|
| My wife & I turned part of our yard into a flower bed. We tilled the hard red alabama clay, put down top soil, put down we fabric, put down mulch, put up edging then went to the store and bought a ton of plants. double knockout roses, dwarf purple pixie's, lily's, clematis, morning grace, kobold, verbana, pertunia, aloha, Daisies, Lantna, & Salvia.
When we pushed back the mulch and cut a hole in the weed fabric and dug up the top soil we realized that after about 4" of topsoil we hit the hard clay (we thought we had tilled much deeper). So Our roses for instance that should be planted in a hole a little deeper then the 2 gallon potter and 2x as wide is only getting planting in a hole just barely deep enough to make it work simply because we couldn't dig any deeper due to the clay being too hard. So anyways we planted everything just big enough and just deep enough to take the plants out of there potter and stick it in the hole then cover it with topsoil and mulch. My question is...Is everything going to die? Is it just going to grow slower? Or will it be fine as long as we water and fertilize as needed? |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
| You're going to hate me, but everything you ask has to be answered with "it all depends". IF that clay will not absorb the water and drain, and IF the water collects in the planting holes with no where to go, you've just planted everything in buckets and they may well rot and drown. IF the clay absorbs and wicks the water away, permits the roots to penetrate and spread, the plants may do OK. If the plants begin looking stressed, weird, like old, rubbery produce that's been in the fridge too long, take a stick, poke it into the planting hole through the root ball to the bottom, pull it out and smell it. If it smells like rotted diaper, the holes have filled up with water and your plants' roots have the horticultural equivalent of gangrene. Go VERY easy on the fertilizer. Doesn't matter whether it's organic or inorganic, if the drainage is bad, any fertilizer is going to concentrate and add to the toxic soup that will form when plant material begins to form hydrogen sulfide and methane. If the "garden gods" smile on you and the drainage isn't as awful as my impression is it might be, things may go well for your garden. Still go easy on the fertilizer because the heat stresses the plants and fertilizing them increases that stress. If the "top soil" you put down contains any compost or added fertilizer, which it could if it was something like a Miracle Gro Garden Soil, they will probably get all the fertilizer they need for the rest of the summer. What you should do depends entirely upon how your plants respond to how they've been planted in the stuff in which they've been planted. It's going to be a season of trial and error; observation and taking your cues from what the plants "tell you" they need and want. You might consider for next year, raising the planting bed by building a raised planter there, adding more top soil and raising the plants up into that improved soil above your red clay. I was born in Birmingham and raised along the Florida line. I well remember that awful stuff! Good luck. Kim |
|
| Thanks for the reply. This morning I dug about a 10" hole and filled it with water to see how long it takes to drain. It's been raining the last few days and will prob rain today too so I don't think the test results will be accurate, but I'm hoping it will give me an idea of how the soil drains. There were 2 rose bushes and a tree already planted in the area from the previous owners, but we are unsure of what the soil conditions were when they planted them. |
|
| You should do the percolation test when the soil and subsoil are wet, not dry. That's because drainage issues only arise when the subsoil is wet. Drainage of one inch per hour is good; 1/2 inch/hr is marginal and suggests you should raise the bed a few inches. Fill the 10-inch hole to the top and time it until it is nearly empty. Clay is not bad soil for roses provided it is not compacted, as fill dirt around newer houses often is. Clay kept under a deep organic mulch will improve over time in texture and drainage. Do not dig it or step on it when it is wet. Always a good idea to get a complete soil test of the native soil. |
|
- Posted by flaurabunda 6a, Central IL (My Page) on Mon, Jun 11, 12 at 13:30
| Yes, don't lose hope, Kyleax1. Our entire lot is clay and digging often means breaking out the pick axe instead of a shovel. It is a nightmare to dig, but it really does improve if cultivated over a few seasons. Do some experimenting during different moisture conditions and you'll soon learn when it's easiest to dig. It's also a great idea to start a compost pile--can't say enough about how much it helps. |
|
- Posted by professorroush 6A (My Page) on Mon, Jun 11, 12 at 13:49
| +1 on the compost; can't put too much down. May not help this year or next, but 10 years from now you'll be much better off. |
|
| Compost and decent mulch levels, absolutely! Many places on earth are densely packed, heavy clay. Eons of plant litter, dropped continuously and "composted" in place have permitted tremendous forest growth over these areas. Nature knows how to do it. Follow her lead and life, and gardening, get a whole lot easier and more successful! Kim |
|
| Thanks for the responses, It looks like the water is draining more than a half inch per hour but less than one inch per hour. |
|
- Posted by aklinda 7 (lindanewland@myway.com) on Mon, Jun 11, 12 at 14:18
| An additional note of encouragement - my soil is hard clay that I have to use a pickaxe to break up when dry. In areas where I have been adding compost and mulch for the last few years - I can dig holes now with a hand trowel. I am too frugal to throw away good mulch and replace with new like some people do - I rake the mulch away, add more compost and then put the mulch back. I have tons of earthworms in those areas also. I don't till it at all - when I'm going to plant I dig my hole (usually I make a small hole first, fill with water and let it soak in, then when the dirt is wet and easier to work, finish digging the hole), plant the plant, add an inch or two of compost and 4 or so inches of mulch. That's alot of mulch for some places, but I live in New Mexico and my garden gets full sun all day and it's very intense sun. It helps to conserve the moisture and keep the soil from getting baked. Good luck - I hope everything makes it for you. |
