In article
aHlwYXRpYQ==.0bdc64e9a04750ad21973fa5d482c920@104 4114666.cotse.net,
wrote:

My soil is good--I pretty much replaced rather than amend, and got the
clay out of here.

Do you replace entire beds or merely the soil in the planting hole? Julie
Ryan in Perrenial Gardens for Texas STRONGLY recommends against the
practice of "pocket planting". According to her the clay (which holds
water well but is slow to absorb) will shed its surface water into your
foreign soil and so the amended soil will be a sink for water that the
clay sheds on the surface. Second, the clay walls of your planting hole
will be slow to absorb and the water stays stuck and promotes root rot.
According to her it is better to ammend existing soil. She says "pocket
planting" is widely practiced in the landscape industry but is not to be
recommended.

Roland