Peat moss is a horrible amendment to clay as it will reduce drainage, clump, create dry pockets and is harder rehydrate once dry. A much better approach to use compost, well rotted manure and one of my favorite, well shredded leaves or any other fully or semi-composted soil amendment. Adding vermiculite or perlite is a waste as it seems to "float" off the clay in a season. Mixing in coarse, not fine sand may help a bit, but is not that benefitial or needed if organic matter is added in decent quantities. Sandy soil may be easier to mix in organic material, but it doesn't hold water well and organic matter seems to drain away very quickly....unless you use peat which is in its place in a sandy soil, but NEVER in clay. The best soil I ever saw was just below the fall line in Georgia. It had a top layer of very loamy sand and about 8-14" down it was red clay. The farmers there mixed the two together to make the best looking, feeling to the touch and smelling soil I have ever seen anywhere. The crops they grew were very healthy and the fields were replenished with manure every year so the soil would not get exausted. I sure wish we had some of that top layer here to mix in, but the builders hauled it away when they made the "starter castle" home complexes. I'm sure it was all sold back to us as top soil in bags.

You know, that's a really compact clump of yucca- instead of fighting it, why not use it along with the cedar and other shrub as winter backbone? They do have nice fragrant white blooms in summer. If it were spread out or a huge clump, i'd fuss with it, but if you're wanting to make life simple... leave it be. I'd say it depends on the compost whether you till it in. If it seems like it has a good bit of earthy stuff for the plants to dig into, then no, but if it's more top dressing stuff, perhaps till in half and top with compost. The quality can vary year to year and by the time of year, depending on what they are shredding and composting. If you're in wake co, you will need to find a truck/hauler to haul it for you, but the compost itself is fairly cheap- like 30 a big truckload full. City runs 2 for 1 specials sometimes, too. Meaning pay for 1 load, get the second free that same day- but you'd still need to pay for hauling. You could do a lasagna type bed- layer on newspaper, ect, and build up with out messing with tilling at all. There's been a good bit posted about it, and there are at least 2 books. It really does work if you have a little patience/time. There is a thread for the swap on the exchanges forum. It should have the where what when info- tho i can tell you quickly it's may 8th, at white deer park in garner. Doesn't matter if you're a newb. We always have some. Just bring some good food and anything you have to spare that you think gardeners could use- pots, hoses, rocks, etc. Even shallow boxes would be appreciated as folks always need them to haul away their new found goodies.

OK, y'all, this thread is so active I can hardy keep up, but I am going to try. Melissa, We are so glad you stumbled across this forum too. Containers are a great way to garden but they do require very careful attention to watering. Also, the soilless mix to fill them is expensive (often, when filling up my containers, I mix up my own soilless mix for far less than I'd spend buying a name brand soil-less mix/potting soil). The size/productivity of your plants is limited by the size of your container so for most things, the larger the container, the better. Also, during periods of hotter weather, containers may need to be watered daily and in the hottest 100-degree-plus weather, perhaps twice a day. The easiest way is to hook up a drip irrigation system and put it on a timer, especially if you are away from home a lot. Container gardening could be a whole thread in itself. I'll start a container gardening thread today or tomorrow and try to lay out some of the basics. Containers do not have to be fancy containers though....I use Tidy Cat litter buckets, which I have saved and used the whole decade-plus that we've lived here, and I spray paint them dark green using Fusion paint made especially for painting plastics. I also use Sunleaves grow bags. With clay soil, it takes years of constant amending to get it into really good shape. In the past I have only expanded my garden a little at a time....by adding an area maybe 40 to 60 feet long by 5 to 6 feet wide. Gumbo clay needs all the help it can get but it can be turned into great soil over a period of time. Our formerly red clay in the garden area is now a nice brown clayey loam because we've added organic matter to it for ten years, so I finally feel ready to start another garden spot....in three different places. However, they all will get fairly minimal improvement this winter (because I'm going to be working on 3 fairly large areas at once) and then every year I'll improve them more until they finally have pretty good soil. With clay the issue is that the particles of soil stick together and the prevents water from soaking in as well as it should, it also ensures that when the soil dries it is as hard and impenetrable as concrete so water just rolls off the surface and doesn't soak in, and it makes it hard for plant roots to grow. Technically, plant roots do not grow in soil. Rather, they grow in the air spaces between soil particles. Clay soil particles clump together so tightly that there are no air spaces for roots to grow in, and that's why we have to add tons of organic matter....to break up the particles of gumbo clay. The reason raised beds work so well with clay is that they put your plant roots in improved soil above the regular grade of the surrounding area. That allows water to drain down out of the beds to a certain extent. When 12.4 inches of rain fell here at our house in one day last year, I expected to lose my entire garden. You cannot expect ANY vegetable plant to survive that kind of flooding rainfall in clay soil. What did I lose? Only some onions and potatoes and a few corn plants that were not in a raised bed. Had I not had raised beds, I would have lost everything. George, We get more of the bermuda grass out by hand tools too, but in certain areas the ground is so clayey that we have to break it first with a tiller. When we do that, I rake out/remove by hand all the grass runners and stolons I can afterward, but it is hard to get a lot of it because it has been chopped into tiny pieces. Eventually, over several years time, I mostly win the bermuda war. Melissa, For hand tools, buy the absolute highest quality tools you can find and you'll never regret it. A high quality hand tool is a thing of beauty! Jay, I have bindweed in two places here and despite everything I do, it seems impossible to erradicate. Some years it isn't as bad, and this was one of those years....or maybe I am gradually winning the war. I hate bindweed as much as I hate bermuda grass and Johnson grass. Carol, I love containers and have found them to be lifesavers in very wet years like 2007. None of the plants I have in containers come close to approaching the size/productivity those same varieties achieve in the ground, but they do well enough to satisfy me. This year, there were several tomatoes that produced exceptionally well in feed tubs....including Chocolate Stripes, Momotaro and Scarlet Red. I wish I had 100 more feed tubs (I only have six). Y'all, I have to agree that no one looks the way I pictured them but.....I am going to stay on everybody's good side by saying that every person I met at the swap that I had not met before was younger, thinner and prettier than I had imagined. The one thing I already knew though was that every one one of them had a big heart of gold beating there in their chest and that was confirmed when I met them. Dawn

Hi Azura, Hardy sweet peas (Lathyrus latifolius) can take the sun. Do you know they have little to none of the wonderful fragrance of the annual sweet peas? IÂm planning to plant some along my "privacy" lattice panels (in sun) for one of my perennial vines so I donÂt have to start all over each year with annuals. Foxglove isnÂt going to like the sun at all out hereÂotherwise it would be perfect. I planted some in mostly shade a few weeks ago that I started from seed this spring, and theyÂre not very happy with the heat either. If you manage to get some of your other plants big enough to cast some shade, you might try planting them right next to the bigger plants. When I posted yesterday, I looked over a couple of the toxic plant lists, and had never realized before that most of the toxic plants are shade plants. Aconitum, monkshood is another very toxic plant that would be great for your purposes, but itÂs for shade too. If I come up with any toxic sun plants that might work for you, IÂll come back and post. Too bad the foxglove wonÂt work! CanÂt you just see all the little buggers laying around having heart attacks! ;-) I almost forgot! I have Campanula glomerata too, and mine isnÂt spreading at all. I love the stuff. There have been different threads on the campanulas in the past, and IÂve always found an amazing discrepancy between which ones will spread for some people, yet be very well mannered for others. The Campanula punctatas are invasive for everybodyÂbut I canÂt seriously recommend you put that in! I think youÂll come back to haunt me some day if I do! Skybird