It's not the end of the world, your plants may do just fine. There are some details we don't know about your situation, but here's my best guess:

Clay can get very soggy in wet weather and may not drain too well. So don't water until it begins to dry out a little. It's a good idea to plant things a bit high, especially trees, so for future reference, consider elevating the root ball about 1/3 of its diameter, and mound up soil and mulch around it to blend it in. This will help the roots get air when it's very wet.

As for the soil...if you had dug out a large area and replaced with more porous soil, water would likely collect in there like a bathtub, creating a different set of problems.

We started with clay at my house in 1991. We've used a LOT of compost and mulch and over time the soil improves on its own. Use compost as a top dressing on your planted area, and cover that with a mulch. If your city has free shredded yard waste mulch, or if you can get fresh utility crew tree and brush chips, these have more nutrients than plain wood mulch. THE WORMS WILL TILL ALL THIS INTO THE SOIL OVER TIME, so it will disappear and you'll have to add more. But you will not have to dig up your plants.

Search here on 'clay soil' and do some reading.

Good luck and welcome to the forum!

Tox

You 'll be fine, dont panic. I have clay too, it just takes time to get the soil right. Compost is one of the best things you can do. I would just add it around the planted trees and let nature do the rest. Digging them up may do more harm and may set them back another year of growing.

The things you planted should not have a problem in clay. I have solid clay too. I had to dig holes and refill totally with compost because the clay was in balls that could not be broken up and would have been impossible to return to the soil. It would have been like molding play dough around the roots or throwing large rocks back in leaving large air spaces around the roots. I didn't have a sledge hammer to pulverize the rocks. I had a lot of clay balls (rocks) I had to haul away. I have probably hauled off 50% of my flowerbeds since we moved here 4 years ago and replaced with compost. I know that is not advisabe but it has worked fine for me and is much faster than putting it all on top and waiting for worms to til it under. I am doing that too, however. My soil had no worms then. Not a single one! I hauled them in with the compost. I have not had any problem with the bathtub affect. Maybe it's because we don't get a lot of rains here... until this year.

sunny: clay balls like rocks? It sounds like you have an even more horrible type of clay than most clay-dwellers. Yeesh.

My neighbor and I joked about making pots and setting up a stand and selling them on the busy street behind our houses. I've never seen anything like it. All we needed was a kiln.

A couple things you might like to do:

Check your local town/city website. It may tell you the types of trees and shrubs that are tolerant of your clay soil and grow well in your area. You may be lucky and have purchased things that don't need their soil amended too drastically.

Keep your receipts. If you made your purchases at a reputable business, they should provide a 1 year warranty on your trees. During that year you can learn a lot and if they die, they can be replaced.

Go for a walk to meet your neighbours. Most people are willing to talk about their landscaping and what has worked for them.

Start a compost pile. If you've never had one, I'd suggest using conventional methods. You can read a lot about it on this forum. I personally would stay clear of free compost from your local city/town if they have it. You can't be guaranteed what type of materials went into it. Only you can decide if you're willing to take that risk.

Read and learn about the specific trees and shrubs you bought. For example, you'll learn that hydrangeas need different care than lilacs, etc. You might like to read about organic gardening, mulching, pest identification, etc.

Good luck and enjoy your new yard.

Clay is the greatest stuff there is to grow plants in because clay holds large amounts of nutrients and moisture. However, those nutrients and moisture are held very tightly in clay and often not available to the plants. Adding organic matter to clay soils helps release those tightly held nutrients and the soil moisture.
Whether you need do something spectacular (dig everything up) or not depends on what your base soil is, clay, sand, or loam, or some combination of those and that depends on just where in Wisconsin you are. Adding a little clay to a sandy soil will do little and adding more clay to a clay soil does not really do any harm, but iot also does no real good,
So what is your base soil?

Thanks Tox, goog idea about mounding the root ball up. I wish I would have done that. Berry and Sunny, you both made me feel better about it! Nutsaboutflowers, great ideas. I am keeping the receipts and we are looking at starting a compost pile soon. Kim I am near lake michigan where clay is the rule. I dont know what the base is. There is clay on top and there is clay when I dig down! There is only clay!! I guess I feel better about the garden now, but I will surely start composting as soon as I can.

You must be in a former lake bed to have all that clay. I thought there was a lot of sand around Lake Michigan, but apparently it's not all sand.

What type of soil you can have around any of the great lakes depends on where you are. My soil, 12 miles inland from Lake Michigan is Lake Michigan beach sand while my sister, 6 miles inland from the same lake and 6 miles west of me is in a clay soil pocket that meanders up and down the lake shore. The beaches of the lake in Wisconsin are often covered with stone, but some have the sand.
billfaith is, eviedently, in an area where clay is predominate and all he needs do is add copious quantities of organic matter to that clay to make it workable and better. Just as I need to add organci matter to my sand so it can retain nutrients and moisture.

If you kept some of the clay (non clumped) you should be fine. How large were the holes you dug? If you just dug a hole the size of the rootball of the plant you were planting, the roots may not be able to penetrate the surrounding hard clay. You also might get the 'swimming pool' effect, which is if you have a lot of rain, the holes you dug may fill up with water and not be able to drain into the surrounding clay.

I would keep an eye on the plants and see how they do. I moved into a new home where the builder planted stuff in small holes in clay and some things did fine while others (azaleas) had problems. Either way, adding compost on top can help.

We have clay soil here. Over almost 5 yrs it has dramatically improved with addition of compost and mulching
everything. Some tips about clay soil: Dig a very wide hole but only as deep as the plant's root ball (or even a little shallower as others have suggested). The width should be maybe 3x more. Use the clay soil mixed with compost to fill back in the hole with the plant. Toss the clumps or very hard pieces in the compost pile. Mulch. The best time to dig in our clay soil is a few days after a rain. If it is very dry, you cannot dig w/o a pick axe. If it is very wet, it will just clump and become like pottery clay. It should be the consistency of moist chocolate cake.
I hated clay when I moved here but now I like it fine.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I want to lay some compost on top. Walmart has bagged stuff called horse manure and humus. Its pretty cheap. Is this any good for what I want?