With large plants like trees and shrubs amending small planting holes is basically always counterproductive, better results from plants in unamended holes on same sites in organized studies pretty consistent. Anything that puts a plant in a pocket of one soil texture surrounded by a different texture is likely to produce problems with how water moves into and out of the amended area. During wet conditions on heavy soils a new plant is likely to be sitting in water, during dry conditions the unamended soil around the hole may attract water away from the plant. The stresses created by these adversities result in less growth than if there was the same soil texture throughout. Amending the entire potential rooting area of the new plant can give it a uniform soil texture, but there is still the problem of the organic amendments decomposing and disappearing well before the shrub, tree or perennial is no longer being cultivated on the site. Placing good topsoil on top has the advantage of a mineral component (sand, silt, clay) being part of the material used, the whole thing is not going to subside and leach away. Likewise structurally stable materials like sand can be used to break up a soil throughout an entire bed and keep it that way, but huge amounts must be used in order to produce the desired effect - unless the existing soil already has a fairly high sand component. Where berms or mounds of topsoil are not adequate wetness is best dealt with by installing drain lines, with new plantings going into the existing soil afterward. Organic matter can be supplied as a mulch, as nature usually does it.

look out for a lab that does Reams testing. Carey Reams didn't come up with the test. It's just a Morgan extract developed by (oddly enough) Dr. M.F. Morgan at the University of Connecticut. Calling it a Ream's test gives credit where none is due and completely ignores the creator. Also, when looking for a lab, most that run the test will call it a "Morgan extract" so searching for a "Ream's test" will exclude a lot of labs that do perform that test. Of course, Reams came up with her own interpretation critera. However, they are based on a prescribed lbs. per acre formula. ie. she wants 400 lbs. per acre of phosphorous. This is the next best thing to useless because the amount of nutrients that would be sufficient in a sandy soil are worlds away from sufficient in a heavy clay. (and a myriad of other factors play a role) You also aren't limited to Morgan extract to gie an idea of what is actually available rather than the total that you would get from a strong acid extraction. In fact there are many valuable weak acid extractions that follow the same basic principle. Mehlich 2, Mehlich 3 and DTPA are other examples. However, the best method will vary with your soil type. Following one "guru" style type of testing rather than choosing the correct method of analysis and interpretation (which touches on the whole religious mind set without the thinking to back it up scenario that has been such a popular topic lately) can result in poor information and results.

Depends. If the soil has ample amounts of organic matter now and an active Soil Food Web mixing in a high carbon source of material might have little to no adverse affect. However, if the soil lacks adequate amounts of organic matter and an active Soil Food Web, mixing a source of high carbon into the soil can result in the soil bacteria getting busy digesting that carbon and temporarily causing most of the available Nitrogen to be tied up. Once that carbon is digested, or mostly so, that N will be once again available to the plants.

I have red clay soil and it can be turned into beautiful garden soil with the addition of organic matter. We're in our 16th year here and the soil in the areas we've amended bears little resemblance to the clay we started with. We added organic matter to it as much as we could in the early years, amending each area well before planting. Then we mulched, and we continue to add mulch regularly. As the mulch decomposes, it further enriches the soil. Red clay is full of minerals and plants grow great in it once you've added organic matter to improve its tilth and drainage. Have you ever gone for a walk in a woodland? Ever notice how brown, humusy and rich the soil is there? We have about 10 acres of woodland filled with beautiful native plants of all kinds. The soil is brown, rich, humusy....just gorgeous, rich soil. When we first moved here, I wondered why the soil there was so gorgeous when just a few yards away in the area where we had built the house, we had dense, compacted, hard-as-concrete red clay. I incorrectly assumed the woods grew there because the soil was so great. Then, in our 2nd or 3rd year here, we transplanted a bunch of tiny oak trees out of the woodland and up into the yard area. Guess what we found? There was about 8 or 9" of brown, humusy soil, but once you dug down that deeply, it was the same yucky red clay we had up the hill where we built the house. Those gigantic trees might be growing in humusy rich brown soil, but they started growing in red clay and their roots are deep in that clay. Over the last few decades, as leaves, bark, dead trees, other dead plant material, insects and even wild animals died and decomposed there on the floor of the woodland, they all combined to created that brown, humusy rich soil. So, in an odd way, the red clay---by being rich enough to feed and nourish the trees when they sprouted---in essence created that brown, rich soil. No one dug out all the old yucky red clay dirt and replaced it with brown rich soil.....it happened naturally, in its own way and its own time. To enrich our soil, we added any form of organic matter we could to the soil....compost, chopped/shredded autumn leaves, pine bark fines, composted animal manure....you name if....if it was organic (from nature), we added it. We added lava sand, Texas green sand, soft rock phosphate....you name it....all in the name of improving the soil. As the soil got better, earthworms and all other manner of earth-dwelling creatures thrived in it and further improved it themselves. When we were searching for land here, I deliberately searched for land with clay as opposed to the fast-draining sugar sand common in my area, or even the brown sandy loam found in some parts of our county. Given the choice, I'd choose red clay every time. It is a lot easier to amend it than it would have been to amend the sand, which tends to drain much too quickly in our area which stays much too dry most years. With red clay, so many nutrients are already there. With sugar sand, the nutrients aren't there and you have to add them. All that clay needs in general is organic matter added to it to make it great soil. I've never regretted choosing property with clay soil. We actually have a few pockets of sandy soil, and I have more trouble with them. Among other things, voles tunnel through the sand and eat everything they encounter. I'd be a raving lunatic by now if we had only sandy soil and not clay because the voles would have eaten virtually everything I've ever planted. Don't fear your red clay soil. It likely is highly fertile and only needs to have organic matter added to it to make it both retain water properly and drain well. Once that aspect of clay soil is fixed, it is perfect. Dawn