Just moved to new house- back yard has extremely hardpan compressed
earth. Its desert-sandy-no clay but really tough ground. Dug holes with
jackhammer maybe 18" deep by 18 wide- still very slow drainage. OK to
plant 5 gallon size plants? smaller? Its a low rainfall area but still
dont know. Anybody know about this stuff?

wrote:
Just moved to new house- back yard has extremely hardpan compressed
earth. Its desert-sandy-no clay but really tough ground. Dug holes with
jackhammer maybe 18" deep by 18 wide- still very slow drainage. OK to
plant 5 gallon size plants? smaller? Its a low rainfall area but still
dont know. Anybody know about this stuff?


Sounds like the very first thing you need to do is add about a foot of
compost. A few inches at a time of course. And till it in.

"GFRfan" wrote in message
news:MuE8d.192866$D%.155297@attbi_s51...
wrote:
Just moved to new house- back yard has extremely hardpan compressed
earth. Its desert-sandy-no clay but really tough ground. Dug holes with
jackhammer maybe 18" deep by 18 wide- still very slow drainage. OK to
plant 5 gallon size plants? smaller? Its a low rainfall area but still
dont know. Anybody know about this stuff?


Sounds like the very first thing you need to do is add about a foot of
compost. A few inches at a time of course. And till it in.

I'll second the foot of compost but I wouldn't try to till it in if you
needed a jackhammer to dig a hole. Dump it all on top at once and work it.
Plant one 5 gallon cactus and one 5 gallon wheeping willow. See which one
does best and continue accordingly.