Hey New Gardeners! We Need To Know This: How To Garden In Clay Soil

Well I have been wanting to do this video for a while and it's been difficult because we've had so much thunderstorm activity and so much rain that getting this shot literally squeezing it in between the raindrops has been difficult and the title of this is How to Garden in Clay Soil. The inspiration for this was twofold. Number one, I'm trying to do more videos that are really relevant to new gardeners, to new homeowners who are starting gardens. Just basic gardening skills and basic gardening knowledge. The other reason that I wanted to do this was because I was inspired by a wonderful article in the June issue of Garden Gate magazine. Love this magazine for hands-on info and there's a great article in here on dealing with clay soil. How to plant in it, how to water, how to fertilize, different kinds of plants that really can adapt or at least at a minimum are tolerant of clay soil. So that inspired me and then I thought I would share just a few of my own tips and tricks for how to garden in clay soil. I'm standing here, let me just point out because I know I'm going to get this question, I'm standing here in front of some really beautiful hydrangeas that are just coming into bloom. These are Dear Dolores from Southern Living. They're gorgeous and they do bloom on new wood and I'm very frequently asked can hydrangeas grow in clay soil and I would say it may not be their first preference but definitely they can grow in clay soil with a little bit of extra mindfulness and TLC, a little bit of soil amendment and as evidence of that, look at this expanse of hydrangeas that I have over here. These are all Dear Dolores and White Wedding. There's even some buds coming out on the White Wedding hydrangea which is what we are going to plant today as our sample specimen for how to plant in clay soil. So while hydrangeas may not love it, they are pretty tolerant of it and if you must have hydrangeas and you must plant in clay soil then I say go for it. Stuart, what do you say? Let's do it. Before we get started, I have to point out that Stuart just said my gosh that's getting gotten big and that's because I have done so much pinching. That started out as just a four-inch plant last year and all of that pinching and I guess just good weather has made it explode. It is now, it is almost a thug. I'm going to have to divide it up. Now I want to show you in the foreground here that I have been pruning my trees and I needed to raise the canopy of this eastern redbud tree some just so that you could see where I was planting and because it's time to be doing that right now. That will be a separate video but now if you want to meet me underneath the canopy of the redbud tree, let's talk about the proper way to plant a shrub in clay soil. I definitely have clay soil. It is still probably a little bit, oh probably the soil's a little bit too wet to be working with it but if I wait until it was completely dry, number one it would be extremely hard to dig in which is a characteristic of clay soil and also I may not be able to do it for another month because it just keeps raining though we're not going to complain. Okay, look here. This is very important to clay soil because what is, clay soil has both pros and cons so let's talk a little bit about the characteristics of it. Clay soil consists of very very tiny flat particles that make it stick together and be gummy. You can see that this is brown clay, sometimes you'll see red clay, good old Georgia red clay but it sticks together. Now the advantage of this is that it's very nutrient dense and if you look here that is indicative of clay soil. It's very nutrient dense, it holds on to moisture pretty well and those are two good things about clay soil. It also provides sturdiness for anything growing in it because they really have to grab on and that clay soil has great stability. The cons are you can see how dense that is and how difficult it would be if you were a root to try to penetrate it and get established. There are some things that you can do to mitigate that problem but nevertheless that's the biggest drawback of clay soil. It just doesn't have any air pockets in it in which to oxygenate the plants and also to enable them to penetrate the clay soil to establish a root system and get established in your garden. The other thing is if because it does hold on to moisture so easily a lot of your plants if you don't take precautions at the outset they can be subject to root rot particularly in the winter because their roots get soggy there's no way for them to really drain off that excess water and so in the winter when it's cold or sometimes in the summer literally the root system of that plant can just rot. So things that you can do to mitigate that are number one I'm getting ready to plant a two or a three gallon white wedding hydrangea here but what you can do initially particularly which is not only a good planting tip it's also a budgetary tip is you can start out by planting smaller specimens. So start out like that Dusty Miller and plant maybe a four inch pot instead of a large pot. That will enable you to more easily dig a great big hole which is essential to success in getting a plant established but also it just in short order it will grow up to be the size of the other plus it's less costly. So now let's actually do the digging of the hole. So I have oh I guess just kind of a basic principle and that is for any plant if you dig a hole approximately two and a half times size two and a half times the size of the root ball that is a good planting hole whether it's for a tree whether it's for an annual and again what you are doing even if you're not changing the type of soil you have I can't miraculously change this from clay to a wonderful friable loamy soil. I can't change it to sandy or silty soil but I can to a certain extent influence the physical properties of the soil itself by breaking it up and that's what I'm doing by digging this hole right here. Now I'm doing it now when the soil is friable. Why? Oh look look at that guy. Oh I'm so glad I didn't chop you in half. That is a sign of healthy soil my friends. Wow oh my goodness I'm so glad I did not cut you in half. Now I was so impressed with that. Where was I? Where was I? Well the reason that I'm doing this now also is because it's so much easier to dig in