HI I LIVE IN CA AND I HAVE A POOL THAT HAS BEEN FILLED IN WITH DIRT IT HAS CEMENT AROUND IT. I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT TO DO IN THIS BLACKHOLE. CAN SOMEONE HELP ME WITH IDEAS.

The filling in of the pool, may I ask 'was this done by a contractor who knows about this kind of thing .....or did you just purchase a big load of soil and dump it in?

From an experience of a friend and reading about this task, I suggest if the job was not done by a contractor, that you read about what filling in an unwanted swimming pool entails.

For instance, is the soil in the pool just sitting there...was there any allowance made for proper drainage out the bottom of the pool.
Might the soil, over time, drop to reveal the sides of the pool and what might the cement's character do to the health of plants put in above it.

In "filling in a swimming pool", they point out the many things that should be done before actually completing the soil fill in.

Thanks for responding i believe the last homeowner dumped a big load of soil into the pool. There were holes drilled into the sides of the cement for proper drainage purposes. Besides growing grass or putting cement over the dirt. I wanted some ideas about landscaping or designing something over the dirt.

I'll bow out of that and let one of the California members give you some ideas. In your locale there are undoubtedly native plants that will be far better thought of than having random plants mentioned that are more for planting outside of your zone 8, 9 & 10.

I'm sure HGTV doesn't mind another chat room mentioned when it can help the member.
SSSCC, try "gardenweb.com".....there they have rooms expressly for geographical areas and one is pointed directly at California.

You might meet up with a neighbor who will most gladly assist you.

How about planting a rose garden with an arbor, or fire pit and seating. If the side cement is still visable, maybe use that as a outline for the planting bed. Or else you can pay to have it removed.

THANK YOU FOR THE REPLIES. THERE IS HOPE FOR MY BACKYARD

You might try posting photos of the yard on the general gardening board...that board allows you tp upload attached pix.

I would thing, in general, you should be able to plant most anything, outside of a tree which might require deep taproots.

The first question you might ask yourself is how would you like to use the back yard? Seating? vegetable gardening? Playing croquet?

Once you do that, you could then consider smaller chunks to landscape out.

You could do pretty much anything back there. Some photos would be really helpful for us to come up with ideas.