On Aug 13, 8:57*pm, Ivan wrote:
On Aug 14, 10:48*am, Ivan wrote:





Hi all

I'm about to plant a cherry tree and apparently they hate heavy soil..
I will buy the tree this weekend as they're having a bare-root sale at
the nursery I'm going to.

I'm planting it in a raised bed, so I can make the soil be as good as
the tree needs it to be, but eventually the roots will need to go into
the soil beneath the bed.. And probably won't, if it's mostly clay..

What are some suggestions?

Can I dig a hole and fill it with compost and rotted manure and
potash, or is it too late?
By the time the roots get to it, it might have aided to condition the
soil around, right?

Please advise!

uumm

Gypsum, that is.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

gypsum may or may not work, btw. some clays, replacing the sodium with
calcium via gypsum works to break it up, some it doesn't. i can't
remember the details, but it's something you could probably find on
the web, which is where i probably found it.

i found out that about a foot down under my yard is an impermeable
wall of red clay with a lot of the original red rocks still embedded
in it. come spring, or lately when it's raining every day, the place
is a swamp. the yard has a few pretty large maples and other trees in
it, though. i'm not planting anything that doesn't have "dwarf" in the
name, however. dwarf willows seem to be happy with the situation, also
local native swamp azaleas. the upside is i don't have to water the
lawn much.