In article
aHlwYXRpYQ==.e95d73a15c2acb5be5ce83fa2953984b@104 4383898.cotse.net,
wrote:

Joe Doe wrote:


Clay is good

Roland, love, you may wrestle with your clay all he-man like and love it
all you like. To each his own.



Good for you, duckie. I still think clay sucks. May you save others from
my errant ways--and may you garden in your beloved clay forever.



I am not alone in thinking that clay is good. Let me provide the opinion
of several Rose authorities:

Peter Beales in Classic Roses on page 100 (First American Edition, 1985)
says: ³ Roses tend to do rather better in slightly acid soils and have a
definite preference for clay².

Liz Druitt and G. Michael Shoup (owner of Antique Rose Emporium Brennan
TX) say in Landscaping with Antique Roses on page 75: ³clay holds nutrient
well, and roses prefer it to all other soils; but a really tight clay can
stunt their growth unless it is amended².

In the complete book of Roses by John Mattock, Sean McCann, Fred Witchell
and Peter Wood (All-stars of the British rose scene) on page 25 ³Heavy
sticky soils. These are reputed to grow the best roses..²

In Roses by James Underwood Crockett states on page 17 ³Roses do best in
rather ³heavy² soils *those that are mostly clay * to which an abundance
of organic matter has been added to loosen the texture and help moisture
drain away²

So even if you assume I am an idiot plenty of people that are
knowledgeable acknowledge that clay is actually the preferred medium for
roses because it holds nutrients so well. Roses are heavy feeders to be
prolific bloomers and hence the importance of (nutrient holding) clay.
You are obsessed with drainage and ignore the other requirements of the
plant. The drainage/aeration issue can be successfully addressed with
amendments.

So your universal advice to ³get rid of clay² is ill founded and ill
informed. Your posts have other examples where you are in fact ill
informed but seeing the tone of your replies to me I will let you discover
your other delusions by yourself.

You¹ve also raised some side issues in your reply to me and others (Texas
is flatŠ numerous gratuitous insults etc. etc) that I do not have the time
or desire to disabuse you of.

Roland

In article , "Susan H. Simko"
wrote:


Must admit that I do the same thing as Shiva - dig out very large areas
for beds and replace with good soil with som efertilizers mixed in. To
be honest, I don't see the difference between amending or replacing
because sooner or later, you're still going to hit a barrier where the
solid clay begins.

Susan
s h simko at duke dot edu

Hitting a barrier where clay begins is not a big deal because as I have
shown in my reply to Shiva it is not something that is "bad" and has to be
avoided. When you ammend, the soil acts mostly like clay i.e. absorbs
water slowly and holds what it does absorb - you have all the benefits of
clay with the negatives mitigated. When you replace small holes you have
pockets that can absorb water shed by the clay on the surface - this is
definitely not a good situation. In your case since you replace entire
beds, it is more likely that the soil in fact behaves as one unit with no
negatives. However replacing entire beds may be an unncessary expense.
There are of course situations where this maybe the only choice.
Ultimately only you know if indeed this is your situation. If you are
happy with what you do that is the only thing that matters. Roses are
tolerant of numerous soil conditions.

Roland

Joe Doe wrote:

Hitting a barrier where clay begins is not a big deal because as I have
shown in my reply to Shiva it is not something that is "bad" and has to be
avoided. When you ammend, the soil acts mostly like clay i.e. absorbs
water slowly and holds what it does absorb - you have all the benefits of
clay with the negatives mitigated. When you replace small holes you have
pockets that can absorb water shed by the clay on the surface - this is
definitely not a good situation. In your case since you replace entire
beds, it is more likely that the soil in fact behaves as one unit with no
negatives. However replacing entire beds may be an unncessary expense.
There are of course situations where this maybe the only choice.
Ultimately only you know if indeed this is your situation. If you are
happy with what you do that is the only thing that matters. Roses are
tolerant of numerous soil conditions.

To be honest, I believe that replacing the soil is cheaper than trying
to amend it in many ways. I would need a rototiller (something I don't
own nor have the place to store) if I wanted to amend my soil. Breaking
up clay is no picnic!

I do know that by digging beds and replacing the soil, everything I have
put into my beds has thrived including my roses.

Oh, as someone else already mentioned, we in the flood plains of central
NC put lime down on our yards to reduce the acidity.

Susan
s h simko at duke dot edu

Since everyone else has put their 2 cents in, I want to add mine!
Most of my soil is what is commonly called muck around here. A thousands of
years old swamp was dug into canals and the displaced "stuff" was piled up to
create buildable land. The "stuff" is very hard and very black, often shiney,
looks very similar to coal. I've been told the official term is clay. But
when I think of clay I think of the orange colored kind used on ball fields and
common Georgia soil. This post is based on the information that my soil is
clay.
When I first started digging up areas to plant, the digging was hard, very
hard. Often the shovel hit what felt like rocks, but upon inspection it was
really chunks of muck. At the beggining I didn't plant in beds, rather I just
stuck things in the ground where ever it pleased me. I did know I should
ammend the soil, so I always added lots of compost/manure to the planting
holes. But I admit the more holes I had to dig in a day, the smaller they
became.
The first plants were placed closer together over time and mulch was liberally
applied over the area to create beds. Now I can go into any bed and dig easily
even though the ammendments were not spread throughout the original soil. The
original muck, mulch and well ammended soil have slowly merged into a very
rich, moisture holding soil.
The backyard is different, it is mostly yellow sand. When the seawall was
added, the cheapest material available was aded as fill. That area is mostly
planted in beds. I used a tiller, added lots of manure, compost, and potting
soil. The beds have been covered with a deep layer of mulch. But if I dig
there I still find areas of nothing but yellow sand. The ammendments never
merged with the sand as they did with the muck.
Not even sure who I'm agreeing with here, but that has been my personal
experience with clay and sand.