clay when it is rather hydrated. If I was doing this when it was 110 out and it hadn't rained in forever it I'd have to have a pickaxe practically to dig a hole and that would be very very difficult. So I am digging a big hole. Notice that I'm not necessarily digging a deep hole. What I want is for the top just like when I am doing container gardens I want the top of the plant to be basically level with the top of the hole. So I've got a little bit more depth that I need to create in here and I am doing that. Now if I were doing this in an area that I didn't want to mess up or near some soil or in the middle of my lawn then I would put a tarp down and I would throw all of this soil onto that tarp. That would keep all of the soil off of the grass and then I could just pick up the tarp and I could dump it in there. I've got some old old tree roots some old bark and things in there but you can see this is definitely clay soil. You can also see that the things in proximity to this are pretty happy. Now when we established this new garden we did amend the soil with some compost overall. We added some compost and that helps break up those particles. So by amending your soil with compost I guess you could do peat moss though I don't really encourage that. You could use any kind of organic matter. It definitely will improve the quality of the soil but what I have found is over time like your computer clay soil ultimately wants to revert to its original state and it just will absorb and really consume all of that organic matter. So now that I have this plant hole approximately the size that I want let's take a break and we'll be right back. Now in terms of prepping the plant in addition to prepping the hole you're going to want to do several things. Number one I watered this white wedding hydrangea really really well. Now you might ask me why am I planting a white wedding hydrangea here because I wanted to continue this huge drift of white and have it culminate here just by this brick wall. Now over time will these Oakland hollies get so big that it will crowd it out? Yes but that's not going to be for a while and later on I can transplant it someplace else and fortunately hydrangeas transplant really really well. Now this is rather root bound as shrubs of any kind often are when we get them at the nursery. So what I'm doing is taking my hoary hoary knife and I am just loosening and freeing up these roots to be able to penetrate the sides of the hole. Okay so that is number one something that I am going to do. Notice I am not going to fertilize this. Why? Because again clay soil is very very nutrient dense and I have found I don't need to. When I do fertilize the soil well let's just say that's a topic I'll address in a little while. So indeed right now the top of the plant itself is in alignment with the top of the hole and I'm going to do something else. In addition to scarifying the sides of the plant itself I'm going to scarify the sides of the hole and what that does and I could do this with my hoary hoary knife or I could do it with an old bread knife. I could probably even do it with my shovel but what this is going to do it's going to rough up the sides because a lot of times look here a lot of times you dig and what you get is almost like the sides of a terracotta pot. Look at that it's so it's so clean smooth it's almost like the sides of a pot. So what I want to do is I want to create ridges in the sides of this hole and on the sides of the planting hole and that way it will create little nooks and crannies and passages for the roots to penetrate again of any type of plant whether it's an annual or a perennial or what. Now the other thing that's problematic about working with clay soil is this you always immediately after planting want to clean your shovel or your tool because otherwise all of that clay soil is just going to bake and harden on the surface and it will be really difficult to clean off later. Now in some cases if you read different material it will say oh at this point you can amend the soil with some compost or you can amend it with you know something else but I'm not going to not even my beloved Happy Grow Soil Conditioner. Why? Because this is just going to have to learn to adapt to the situation. I don't want to provide an environment that's a little bit too friendly a little bit artificial and then all of a sudden once it grows to that point it's going to hit the sides of this hole and it's going to be well let's just say no bueno it's not good it's not going to want to grow anymore and it might start even growing in circles so I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to rough up the sides of the pot and then I'm going to backfill crumbling up the soil oh sorry guy crumbling up the soil as best I can because this is one of those ways that even though it's clay soil I can incorporate a little bit more air in between those very very fine clay particles so I'm using the original soil to backfill and actually this is just about perfect to be working in. We've got a storm brewing Stuart so I'm trying to get this done beforehand because it will then rain and settle this in. We're seeing lots of worms aren't we? Yeah earlier. Boy lots of worms and even though this is clay it's a really good quality of clay because we did amend it some earlier but see how I am just breaking up these large pieces like this. Don't break them up too much? No you can't you can break them up as much as you want yeah now if I dug in this soil when it was too wet I would absolutely be ruining the tilth of the soil because I wouldn't be able to break it up and then it would be too clumpy and it would harden just into clumps. Now another trick that I have discovered when you have clods of clay like this and you can't break them up or it's difficult you may not have the hand strength then take that clod put it on the ground and just rub your hand over it and the friction of the surface between the surface of your hand and the surface yeah it really it makes it break up that much more easily. So I'm just going to continue this and then we'll be right back. Well here you go here is my muddy clay soiled outfit of the day. I am pretty in pink standing here on Lemon Lane amongst all of the pink foxglove. So starting with my pretty and pink t-shirt the Garden Life you can find this online we'll make sure to put a link below so you