The soil in which you are cultivating dictates the plants that will grow and how much water needed to grow them. Soil that is good for growing sugarcane is considered to be poorly draining soil for growing wheat. Growing plants purchased from a nursery may be grown in the area but, aren't growing in native soil. These plants are growing in rich black soil that drains well with organic matter and lots of nutrients.
When your community was built the builders most likely used fill dirt. Instead of using it under the streets, driveways, sidewalks, and foundations it is cheaper to just spread it over everything. Fill dirt is a mix of sand, heavy clay, and rocks. Screened fill dirt is the same they just remove the small rocks and clumps of dirt.
Heavy clay is the worse kind of soil you can have and common in Arizona. It's compact, it doesn't drain, stays wet for too long causing fungus to grow, is low in organic matter, is very hard if allowed to dry, salts do not leach from the soil, is sticky, clumps together and becomes very hard, and is made up of large particles.
Sand and rock are just as bad because it is made of large particles having no nutrient value to plants and all minerals leach quickly and easily.
When clay gets water it disperses it outward then downward. The top layer must become saturated for the water to go down to the layer below. The amount of water needed to get down to the roots is more than other types of soil. Since the excess water doesn't drain down the soil stays wet longer and not just moist causing some plant to die.
Growing grass from seeds in this kind of clay is challenging. The one thing to remember is that when you overseed do not stop watering to kill the summer grass. Clay clumps together making it impossible for water to penetrate if you do. The other thing to remember is that since clay doesn't allow salts such as calcium to leach from the soil. Neither does any weed killer or other chemicals put into the soil.
Meaning you could be sabotaging your own efforts.
Once you realize that the reason for water run off, excess water usage, compacted soil, tree roots at the surface, stunted plants, and nutrient deficiencies is caused from the type of soil. You can fix it. Aeration is waste of money because it doesn't go deep enough, adding sand does nothing, rocks even worse, and trying to leach the soil is just a waste.
The only way to fix the problem is to till the soil and remove about 2 to 3 feet of the clay. Now add a mix of manure, peat moss and or green sand to the native soil. The ratio of native soil to mix needs to be something like 70% mix to 30% native. Since your removing around 3 feet of soil you may want to soak and aerate the soil that will remain unamended before putting the 70/30 mix on top.
This sounds like it would be expensive to do. The cost of 1 ton of good pre-mixed or custom mixed soil is around $31.50 to $42.00 per truck load delivered. You will also find that less water is required to get down to the root zone, run off will no longer be a problem, healthier plants, and everything will grow with little effort.
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