On 07 Feb 2003 19:38:30 GMT, (Unique Too) wrote:

Since everyone else has put their 2 cents in, I want to add mine!
Most of my soil is what is commonly called muck around here. A thousands of
years old swamp was dug into canals and the displaced "stuff" was piled up to
create buildable land. The "stuff" is very hard and very black, often shiney,
looks very similar to coal. I've been told the official term is clay. But
when I think of clay I think of the orange colored kind used on ball fields and
common Georgia soil. This post is based on the information that my soil is
clay.
When I first started digging up areas to plant, the digging was hard, very
hard. Often the shovel hit what felt like rocks, but upon inspection it was
really chunks of muck. At the beggining I didn't plant in beds, rather I just
stuck things in the ground where ever it pleased me. I did know I should
ammend the soil, so I always added lots of compost/manure to the planting
holes. But I admit the more holes I had to dig in a day, the smaller they
became.

It's just a guess, but I would think that this type of "clay" would be
vulnerable to being returned back to a more "swampy" type soil over
time and through "amending". By amending, I mean having the topsoil
start to infiltrate the substrata. I would think that by having a
rich, earthworm-heavy sort of topsoil, the earthworms themselves (and
perhaps the chemical reactions of the composty topsoil) would start to
reduce the clay back to its original form, although I don't know how
deep the earthworms tend to burrow, or how far this sort of change
would occur.

The only kink in this thinking would be the time factor. Can you
accelerate what would normally take long expanses of time? I wonder if
there are any minerals or "chemicals" that would hasten this process.

The first plants were placed closer together over time and mulch was liberally
applied over the area to create beds. Now I can go into any bed and dig easily
even though the ammendments were not spread throughout the original soil. The
original muck, mulch and well ammended soil have slowly merged into a very
rich, moisture holding soil.

This seems to support the above theory.

The backyard is different, it is mostly yellow sand. When the seawall was
added, the cheapest material available was aded as fill. That area is mostly
planted in beds. I used a tiller, added lots of manure, compost, and potting
soil. The beds have been covered with a deep layer of mulch. But if I dig
there I still find areas of nothing but yellow sand. The ammendments never
merged with the sand as they did with the muck.
Not even sure who I'm agreeing with here, but that has been my personal
experience with clay and sand.

Sand is trickier. However, you certainly don't have drainage problems
with the sand. Perhaps there might be a salt problem that could
negatively impact the general pH and balance of the topsoil. I dunno.

Did you find any significant cultural differences between the beds?

I sorta like this discussion since it reinforces my false pride in my
own soil. False because I had absolutely nothing to do with the luck
of buying a lot that happens to have almost perfect soil for roses (at
least in the front yard). I try not to gloat, but it's difficult
chuckle.

dave weil writes:

It's just a guess, but I would think that this type of "clay" would be
vulnerable to being returned back to a more "swampy" type soil over
time and through "amending". By amending, I mean having the topsoil
start to infiltrate the substrata. I would think that by having a
rich, earthworm-heavy sort of topsoil, the earthworms themselves (and
perhaps the chemical reactions of the composty topsoil) would start to
reduce the clay back to its original form, although I don't know how
deep the earthworms tend to burrow, or how far this sort of change
would occur.

There are earthworms aplenty in the top 12" or so, I don't recall seeing them
any deeper than that. If you go much deeper it's very wet, at 4' you hit
water. Fortunately the lot slopes toward the canal so the top layer drains
well.


Sand is trickier. However, you certainly don't have drainage problems
with the sand. Perhaps there might be a salt problem that could
negatively impact the general pH and balance of the topsoil. I dunno.

Did you find any significant cultural differences between the beds?


There's no drainage problem that's for sure! But we are close enough to the
water the sand stays moist, but never soggy wet. We had 30 days without rain
in the month of January and yet I didn't water. I did check the sandy area and
found it still felt moist to the touch. I was surprised, I expected it to be
dry. Maybe there are enough other particles in there to hold the moisture even
though the color and feel is still that of yellow sand.
I had the pH checked and although I don't recall the exact number, it fell well
within the normal range.
Things grow well in both areas. I don't have exactly the same of anything
planted both front and back, except grass, and the grass does well in both
locations. Although the grass areas in the front that haven't been distrubed
and are still mostly muck grow the best. (I don't water the grass, and expect
it is due to the moisture retention in this area.) I "think" that roses
wouldn't do as well in this area (without amendments), because I expect the
muck to be too wet for their roots. The grass roots stay near the top and IMO
the excess water isn't damaging to them.
The roses in the sand areas do not seem as vigorous as those in the front yard,
but part of this may be due to the different cultivars. The muck is very
nutrient rich, somthing the sand lacks, which I'm sure is a contributing
factor. To really test the differences I would need to plant two of the same
rose, front and back. Perhaps I will try that with the new cuttings I've got
started. They would have come from the same plant and be the same age to
eliminate those differences in performance.

I sorta like this discussion since it reinforces my false pride in my
own soil. False because I had absolutely nothing to do with the luck
of buying a lot that happens to have almost perfect soil for roses (at
least in the front yard). I try not to gloat, but it's difficult
chuckle.


I'm happy with my soil also. It's about the best you can get in Florida. I
pity the poor souls that must try to garden in solid sand!