"audrey" wrote in message
My situation is that I have clay soil (zone 6/7 Maryland/DC Metro
area), and I know that I need to do some type of soil preparation to
be successful at planting my flowers. According to some of the posts
that I read, they say that one should mix a combination of compost,
manure, fertilizer, peat moss, sand, and dirt into the clay. My
questions a

Hi, Audrey. I have lived in the DC/Balto metro area all my life s. When
I started my first real garden in the DC area I was dealing with lots of
heavy clay too. This is what I did: removed the grass by skimming off the
top inch with a spade (I composed that), dug down about 15 inches and
turned over the clay. Then I added about equal amounts of composted manure
and leafmold (it's called Leafgro around here) plus some peatmoss. I kept
adding the amendments until the soil looked more dark brown than orange. If
you don't mind waiting you can always put a thick layer of newspaper over
the area you want to make into a bed and then pile several inches of organic
matter on top of the newspaper. Wait a good 6 months and the grass will die
and you can plant on top of the pile. If you don't mind sticking with
annuals this season you could just pile organic matter on top of newspaper
and plant in that. But perennials need deeper soil for good root growth.