Pacific Northwest Gardening: Transplanting a gardener to the PNW, 0 by katie59

katie59 wrote:
Good point about the bridge!!

The good thing about clay is that it does hold nutrients and doesn't dry out right away. The upper part of my property is hardpan, but is on a hill and so the water all runs down into the wetland. You can design to handle some of the situations Pixydish is referring to and many people have. She's made a great suggestion for you to look in the winter so that you can see potential problems associated with rain.

One thing about our weather - it typically comes from the south and the west (this keeps our temps moderate). So you don't want to have big trees to the south of you if they're in the vicinity of your house or outbuildings unless you're sure of their health. This tree was perfectly healthy, but sitting in water during a huge storm. Because the first aren't really ever truly water-stressed, their roots don't go down that deeply. I was fortunate that the tree was to the east of the house.

An event on this scale doesn't occur that often, but trees hitting houses does occur to a few houses in the area every year.