Small raised beds!

I'm not ready to give up my plan, but I'm trying to figure out how I can make this work. I'm trying to come up with a way to divert water flow, so the roses won't get swamped when it rains. Maybe plant them a little higher, and put a "collar" of some sort (sloping out and away from the plants) around the base of the plant, to prevent so much water from collecting under the plant?
What you are talking about here, is pocket planting. It's a quick fix leading to the good solution. Buy seven or eight bags of compost, and create a "pocket" of good draining soil that you can work with. That way, you are starting to tackle the problem, but taking baby steps!!
Mound up the compost right over the hole you have in the slick clay, a large area so you don't get washed away. Put inches of black and white newspaper over your mound. Top that with straw or mulch or pine needles.
It's a good solution to clay that gives immediate gratification!

If you want to do it the hard way -- which is the best long term solution -- you'll need to double dig a big hole and loosen up the clay on the bottom.
Get a big shovel and dig a hole about four times bigger than you think you need it (a $50 hole for a 50 cent plant) and the depth of the shovel (the metal digging part). Put that dirt to one side.
Dig down another shovel depth and put that dirt to the other side.
Use a garden fork to loosen the clay in the bottom and work in a couple of coffee cans of gypsum and some manure and peat moss.
Put in half the dirt you took out. Use the fork to work in more gypsum, more manure, more peat moss.
Now stick the rose in and fill with the rest of the dirt mixed thoroughly with more gypsum, manure, peat moss, etc.
Mulch well.
Now go inside and treat your blisters and aching back.
It's hard work, but you only have to do it once. Your roses will love it.

Molly,
No offense, but before you try the above double digging method, check with your insurance to see if you have chiropractic coverage.
You see, I was convinced that was the way to go, until I squished three vertabrae in my neck by double digging a 10x10 veggie bed one day. It put me flat on my back all summer.
We only have 40% chiropractic coverage....
Lasagna gardening for me!!

I agree with mad mouser. There is no substitute for soil work. Sissy Z has a perfectly valid point as well. It also tends to be hard to find somebody else to do the work. Maybe you could hire a neighbor kid to work with you doing the soil work, it will likely be a trial & error process finding someone willing to do the work necessary. Now while the soil is moist is the time to do the soil work. After it dries out in the summer, the work increases.

Thanks for the ideas. I'm a little confused, though: if I dig a very large planting hole, and create a large "pocket" of good soil, the water still won't drain, if we get a lot of rain at any time. Wouldn't that be like planting in a large flower pot that doesn't have a drainage hole, then filling it with water?

This is what I did, but remember that I am new to gardening. I desperately wanted to grow some lavender which they say grows best in rocky, well-drained soil.

I got my husband, bless his heart, to dig a curved "ditch" about 10 feet away from my garden for my lavender planting area. Its about 12" wide and probably 12" deep and just long enough to plant 5 lavender plants in and space them about 2' apart. We got some river rocks and put in the bottom and then some sand on top of that and then just "topsoil" all of which I bought at wally world for a reasonably price. Even then the little ditch would back up with water around the lowest plant, so I had my hubby cut a sharp little drainage thing about 3" wide down to the bottom of the present planting area (12") and go off the bottom side of the planting area for several feet into the yard which is on a 25 degree slope. I filled that with sand, rocks and topsoil all the way up to the top of the long narrow hole. It seems to be working so far and it doesn't matter if the grass grows over it because it will still drain better than the clay. Now, the water doesn't stay in the planting area but drains further down the yard. The lavender has been doing well for close to a month now.

For my Lady Banks roses, he dug a bigger hole than we needed and we did the way someone above described with mixing the topsoil in the bottom with the removed dirt and using bagged "topsoil" for the rest of the planting up to the top of the hole. So far they are doing well after a couple of weeks.

Good luck and let us know what you end up doing.

Katie

MollyS, you are right about creating the effect of a pot with no drainage. In Georgia we call it digging a bathtub. The surrounding clay does hold in water. The other thing to consider about double-digging is that over a few seasons the area will revert to clay. The solution is to talk to a county extension agent about the slow water percolation in that spot and find out what can solve the problem. Here, at least, you can make appointments with an extension agent to come to your house and look it over. Good luck. Hope this time next year you are posting pictures of your beautiful roses.

My experiance of adding tons more compost and manure than anyone thought was necessary created a mound where drainage was no longer an issue. (raised bed gardening)

I agree that just soil work w/o the soil conditioners is not enough.

My solution for rosemary surviving the winter in the bowl where I lived was to frame in a raised bed which I double dug, added tons of manure, topped off with the best soil from my garden with plenty more manure mixed in.see example here

I have to disagree with SugarHill, perhaps in Georgia the Ext. Agent can come out-in TN, there is a funding crisis and only a few extensions have full time agents, no way can you call them to your home.
To the point of bathtub digging, this might be a problem if you did nothing more than add a bag of compost and walk away. Even then, the compost would condition the soil to a point. The Lasagna bed method is working for you. You aren't digging, the components are breaking down, attracting worms which aerate the clay and add castings which also condition. It is a process, it does take time, but the hardest part is starting!!

I am a new gardener also. I also have clay (which they told me was topsoil when I bought it!) I have been digging and digging and adding compost and peat moss. So far it is working with my David Austin roses, hydrangeas, iris, most of the boxwood, holly and false cypress.

I do have a number of plants that are still not happy such as many daylillies, asters, glads, daffodils, and some plants that have not come up (and I can't remember what they are).

We have a sort-of raised bed: the beds have topsoil and are higher than the surrounding lawn area. Every hole I dig larger than needed and add compost and peat moss. I had to dig a ditch between the grass and the beds so that all my small bulbs and plants do not get washed away. So far that seems to be working.

Sharon in Spring Hill (Z6b)