You didn't state your zone location. In my area of western WA with dry summers & wet mild winters drainage is utmost because things rot in our cold wet soils if I don't amend soil for fall/winter crops. We need to add lime yearly due to the heavy rain leaching the soil. You could consult the county extension gardening resources or consult a local independent nursery for more information about the soils in your area. Mixing it up now sounds like a good idea. Mulch plants after planting. Add compost after harvest. Keep putting organic matter back in on top of the soil & the worms will work it in the rest of the way. You won't have to dig through & mix it all up again. The beauty of raised beds is that you only dig once. If you're planting transplants you could just part the layers & plant them. Seeds will need fine soil so they can break through. Chunks make it more difficult for them. I agree about allowing space for mulch to hold the moisture & provide some frost protection if your climate warrants.

Hi, My soil is very heavy red clay. It is hard to work. When it is wet it is clumpy and sticky and when it is dry it is like a fine ceramic. In fact, I actually made a pot out of it one time. It is very fertile, but a little acidic. Anyway, I build raised beds most of the time, just to save myself and my DH the hassle of trying to dig the clay. In my veggie garden, years of ammendments and green manure have finally created workable soil. And there are several flowerbeds around the house that are ammended clay. But mostly I build beds with timbers and imported soil. You can do it either way depending on the drainage and your patience. Good luck! Kathy

I have several Mt. Airy Fothergillas which were purchased as liners (large rooted cuttings) about 5 years ago. I planted them directly into the beds where I wanted them. I found that they grew quite slowly for the first 3 seasons, but then they started growing faster, especially width. The ones that are in similar conditions to those you describe are now about 4 1/2 feet tall and wide, though they may have more moisture than yours since they get runoff from a patio. The ones in drier situations have grown slower, so not watering regularly may have slowed yours some. They are relatively slow growing, compared to some deciduous rhododendrons I planted at the same time, but in my opinion are worth waiting for.

My soil is brick hard, heavy red clay with a thick Bermuda grass lawn. so I wanted to plant in raised beds rather than fighting this soil and invasive grass. I covered the existing sod with 4 layers of cardboard boxes to smother the grass, and put everything on top of that. In the thread "Reheat old pile in new composter??", I posted a comment "Cold vs Hot Compost" where I explained how I simply piled 6 feet of leaves and grass clippings inside my raised beds last fall and left them all winter. By spring I had a foot of rich leaf mold in the 3 raised beds where I planted herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. Last week I was removing a few of the determinate tomato vines that were past their prime and replacing them with some suckers I had removed earlier and rooted in pots. The roots of the old plants I was removing were anchored very well into the clay soil beneath the bed. The earthworms, soil microbes, and plant roots together have already begun to improve the tilth of the hard clay beneath the bed. There was no sign of the grass sod or cardboard boxes; the worms had eaten them all up. Last fall I had originally planned to double dig the area beneath the raised beds, until I found that I could not dig a hole more than a few inches deep. After only 9 months since I piled up the leaves, using only a hand trowel, I was now able to easily dig 6 inches into the original soil beneath the beds. It would have taken a jackhammer to have dug 6 inch last fall. This fall I'm planning to mix in more leaves to compensate for organic matter that has decayed this summer. As soon as my neighbors rake their leaves and put them by the road, I'm planning to drag them home with me to start a 4th bed for strawberries next spring. While double digging beds used to be considered the "gold standard" by which to get great results, new research is increasingly going the other way. I was reading a report on the Rodale Institute's website recently about mycorrhizal fungi and its benefits to crops. To maximize mycorrhizal colonization, their research is showing that you should plant cover crops which you mow down rather than turn under. By disturbing the soil as little as possible and keeping cover crops growing whenever fields are not in production, the soil supports development of more beneficial microbes that maintain the tilth of the soil better than plowing does. I've got a long discussion going about mycorrhizal fungi in the container forum. While soils often contain enough of the fungi so that inoculants are not needed, there has been some debate of whether plants in containers could benefit from inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi. Some said that the high temps in containers would destroy the fungi, but new research suggests the fungi survive the high temps of soil in containers during summer and are a great help to plants in containers during hot weather. Once you establish a healthy soil climate in the raised beds, recent research suggests that the microbes and plants will take over and do everything that is needed to maintain improve the soil beneath the bed as well.