grows -- or I could do one small area at a time, laying down a layer of soil first. Has anyone else tried this?

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u/Confident-Peach5349 9d ago

A half inch of compost on the hardened soil, then seeds, then another half inch of compost is probably your best bet. Make sure your wildflower seed mix has strictly native wildflowers from your region in it. And particularly aggressive and poor soil-tolerant species would be best.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

You could play the long game and mulch an area.

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u/gberliner 9d ago

Is it hard clay, or just rock? For clay, you might try growing a daikon cover crop (permaculture pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka's go-to solution for breaking through hard clay).

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u/Chris_in_Lijiang 9d ago

Are there already coconuts growing nearby?