Texas Gardening: Hello- newbie question about soil, 0 by JohnCrichton75

JohnCrichton75 wrote:
Hello everyone, I'm new to both this site and to gardening in general. I was bitten by the gardening bug recently (on the backside, actually) and it's all I've been thinking about for the past couple of weeks. A big reason is that I finally got fed up with a certain part of my property looking like a wild weed experiment. It wasn't all weeds- there were lots of overgrown "holly" type bushes that helped make this area impassable. My master bathroom has a window that looks out to this area and it was a real displeasure to see whenever the blinds were open. This part of my property is on the side of my house which faces west. I live in a subdivision in League City, TX, and the houses are pretty close to one another- 15' - 20' apart. This space will only get sun around high noon. Anyway, I "corrected" this situation one day and dug it all up.

I attached a pic of the area as it looks now. I have a small birdbath and a Firespike in this area. There's a raised bed about 8" high, but it is mostly the natural clay gumbo soil. As you can see from the photo, I amended the soil around the plant. That's cotton burr compost. My question is, what other soil amendments should I add to this bed? It extends at least another 6' from the pic. Maybe I will add another Firespike, a Persian Shield and some Elephant Ears, but I don't know just yet.

I know, I know...I should have figured this out first but I got excited and in my haste, I ran in shot first and now I'm asking questions. Thanks for your help.