It is wonderful to get so many responses! Thanks to all of you. IpmMan - an air spade, really? The video attached sure didn't look as if it was being used on clay soil, but it might be a great way to kill off the grass in an area where you want to place a new bed. I don't have a diesel air compressor - I do have a small electric air compressor, but I don't know that it would have the power needed for this. I think the noise would drive me nuts, too - not quite the "communing with nature" gardening that I prefer. And then there are the earthworms - at least with a shovel, though it kills or damages some earthworms when you push the blade into the ground, at least you can rescue the rest of them in the dirt that you shovel up! My yard is seems to be primarily flat, but it is at the bottom of a slope so I do get the run off from other yards above mine - I hate to think of what chemicals that might also be coming with the run off. It has been a while, but a few years ago in late winter/early spring, we got so much rain in a two week period - very unusual for Colorado - that there was standing water in my back yard; the clay soil could only absorb so much. The standing water was primarily in the southeast corner of my yard, so I learned from that that nothing that can't tolerate occasionally wet feet should be planted in that area. I actually purchased a small portable electric sump pump and attached it to a long hose in order to siphon water out of the back yard and out the front driveway to the street! I will try the elevation method suggested by several of you, along with breaking up the bottom of the hole with a pick axe or crowbar to avoid the hard pan effect mentioned by Tunilla. And the shallow wide planting hole idea that you gave, gardengal48, also sounds like a good idea. I won't amend the soil that is below ground level, but will cover the root ball that is above the ground level with amended soil and then cover the entire planting area with a good depth of mulch - pine straw and pine nuggets is what I will be using from now on. I do have lots of earthworms in my yard so they should help with the aeration. treebarb - I have been meaning to get an actual PH reading for my soil for quite a few years now, but somehow never have gotten around to it. Did you send in samples from various parts of your yard, or just one sample? Did you consider trying any of the "do it yourself" kits or PH meters that seem to be available - or are they all pretty useless? I am glad to see that others are getting useful info from this thread; I empathize with all of my fellow clay soil sufferers. I do miss the rich, black soil of Vermont - the soil there is so nice even a two year old could dig a hole two feet deep with a trowel! :p Holly

You cannot water "by a formula"....you know, something like "water 3 times a week for 2 hours", let's say, because there are too many variable. The variables include not only how quickly or how slow your soil drains, but also how high your water table is, how wet or dry the soil is before you water, the composition of your soil in terms of clay/silt/sand/organic matter, the temperature, the pan evaporation rate, how windy it is, etc. Furthermore, different plants have different water needs. An 8-yr-old tree with deep roots normally can survive almost entirely on natural rainfall, unless you are in one of the driest parts of the state, but a 3-yr-old tree needs more frequent watering and a newly planted tree needs even more frequent watering. Bedding plants tend to need more frequent watering than perennials and shrubs. You also have to have a good understanding of how deep your particular plants' roots go. Watering deeply works for plants that have deep roots but not for plants that, by nature or by age, are more shallow-rooted. The whole point of deep watering is to get the water down into the plants' root zones and to encourage the roots to go deeply beneath the surface of the soil. Let's say you're growing a veggie garden. If you water deeply once or twice a week, the plant roots will go deeper in search of that moisture and, consequently, you'll have a more well-rooted plant that can withstand drought conditions. On the other hand, if you water for ten minutes a day, your plant roots will stay near the surface and the plants will wilt easily in the heat and will require daily or even twice-daily watering. Guess which veggie garden will give you better yields? With clay soil, you have to understand how well it drains or doesn't drain, whether it is well-amended or not amended at all. For me, one of the easiest ways that I learned how the soil drained at different locations on our property was by digging holes with a post hole digger, filling them with water and then waiting to see how long it took them to drain. (This is similar to the percolation test that is done before a septic system is installed.) In the area with the heaviest clay, a 2' deep hole took 4 to 7 days to drain. In the area with sandy clay, the hole drained in about 3 days. In the area with silty, sandy soil, it drained in less than a day. I don't necessarily recommend you go around digging holes in your yard.....but if you do, call and have all the underground lines, cables and pipes marked before you dig--you don't want to hit a natural gas line and blow up your house. It would be relatively easy to check and see how deeply water penetrates your turf grass, for example. Water for a set amount of time--let's say one hour--and then dig down with a trowel and see how deeply the water has penetrated. Then, water for 2 or 3 hours and compare the results. One issue with clay is that the surface becomes saturated and then, at that point, further moisture either pools/puddles on the surface or, if your property slopes, it runs off. Clearly you don't want to water so long that your yard is a pond on the surface, but the soil is only wet 3" down nor do you want to pay for water that is running down the road and into the storm drain system. Often, in order to deep water heavy clay soil, you have to water for a while, turn off the hose for a couple of hours, then water some more. Even though you do all the watering in one day or night, you may not be able to do it all in one session. If you are watering too much, you will know it because you plants will look miserable (often wilty and nutrient-deprived because the roots are clogged with water an cannot take up nutrients from the soil) or your soil will get that sour smell. Dawn

Good inputs! My experience planting trees is limited. So far, I only have a couple hundred chestnut trees in the ground. I've tried two methods so far. The first method was to auger deep holes and amend below the tree with no rocks as well as around the rootball. The auger size gave me a hole about 9"-10" in diameter and about 3' deep. These trees were started in December from nuts under lights indoors. They were a foot to 18" tall when planted the following April. I used no weed control but they were mostly planted in clover fields and the clover chokes out many of the weeds. Some of the containers were about 5" in diameter and others were closer to 9". I did try to protect most of them from browsing with tree tubes. Some I used short 18" solid tubes on the bottom with 3' mesh tubes on the top On others I used 3' solid tubes with 3' mesh tubes on the top. None had supplemental water. These trees now have 2 growing seasons under their belts. I'd estimate I had about 15% losses so far. These trees now range from about 4' to 7' tall. While I did not keep track tree by tree, my sense is that the ones in the wider containers (less amended soil between the root ball and native soils) grew better during the first summer. The second method I tried was to plant them from small cells (about 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 3 deep). With these I used a planting bar in a non-traditional way. I jammed the blade into the ground and rotated to carve out a hole the size of the cell. Again, I used no weed control but did use small tubes on half and left the other half unprotected. These were 9"-12" when planted. These trees have only been in the ground one growing season, so I won't really know survival rates until spring. My general sense is that while the planting effort is much lower, my survival rates will also be lower. Because I'm growing these trees from seed, the cost per tree is low and I am willing to accept some losses. You folks are absolutely correct about the bathtub effect and that is what I was going for. My intent was to create that bathtub far enough below the rootball that I don't drown the tree. I'm sure that in some cases I failed to get it right. I was hoping that adding the rocks would create more voids to hold water below the root ball. For those who suggested weed barriers and allowing trees to mature more before planting, I'm doing that as well. In those cases, I have a lot more invested in each tree and do plan will be planting these in more strategic locations with more care. In addition, I'll probably be retrofitting my best trees with gly and a weed barrier. I wanted to let them get a couple growing seasons under their belts first. Since I can't afford to do this will all, I figured I'd do it with the strongest. Thanks again for all the insights. Keep them coming. I'm learning as I go. Merry Christmas!!!

Water will soak into clay if you use successive on-off cycles. Water until it begins to run off and then stop. Wait an hour or so before you turn on the water again. Continue as needed.