Adding sand to heavy clay, is it ok?
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tsugajunkie z5 SE WI ♱
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Adding sand to clay?
Comments (10)Hi Cyndi, I second what BP said! If you are going to use sand, builderÂs sand or sharp sand is what you want to use, but I think youÂll do a lot more good by spending the money on some good quality compost or several bales of Canadian peat which is moist and completely "fluffed" before you mix it in. I donÂt know if youÂve been trying to improve big areas or what, but I recommend just doing a major improvement job in the immediate area when youÂre planting individual plants. Dig your hole at least twice as big as you need and mix in 1/3 to 1/2 moist peat before you backfill. It may seem to take forever, but eventually it will make a difference. If you have a large area, I recommend buying a yard or twoÂdepending on how big it isÂof a good quality organic compost and renting a rear end tiller, and tilling it in really well. And, yeah, sand and straw and clay is going to make adobe bricks when it driesÂwhether you shape it like bricks or not! Sharp sand wouldnÂt work as well as play sand for brick making, but I still wouldnÂt recommend trying that. Skybird...See MoreRoses & plants in heavy clay, pH 8, zone 5a, 38" rain and 23" snow
Comments (58)Just thought I'd post the results I had in one garden bed that's clay-loam. Last year I had amended this bed with home-made compost. Everything did well last year as first year plantings. This year they suffered from too little light. (I just put the roses there to get them through the winter and hoping they might like the eastern exposure. Heathcliff, Sugar Moon and Falstaff like sun in my neck of the woods, it seems. I'll probably be moving the viking Queen next Spring as she's a fraction of the size of her sister in full sun, and hasn't bloomed since Spring while her sister would be non-stop if not for the midge.) Anyway, the soil was very dry even with rain. I thought the heavy leaf layer prevented water. I stuffed the empty holes with alfalfa hay, compost and leaf mold until I decided what to plant. I also put the alfalfa under the leaves in the rest of the bed and gave it additional compost. Wow, when I went to plant Lavender Lassie and two hydrangeas, all the soil was so soft and fluffy and moist, even though we had less rain that earlier. I'm now prepping my holes in advance of next Spring and filling them with the same and covering the entire bed with alfalfa hay, etc. The new plantings have taken off even in the reduced light of late summer. I repeated this in another new bed and Mme Alfred Carriere and Awakening seem to love it even in their NE exposure. (Of course, they could just be responding to being in the ground vs. in pots. : ) ) Lesson learned. : ) I'm also trying gypsum on some new beds I'm prepping since they're on an incline. I'll report back....See MoreSand to break up clay....
Comments (9)Last fall we collected soil samples from a local organic demonstration garden and sent them out for nutrient analysis; this garden had recently experienced some soil and plant health problems. Every single one of the sites that was tested came back with nutrient readings off the scale. In large capital letters the report warned “DO NOT FERTILIZE THIS SOIL.” The excessive addition of nutrient-rich compost to this landscape contributed not only to plant health problems but to nutrient loading of adjacent natural waters. The Bottom Line • Ideal soils, from a fertility standpoint, are generally defined as containing no more than 5% OM by weight or 10% by volume • Before you add organic amendments to your garden, have your soil tested to determine its OM content and nutrient levels • Be conservative with organic amendments; add only what is necessary to correct deficiencies and maintain OM at ideal levels • Do not incorporate organic amendments into landscapes destined for permanent installations; topdress with mulch instead • Abnormally high levels of nutrients can have negative effects on plant and soil health • Any nutrients not immediately utilized by microbes or plants contribute to non-point source pollution https://puyallup.wsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/403/2015/03/soil-amendments-3.pdf...See MoreSalvage or Start Over? Centipede sod laid on compacted clay/sand
Comments (3)Since you just signed on with Brock, I would give them 2 months to make it look spectacular. If they cannot do it in 2 months, they are not going to do it in 6 months or a year. Your watering approach is perfect as far as you said. The idea is to not water unless the grass needs it. Then water heavily. In FL there are going to be entire years when you don't have to water. Heck, I've had entire years when I only watered a handful of times (2014, 2017, and 2018, for examples). Centipede should grow with 99% neglect. It is jokingly said that you can drag an empty bag of fertilizer over it once every 2 years and you're fine. Hiring someone to fertilize it regularly is, er, a waste of money. The Milorganite should last all season. As for the hard soil, please try this. Use a hose end sprayer, and put 24 ounces of any clear shampoo (based on 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet - 3x8=24). Fill the rest of the spray bottle with water and stir that around trying to not make bubbles. Then spray that as evenly as you can at any dial setting until you run out. Don't worry about getting too much in places. People have tried to overdose with shampoo and they cannot. After the shampoo follow that up with 1/2 to 1 inch of rain...or irrigation. I use generic baby shampoo from Walmart, but some others prefer the fragrance of the apple shampoo at Dollar Tree. This works. In fact golf courses use surfactants similar to shampoo to do the very same thing. Here is my theory about why shampoo works. Shampoo is a surfactant which allows water to penetrate into places it normally would not go. Water will penetrate into the soil and will go down deeper into the soil than it is currently going. The temperature of the deeper soil is lower than surface soil, so the water will help cool things off. The cooler and moister environment is perfect for the soils beneficial fungi to repopulate the soil. These fungi are similar to the bread mold fungi which send out runners called hyphae everywhere. Once the hyphae are established in the soil, they absorb moisture and swell to push the soil particles apart. When the hyphae dry out, they shrink allowing gaps in the soil where air and future moisture can penetrate. This process takes about 3 weeks. After the 3 weeks is up, when it rains you should be able to walk on the grass and notice the soil is so soft it is almost unstable to walk on. Then a few days after the rain, the soil will firm up again. Picture a wet sponge drying out. The soil acts exactly like that. The surface should be soft when moist and firm/hard when dry. But be careful about mistaking a hard surface for dry soil. It is still moist underneath, especially in the FL humidity. If the grass is not wilting, it does not need more water. The roots are getting water from those new, deep zones you opened up with the shampoo. The shampoo approach works a million times better than core aerating, and it only costs you a dollar for the shampoo. ...versus $75 - $250 for the contractor to aerate. If you like the new softness of the soil and want more, use the shampoo again. I shampooed my lawn in San Antonio once in 2012 and it remained soft to walk on until we moved in 2015....See Moregardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
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