Whenever you get tired of me gripping about the dirt in this garden, please remember this pic...
All that came outta this 2x2 ft hole and yes, the knot had to be broken 
but the shrub is now back in, safe and sound 
Maggie -- even my soil isn't THAT awful. No wonder you are scared about me taking out a few inches with the grass sodder. Ugh! I will at least have something brown left on the ground after the grass is taken out! I feel very sorry for you now! Was it a parking lot before you moved it?
OK, now why did you have to dig up your patio? And, I agree with Gail....parking lot?
Parking Lot ? - no just native Prairie Lot.
You might be able to see the 2-3" of the native dirt on top of the lime in that hole pic. That's it Baby. Nadda else in these beds, cept my handmade dirt and a few inches of hand-hauled bought-dirt.
Our little house on the prairie has been undergoing 'foundation work'. That white area is the kitchen wall Caro. The digital washes out the mortar marks, so I can see how it would look like it is a white pavement instead of brick wall. The hole goes under the house so the compressor pump can raise it up to install highly compressed granite piers.
The creamy crude is caliche - called 'chalk' in UK, huh Terry? It appears to be limestone rock in the making - and is the matrix of the lime boulders. I have dug a driveway-full-of-them out of these beds. Yes, by my manual labor, not Manuel's.
This caliche acts like a sponge - swells with water and shrinks when dry and the house would rise and fall with it, poor thing. Putting it on these secure stilts, stops the house from moving up and down with our cool-season rains - alternated with summer droughts.
The brave crew that took on the task of doing this in *MY* garden is
BEAUTIFUL HOMES BY PAUL in Ft. Worth. (I have earned a certain reputation for 'overseeing' workers in this yard ) They installed 2 piers into each hole instead of the customary one, for extra stability and security - and with a lifetime guarantee. Seven holes were dug, piered and replanted or re-cemented in 2 days without any fatalities = no plant fatalities, therefore - no human ones either. And they are committed to leaving the place looking as it did before they landed. I highly recommend them. No, they didn't offer me any deals for saying this. Ya know, if someone has to come in and plow thru a garden, every gardener should be so lucky to have a crew as diligent and considerate as these nice folks.
Can't imagine your house rising and falling, Maggie, when it was built on solid concrete, that was what they dug out of the hole?? I thought my stuff was bad, why on earth/rock did you choose that particular spot to have a beautiful garden? A parking lot would have been more fertile. Good to read that you managed to avoid committing any capital offence, as did your workmen.
Yes, I am SORRY your soil is so bad Maggie. You know I have.....SANDY wonderful soil....I do wish everyone had the soil I have. I must say that when I moved in, the soil was that sandy blow sand crystal looking stuff. You know like the Egyptians have?? Now that I have been here 15 years it is alot better..I have lived and gardened through the CLAY soil, but never rock!!So I take it they are finished with your house Maggie???
I was surprised you guys were so surprised to see that - I guess my written descriptions of "a few inches of black clay over caliche and lime stones" doesn't really sink in without the visual!!
The answer to your q Terry - cause the house was here ;-) I guess I just thought no one else gardened around here because of the heat!!
And yep, the mortality rate was hanging in the balance while they were working near the tree peonies.
Yes David, they finished in 2 days - has to be a record in my neighborhood. I've seen other crews devastate yards for weeks, before clearing off.
Here's the same hole as above, after the piers were installed. The number of piers varies with every site, as they just keep pushing them in with the hydraulics until it won't go any further - meaning they hit something solid. 
So now you're not keeping up with your peers Maggie, your piers are keeping you up. Hope that something solid wasn't a giant nutgrass node.
Ooooh that's as bad as my foul fowl ones!
And you're right about it might be a nutgrass node.
I might as well post the other pics I took that day. They put plywood against the walls where ever they could to save mudding up the white paint, but everything was cleaned up good as new anyway. 
That stuff in the wheel barrow, is that what they are putting in or what they dug out, it all looks much the same?
Oh you are so right - it does look like cement when wet! But no, unfortunately, that is a bit of the many barrow loads that came out of that hole.
A very old azalea lives just over the path from there, surviving in spite of the caliche base because its shallow roots stay in the good stuff above the lime crud. When we moved in, this Oak Bed site was bare of grass or even any black clay because it is the highest point in the yard. And it was the first bed I attemped :-0 - the one place without any soil, water, or sun !
Maggie, you have reminded me once again that the next time I buy a house, I'm taking a shovel to test the soil first! Of course, that'll probably mean I end up living in Maine....or Oregon....depending on which direction I start digging.