NEWBIES: dealing with heavy clay soil
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
14 years ago
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13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
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newbie help with improving clay soil
Comments (27)I was in your shoes last year so I can only imagine what you're feeling now :). My whole backyard is full of rock hard Californian clay soil (also with lots of rocks I have to pick out, and concrete chunks, and roof tiles, you name it!). During spring and summer it's like one giant brick, it's impossible to dig and you can see huge deep cracks everywhere. So as someone who knows what you have to deal with, my recommendation is lots and lots of organic matter! As much as you can possibly get your hands on! And like others have mentioned never leave the soil bare, any mulch you have on top will help retain moisture and slowly improve the structure of your soil. Slowly but surely you'll build a population of earthworms which will help you out (I also had 0 last year). You'll have to keep adding stuff every year too. I thought I had added enough organic matter to certain locations in my backyard only to find it had disappeared this year! (The soil was still clay, but it was much easier to dig since I'd already done it last spring). I would suggest making paths in your garden so you don't step all over the soil you worked so hard to improve and compact it, as clay so easily does (the oxygen you introduced while digging is important for root development). I also recommend not working the soil when it's too wet (and sticks together) and if it's too dry letting the water soak in will make it much much much easier to dig. The upside is, clay usually has lots of nutrients and once structure is improved will be wonderful stuff! Raised beds weren't an option for me (I live at home and my mom didn't want any) but I've only heard wonderful things about them from other people with clay soils so you might want to go that route (a lot less/no digging for you). You won't be stepping all over the soil compacting it either. And the last thing that comes to my mind is try seeing if you have a local community compost place. I had NO idea I could pick up FREE compost at my local recycling center (I can get up to 1 truckload a week!) until this year. Sometimes it has little bits of plastic in it, or maybe a golfball or some other random object but it's helped my backyard out immensely now that I haul in as much compost as I can carry per week free :) Our community compost gets tested too, so I'm not worried about diseases or anything. Whew, that was a long post! I hope that helps! Happy gardening! :)...See MoreHelp Dealing with Heavy Soils
Comments (14)Hi, Jon! I DID note your awesome contributions to a few threads about composting, but my efforts pale in comparison, so I felt I had nothing to add other than a sincere "Way to go! Strong work!" From another of my posts: Obviously, I think the grower's soil choice when establishing a planting for the long term is the most important decision he/she will make. There is no question that the roots are the heart of the plant, and plant vitality is inextricably linked in a hard lock-up with root vitality. In order to get the best from your plants, you absolutely must have happy roots. If you start with a water-retentive medium, you cannot improve it's aeration or drainage characteristics by adding larger particulates. Sand, perlite, Turface, calcined DE ...... none of them will work. To visualize why sand and perlite can't change drainage/aeration, think of how well a pot full of BBs would drain (perlite), then think of how poorly a pot full of pudding would drain (bagged soil). Even mixing the pudding and perlite/BBs together 1:1 in a third pot yields a mix that retains the drainage characteristics and PWT height of the pudding. It's only after the perlite become the largest fraction of the mix (60-75%) that drainage & PWT height begins to improve. At that point, you're growing in perlite amended with a little potting soil. You cannot add coarse material to fine material and improve drainage or the ht of the PWT. Use the same example as above & replace the pudding with play sand or peat moss - same results. The benefit in adding perlite to heavy soils doesn't come from the fact that they drain better. The fine peat or pudding particles simply 'fill in' around the perlite, so drainage & the ht of the PWT remains the same. All perlite does in heavy soils is occupy space that would otherwise be full of water. Perlite simply reduces the amount of water a soil is capable of holding because it is not internally porous. IOW - all it does is take up space. If you want to profit from a soil that offers superior drainage and aeration, you need to build it into the soil from the start, by ensuring that the soil is primarily comprised of particles much larger than those in peat/compost/coir, which is why the recipes I suggest as starting points all direct readers to START with the foremost fraction of the soil being large particles, to ensure excellent aeration. From there, if you choose, you can add an appropriate volume of finer particles to increase water retention. You do not have that option with a soil that is already extremely water-retentive right out of the bag. I fully understand that many are happy with the results they get when using commercially prepared soils, and I'm not trying to get anyone to change anything. My intent is to make sure that those who are having trouble with issues related to soil, understand why the issues occur, that there are options, and what they are. Al...See MoreOsmanthus Fragrans and Clay Soil
Comments (17)" changing of the soil texture inside the planting hole may cause it to collect water, like a sump." And I suspect this is related to why the BAD advice of hole amending became popular at all. In climates with hot summers and highly irregular, sometimes scant rainfall (i.e., not the PNW, where your rainfall or seasonal lack of is more predicable and therefore irrigation for some kinds of plant is the norm, not the exception)...it's possible that a moisture retentive patch of soil superficially makes plants apparently easier to water. And therefore "easier to grow". Say you plant 10 Gumpo Azaleas in hard southern clay, and minimally mulch them. For 5 of them you do the "5 gallon hole for a 1 gallon plant" thing and backfill with moisture retentive compost/peat/perlite mixes. For 5 you plant straight in the brick clay. Let's say you have a big, quick downpour on June 1, getting 1/2" of rain in 10-15 minutes. As can definitely happen in the eastern 1/2 of the country. Most of the rain near the straight-hole plants will run off. In the "sumps", a lot of the rain will manage to be collected because the potting soil mix will percolate better. I can totally imagine that 2 weeks later, w/o supplemental watering, the 5 plants in the "5 gallon holes" are still going to be green and perky, and the straight planted ones wilting. But it's a devil's bargain for all the reasons mentioned in the paper I posted. In fact like anyone I can't really get into my head 25 years ago, but I definitely remember READING the advice to amend/backfill, but I think after a while I instinctively started avoiding it, because I realized it caused such problems. In my late teens I rototilled an entire bed adding Permatil, which suddenly made it possible (or at least somewhat more possible) to cultivate the various high elevation South African forbs I was into at the time. But entire bed amendment is very different from in-hole amendment; and golf course/athletic field managers wouldn't pay hundreds of thousands to do whole field/whole course amendment with say, Turface, if it didn't have a positive, provable outcome...with growing grass. (may not help typical trees/shrubs nearly as much...they have bigger, stronger roots) It was a hassle to get the rototiller and clearly I realized running around putting permatil into individuals holes wasn't helping or wasn't going to. BTW I was at a nursery somewhere recently, honestly can't remember where, and heard this advice (amend/backfill) dutifully recommended. So the idiocy is still out there. (as happened to the OP, too) In fairness to embo - because I am clearly the fair one - he's probably right that the sump effect is the main problem. But as I'm pointing out, and the authors of the paper believe, the sump effect itself perturbs the optimal growth pattern for the roots....See MoreI need to amend my heavy clay soil in preparation to plant a camellia
Comments (7)Unless you can amend the entire planting bed as far as roots of the mature shrub may travel, then don't. Amending individual planting holes is never advised and especially in clay, can be a recipe for disaster. What happens is you develop an enriched, moisture retentive planting material surrounded by slow to drain clay or essentially a moisture holding soil bucket. Very few plants will tolerate these conditions. Instead, dig a wide but quite shallow hole and center the shrub's rootball so that it is slightly above the existing soil grade. Backfill only with what was removed and mound up slightly to the top of the rootball. Apply any amendments you feel necessary as a top dressing or mulch to finish off the slightly mounded planting....See Moregarcanad
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