can order it you can order it in different colors and FYI you guys I typically always like the ones that are v-neck rather than crew neck that's just kind of a thing with me. Here's an outfit of the day question which do you prefer the v-neck or the crew neck? My earrings were gifted to me by a friend my garden gloves very muddy now also in pink are cool jobs you guys know I love these and I'm going to do a short video later this week about someone asked how do I wash my garden gloves and I'm going to be talking about that. Okay these britches you guys love love love these pants you can hear that they've got that kind of what is it Stuart yeah nylon I guess sound to them which is why they're great to work in clay soil because that clay can just kind of slough off it doesn't really entrench itself into the fibers of like cotton or jeans or something so it's wonderful these are wonderful for working outside in the garden and they have yeah they've got little pockets everywhere the other thing is they are very very comfortable you can't see the kick from that close yeah yeah yeah you can move in them very easily you can bend and I have found sometimes especially in my jeans that don't have spandex that's not always true so you definitely I like them for that regard I got these from Amazon they are wonderful I think they're kind of figure flattering the other thing is I wear them a lot when I'm hiking and so they're great they're just a great multi-purpose pair of pants to have around and in fact Liam would you take a note that I think I want another pair of these in a different color because I wear them so often and it seems like when I go for them sometimes they're dirty and then lastly of course I have on my very muddy high c boots and and look at these these socks were a gift from hubs I'm kind of on a dreary day I'm kind of bright in my bright pink and in my bright turquoise love these because these I can easily get in and out of yeah and these are high c boots uh my favorite go-to boots we will put a link to all of these things in the description box below if you don't know how to access those links or if you just want us to send you a specific link the best way to probably do that is send an email to support at lyndabotter.com if you request it in the comments we try we try to respond but there's a lot of comments folks and it is difficult for me to sometimes see it in a timely manner so there you go my outfit to garden in clay soil okay now that I've got it planted it seems pretty happy I'm going to push down on it a little bit to make sure I don't have any air pockets in there because the roots don't want to grow into an airy void they want to make contact with something then I am even though I didn't amend the soil I am going to mulch it through the magic of tv and I've got some of this good happy grow soil conditioner I'm going to take it this actually might be some compost I'm going to take it and I'm just going to mulch around it then I'm going to create just a little bit of a trough to capture a little moat to capture the water that is starting to come down now yeah here we it is starting to come down right now now note here this is the way you want to water if at all possible in clay soil and that's with drip irrigation yeah yeah right here drip irrigation will deliver water directly to the root zone of the plant it will not get on the foliage and you can do that in a number of different ways this is through my automatic irrigation system in ground but you can also do that with something that you set up yourself or you can do it manually so there you go there is how you plant a shrub in clay soil okay so as I said it's important to clean your tools after you garden in clay you can see I didn't clean it well enough last time and there's some hardened dirt on there so really get that cleaned got to do the other side but I'll leave that for after we're off camera okay now let's talk a little bit about probably the most important thing and that I maybe should have addressed before we planted that and that is selecting the right type of plant to begin with now we're going to put up a screenshot this slide that shows all sorts of different shrubs and perennials that will do well in clay a lot of those if you think about it would include plants that are native to prairie soil and we see that here so here's an example of that granted it's not in bloom yet but I have some small these are crazy pink these are crazy pink echinacea and I've got a larger aka coneflower over there coneflower root vecchia do brilliantly in heavy clay soil along with them you often see growing on the prairie liatris or gay feather you'll see different kinds of grasses and we will put some of those grasses there I think switch grass there's a number of different kinds of grasses that really do well in clay soil and if you had a prairie style garden that would be absolutely beautiful black-eyed susans to a certain extent I think penstemons do well over here if you'll follow me carefully Stuart I've got underneath on this berm I've got it just getting started baptisia it likes clay soil I've got some yarrow over there can you see the pink yarrow that's getting ready to bloom I think I've got that in pink and white yarrow does very well in clay soil as does garra you can see the garra right there just make sure you don't over water it I've got a little tuft of garra right here that I cut back and is getting ready to start again now in terms of some other shrubs that do well I have found that obsession nandina from southern living does very well fire chief arborvita that beautiful arborvita and that drift right there it does very well in clay soil as does a lot of the different barberries this is orange rocket barberry but I love some of the other chartreuse colored ones let me clarify that one's fire chief yeah this is fire chief right here and this is orange rocket barberry now these are the varieties that I have but pretty much most varieties of barberry and probably different kinds of arborvita would do well in the clay soil as does the sebillia I think it adapts it it may not love it but it it can adapt and is tolerant of clay soil if you do the appropriate kind of whole preparation beforehand the other thing that does well in terms of perennials salvias salvias do brilliantly which is one of the reasons I have so much of it some of the veronicas