|
| If your goal is to improve the quality of your soil, I'm not sure that landscape fabric is helping you. If you have no fabric, you can put down a layer of compost on top, covered with some other mulch if you like, and let nature do its thing. Having that barrier in there is going to make the job harder for the worms and other soil organisms. |
|
| We put the fabric in there because we have Bermuda grass and that area looked horrible prior from all the grass creeping in. I see what you are saying about making it harder for the worms etc. I'm wondering if adding worms would help the soil. Just put them in the dirt under the fabric and then when they need to come up they would have to find the openings, which would be where we planted stuff...? |
|
| If you put 2 cups of alfalfa pellets or coffee grounds around each plant twice a year, earthworms will appear in squirmy masses. Decaying mulches are the main thing that will improve your soil over time. If you use landscape fabric, you deny the soil that benefit. Also weeds will grow in the mulch that you use to cover the landscape fabric (as mulch rots into compost). I once helped take up a large area of old landscape fabric over which several inches of muck had developed. That was a PITA. |
|
| We put the fabric in there because we have Bermuda grass and that area looked horrible prior from all the grass creeping in. I see what you are saying about making it harder for the worms etc. I'm wondering if adding worms would help the soil. Just put them in the dirt under the fabric and then when they need to come up they would have to find the openings, which would be where we planted stuff...? |
|
| After 9 hours this is what is still in the hole. |
|
| Get rid of the weed cloth! Not only do you deprive the soil of oxygen and nutrients from mulch, but you also deprive it of evaporation, which will help your drainage problem. You will just have to keep digging out the bermuda grass as it appears. Weed cloth is for parking lot medians, where weeds are hit with Round-up. It is not for gardens. It will not keep keep the bermuda grass from growing--it will just grow beneath the cloth. As to your drainage, dig your holes larger and add more compost. Water only when you stick your finger in as far as you can and the soil is nearly dry. Roses--and most woody plants--do better when their roots have to go deeper to get moisture. Eventually, the roots will begin to break up the clay and as your mulch breaks down and gets into the soil from the top, the soil will loosen. |
|
| This is what we do in the UK to avoid the heavy work of endl;ess digging in compacted clay. First off, we clear an area of top growth (you can use round-up for this, or simply dig out as much as you can. Then, we sow a bed of green manures with long taproots such as buckwheat, hungarian grazing rye, vetches or tares or, if you start in June, clovers). We leave this to grow throughout August, September and October and then turn it all in at least one depth of the spade deep. If the soil is really compacted (and yours look like it has a very hard pan) then we will let the roots do the work for us over a whole season. These weedy green manures will send out deep, deep foraging roots (I think purslane might be good in AL?) which will make channels for microlife, fiberize the soil and will also extract nutrients from the hard subsoil. You can turn this vegetable growth back into the soil (It will not look pretty, but it is doing its job). It might take a couple of years of steadily breaking down the subsoil (and you can help with regular mulching or even lasagne beds) but if you can plan ahead, you will eventually end up with some really good friable earth without damaging the overall soil structure by rotovating or heavy digging. Until then, maybe plant up some containers with fragrant herbs and colourful annuals so you have something to keep you going while your soil is maturing. Don't despair - some of the most fertile soils on earth are often heavy clay, you just need to be able to get it workable. |
|
| You should get a mattock for digging in the heavy clay. These work easily unless the soil is brick-dry and stony. Don't slam it, but mostly let the weight of the tool do the work. Your new planting looks so pretty, I'm sure you are reluctant to start over, but I would do so if it were mine. Some of the plants will probably do OK in that soil, others not. It does look like the clay is compacted and drainage is marginal to poor. If the subsoil is compacted and not drainable, really the only thing you can do to improve drainage is to raise the bed several inches. You don't have to build a hard curb, just mound it up with a little ditch around the outside that you maintain by edging once a year and shoveling the dirt and mulch from the ditch back on the mound. Planting the roses in a fancy hole will not improve drainage, which depends on the condition of the subsoil beneath. |
|
| We had a really strong rain come through Tuesday night and it flooded a lot of the yard so I thought it was going to flood the plants out. I put my fingers in the dirt last night and it was mildly moist to almost dry. I then took a long stick and poked it down as deep as I could in all the holes and was very surprised to find the dirt seemed dry expect on some of the deepest holes and it was only slightly muddy at the very bottom (1/4") of the hole. I think I will keep an eye on it and see how the plants do, I do believe I am going to remove the fabric this weekend though. |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Roses Forum
Instructions
- You must be a registered member and logged in to post messages on our forums.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review the contents and make changes.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- It is illegal to post copyrighted material without the owner's consent.
- HTML codes are allowed in the message field only.
- No advertising is allowed in any of the forums.
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.