Thank you Buford. I trust your word seeing your gorgeous roses on the forum.

And here's a tip. Wait till after it rains to work clay soil. It will be much easier on the back! A spade fork works really well to help loosen the soil.

That's good to know. Clay is a big departure from working with sand, which is light and easy, no rocks, however holds nothing.

What I do takes a little bit of work but it works. I have a 25 gal. nursery pot that I flip upside down to use for hole size. If it ends up a little bigger, even better. Dig about 18/20" down and put the clay into the 25 gal pot. In the bottom of the hole I loosen the soil up real good with my shovel, throw in a big shovel full of all purpose sand (Low's), a couple of shovels full of shredded leaves a big shovel full of "Sta-Green garden soil" (Low's, orange bag) and mix it up a little. In a wheel barrow, I mix 1/2 bag of garden soil (about 1 1/2 cu ft), 3 big shovels of sand and 2 good shovels of cay from the 25 gal.pot. Mixed up real good and you have a good sandy loam that your rose will thrive in. For a potted rose, fill the hole about 1/2 way and wet it down. Don't flood it. Take your rose in the pot and put it in the hole. If you have to move some soil to get your rose to fit properly, do so. Use about 1/2 cup of Milorganite and sprinkle it on the soil. Take your rose out of it's pot and put it in place. Back fill the hole with your mixed soil and wet down real good. When the soil settles down a little, add more soil to finish filling in, mulch real good and wet everything down again. For bare roots I fill the hole completely up with my mixed soil, then dig out the soil that I need to plant my bare root correctly. My rose's love this treatment to get started in. I have a thing about putting a $20 plant in a $.50 hole. I just don't like take a chance about "maybe".

What part of Athens are you moving to??

Ken, I'm not afraid of the work. This sounds like great advise that I will follow. My plan is to do one section at a time, not a huge space. But you know how it is with roses, sometimes we lose control, ha ha. My first bed will be the climber 'Polka' on a sturdy trellis, in a mixed bed with mainly purple and neutral companion plants and maybe a clematis. Next year I'll start on another one if I can maintain the discipline. We are moving to Winterville, just outside of Athens.

Ken's roses are beautiful. He's a top exhibitor, so he knows! Polka is a great rose. We went to a fellow rosarians yard last year to dig up some of his roses as he was going into assisted living and he wanted his roses to go to good homes. I gave Polka to a friend. She just had some awesome blooms on it.

Get a soil test. Piedmont clay may need a pH adjustment and perhaps Mg or other minerals. Lime and phosphate, if needed, should be added before planting. Call the county ag extension.

Not to contradict Buford, be it's important not to dig or even step on clay when it's too wet. If you compact it when wet, it may not recover for decades. Ideally, moist enough to penetrate, but dry enough that clods break when struck.

Leaves and bark will rob nitrogen if dug in. Put them on the surface as mulch instead. Manure is much the best amendment. It will change the texture.

If water stands in the area after a rain, raise the bed several inches.

Well not too wet. But having had some recent rain really helps to make it easier to work with. But if it's soaked and just turns to mud, you want to wait for it to dry out a bit. I think our general area has had sufficient rain this year that you should be ok.

Ken and others who work in clay soil I have a question about the bathtub effect. My sister who has clay in her Maine garden says you can't dig a hole, even a big one, that the entire bed must be amended in order to avoid the 'bathtub effect' of water pooling. In your description Ken, it doesn't sound like you are amending the entire bed. Thoughts?

That is true, to a certain extent. However, I've seen Ken's yard. He has his roses in slightly raised beds and as he said, he digs down about 2 fees and also loosens the soil at the bottom. Plus he uses sand and some of the native clay in refilling the hole. That is key because if you just plop topsoil in there, you basically have a clay pot filled with potting soil that wont drain. Also, Ken's roses are fairly close together, so he really is almost amending the whole bed. If you've got a spot that will not drain, then raising the roses up a bit helps. I've done that in my front bed that is fairly flat and I had drainage issues when we get a lot of rain.

Great information, thanks.