Central Texas: what-to-plant in afternoon sun with a lot of excess water (landscape, yard)

[Austinitegirl]

Hey Gardening mavens! I have a what-to-plant question for you.

First, a little background: I live in central Texas, alkaline/clay soil suburban neighborhood. We've only lived in this house for about a year, but unlike previous houses I've lived in, this one has the AC condensation runoff pipe draining directly into the side yard rather than onto the driveway/pavement. As you can imagine, this causes quite the mud pit during the hottest times of the year when the AC is running more frequently.

I've been researching ways to redirect the pipe/landscape the area with rocks to redistribute the water, but I'm also wondering if there might be a particular bush I could plant in the area to soak up most of the water and also serve as a way to hide our AC unit (the mudpit is right next to the unit itself).

My husband loves knockout roses, and we have one bush in our front flowerbed - they do very well in this area and this soil and certainly get big enough to hide an AC unit. I know they also like water, but I'm concerned about this much water "drowning" anything I plant there.

I'm also concerned about the sunlight exposure. This is the west side of the house, so it gets a lot of deep morning shade, but then 4-6 hours of direct sun during the hottest part of the day.

Any thoughts? Would knockout roses survive/thrive?

Thanks in advance!!

[TerraDown]

I would dig the hole at least 6 feet down, and 3 times bigger than a 3 gallon rose bush. Mix the clay soil with peat and compost, halved, so you end up with 1/1/1 mix (adding in 1/3 of the clay)

The reason I would dig so deeply is you are saying clay and water. This can cause root rot. Loosening up the soil mix so deeply will allow the roots to breathe and go deep quicker than if you didn't loosen clay.

I see no reason that a 3 gallon rosebush could not survive that space, if you plan ahead.

[southernnaturelover]

Elephant ears love water.