Years ago, I had terrible clay. I dug all my beds, it was back breaking. This was before the gardenweb and "lasagne" bed forming (which is basically a version of creating the garden above the soil.) I threw out solid junks of clay and amended with loads and loads of compost/humus, mostly in cheap bags from Walmart. Because of the clay, many poorly chosen plants did not do well, so each time I replanted an area, I double-dug and turned in more compost. Cost me a lot of money and sweat. Today, my soil is SWEET to work in. Fluffy, easy. A real joy. People comment on it when they see me dig. I often hated gardening when I had the clay and I hated weeding..because it was so difficult. Now, weeding is fun. The stuff just pops out for the most part. So, it can be done, you just have to want to do it. My philosophy was this: never ignore an opportunity to amend...if I was digging for any reason, I amended. I usually bought the humus bags on clearance, too, so I'd have them on hand whenever I was gardening. I also used some pricy soil conditioners now and then, as well as gypsum. Just depended on my budget/mood and level of frustration. Lately, I've seen quite a few bags at nurseries that say "soil conditioner". Nice thing is, the hostas always did just fine in the clay. Those were the beds that took me the longest to get fluffy because I didn't have to replant them often, so they got amended less. However, even years of mulching helped those beds and they are nice now, too. If I were you, I'd do the largest area you have time and budget for. Maybe instead of "one hosta hole", you dig and amend 1 square yard each time you plant a hosta. Before you know it, you'll have beautiful fluff. Some free opportunities do exist that will help: coffee grounds from coffee places, autumn leaves on curbs...bring them home, run the mower over them a few times and spread them on your beds, your own produce waste for composting, your community may offer free compost. When you get free stuff, you often introduce a lot of weed seeds. I found that applying PREEN really helped with that.

Potting mix does let you pull plants up easier if they have only been in the ground a short time. After about a year the roots will start growing into the surrounding topsoil. Whenever I plant anything special I use potting mix to back fill. I have major Silver Maple roots which makes it almost impossible to ammend the soil here so the potting mix helps a little. I keep extra hostas for trades in growers pots with potting mix. I overwinter them in the pots sitting on the driveway and covered in leaves. Since I go through so much potting mix I make my own using large bales of milled peat moss and add perlite to it. I often mix in old potting mix with the new to make it go farther. While it might not be as good as name brand store bought potting mix it gets the job done and it is a small fraction of the cost. They are only in pots temporarily and it all goes in the ground anyways. I buy bales of peat at Lowes and I bought a 4 cubic foot bale of perlite which was enough for about 6 large bales of the peat. Bales of perlite and vermiculite can be bought at large nurseries that make their own potting mixes. You usually have to specifically ask for it as they don't keep it out in their retail areas. Same with buying shade cloth from them. If they use something, they probably sell it too. If you buy potting mix additives at the big box stores you only get very small bags and the price is outrageous compared to buying it in bulk from a nursery. The bale of perlite cost me 29 bucks. When making your own potting mix from dry peat, mix the peat with the additive while it is dry then wet it down completely before using it. I use a 30 gallon growers pot for mixing up batches of potting mix. I save a ton of money making my own. If it is good enough for the nurseries then it is good enough for me. The reason I add old potting mix with the new is that it is like adding compost. What is in the old mix is partially rotted just like a good compost. Usually when you get store bought mix, it is wet. You are paying for that water as part of the weight of the mix. Same when buying topsoil in bags. It is always very wet so you are paying for the water in it. The more money I can save on potting mix, the more I can spend on more hostas! One other tip, never let potting mix dry out completely. It is harder to get it completely wet again if it gets stone dry unless you let it sit in water for some time. Water will run off of completely dry potting mix.

Missy, I found the best pots for me are the ones I found at Lowes, they are various sizes, various depths, and they are black plastic with holes on the sides of the pot. So no matter if you set them on the ground, they still drain out the sides. Earlier in the other thread I did not finish with what I use to pot my hosta. The MiracleGro (no moisture control please), some perlite, some bark small pieces as small as you can find, and then I mix in some crushed crab shell. I suppose you could use shrimp shells too, but oh mercy enduring the odor would be awful! The chitin in the crab shells feeds the good bacteria that eat the bad nematodes which will mar the beauty of your hosta, or other plants for that matter. If you discover really long roots on your hosta, then tease them out a bit to fit around the potting mix coned up high in the pot.....I make sure the crown of the plant stays up higher than the mix surrounding it, but cover the roots. You don't want mix covering the stems/petioles of the plant. Water it in, top it off with a bit more mix, and set it in the shade. Potting it up will be a shock to it at first, but with shade it should recover nicely within a day or two. If it is a big hosta, with lots of long stems and heavy leaves, it is recommended that you gather the stems together and put some blue masking tape (3M is blue, it is not too sticky) around the bouquet BEFORE you dig it out of the soil. Then, leave the tape on the plant until after the leaves have recovered from being moved and potted up. This keeps them from drooping. Size your pot according to the root system. If it is a black or dark colored pot especially keep the pot from the sun. I deal with this problem by surrounding large pots with smaller ones or else with plants that have large tops to make shade and protect the black pot from overheating. The sun can really COOK the roots!

oh come on bkay.. you are one of two pot queens here ... lol ... media failure is based on drainage .. as the media compacts or breaks down ... water does not flow freely thru it ... usually defaulting to puddling.. and running down the edges .. eventually when you unpot.. you find all the roots that were in the middle.. dry rotted .. and are dead.. and all live roots are out at the edges ... with a plant in the ground.. this is when you would start seeing fairy rings ... how do you SEE that in a pot ... well.. take it out of the pot and look ... generally though.. i guess i wouldnt go more than 2 or 3 years.. depending on the quality of the media you started with ... ken