do well daylilies do well helianthus some types of sunflowers perennial sunflowers do well and that's just a short list again we will put up a screenshot this kind of guide to different types of shrubs and perennials that do well in clay soil so that's probably the best place to start is selecting a plant that is going to thrive in the environment in which you are gardening and for me that is definitely clay soil if you are unsure about whether or not something can adapt tolerate or really can thrive in clay soil then just google it or ask the expert at your local nursery okay back to mulching in case you don't have this type of happy grow mix that I get at Lowe's what else can you use well you can use anything that's basically organic that says you can use it as mulch so it might be different kinds of pine bark it might be pine needles in some cases if it's weed free or seed free you can even use grass clippings sometimes you can use gravel but you do want to mulch it because the surface of the clay soil will dry out very very quickly and often areas that have high clay also have high heat and high winds and to the extent you mulch it that will keep the soil cooler and it will also keep the soil more hydrated so make sure after you plant anything that you mulch it because in the long haul it will improve the quality of the clay soil and it will also break down over time and you'll be glad you did okay a few more plants that I have found do well in clay soil before we get to watering things like larkspur they will readily go to seed and germinate turn into gorgeous plants like this and then they will set seed and at that point typically they start looking a little straggly as the heat arrives and I just pull them out so that's something that also does pretty well I have also found that spirea does well for me in clay soil that's kind of an experiential thing I don't know if you find it on any lists but I have found this is little miss bonnie but I've also found that yeah that's that's spirea in general does pretty well in clay soil so let's talk about watering and feeding so as I mentioned earlier you really want to water at the root zone if you can I have an in ground drip system and over time I really don't like the way this looks now I can cover this up with mulch and I had it covered with mulch for a while but ultimately the solution will just be horticultural because this abelia will grow and it will cascade over the pipe as will the nepeta and some of the other things the lemon lime you can see it's already done that here it's starting to hide and it will obscure the drip system now if you don't have a drip system as I said earlier you can water at the base you can set up something on on a manual system that's not in ground and automated but there's just different ways you can do that in general if you have clay soil you will not have to water as frequently as you would if you had sandy or loamy or silty soil particularly sandy soil so just be aware that you don't want to over water the other thing you don't want to do is over fertilize because if you over fertilize in a clay soil that's already pretty nutrient dense first of all that's wasteful you're spending money you don't need to spend secondly because that the density of the soil really not only holds on to moisture it's going to hold on to salts it's going to hold on to some of that fertilizer that you put in there that's not necessary and in the long run that can be detrimental to the health of the plant likewise if you have clay soil and particularly if you garden in a place like I do where it gets very very hot very dry and today's weather notwithstanding later in the summer we'll be lucky if we see rain for weeks and weeks at a time in that case that dense dense soil is really going to hold on to some of those things which are toxic if you have used chemical sprays if you have used synthetic fertilizers that have lots of salt in them they're going to hold on to and embrace all of those yucky things that you really want to go ahead and filter through the soil so how do you fertilize and how do you know when you need to fertilize well basically by observation you just you can look and say oh does the plant look happier or does are the leaves yellowing does it need some iron does it need some fertilizer what do you use if it needs to be fertilized well typically an organic you can use an organic granular at the beginning of the season I think I told you I use milorganite here you could use a granular organic like some kind of espoma product any kind of granular organic that sometimes comes in a dry pelletized form that you can kind of broadcast again being ever wary that you do not over fertilize because in the long run all that does is cause problems not only for the plants but also for excessive algae growth and things like that if there's a lot of runoff and it just goes back into the sewer system so watch quantities on when you fertilize you can use a liquid fertilizer you can use a granular fertilizer you can at the point of planting you could add a little bit of organic fertilizer again espoma is a good product but I have found there are so many really good small companies now that are producing organic fertilizers that are well balanced or that are carefully measured to meet the needs of the plant in other words if you want something that will produce more blooms if you want something that's to evergreens those kinds of things so I don't want to give short shrift to those companies as well you can find them at your local garden center you can find them online you can find them from another another number of different places and then lastly don't overlook the value of just good old compost compost that you make yourself compost that you buy you can steep some of that compost in water it's no more difficult than that and make compost tea so anything organic will really really work so Stuart let's see what have I forgotten in terms of dealing with clay soil that's basically it select the right plants prepare your planting hole and the planting surfaces well make sure that you don't over fertilize that you don't add anything to the soil that will not be able to leach through and just overall practice really good horticulture and really good garden hygiene so there you go for new gardeners for experienced gardeners for gardeners who have been gardening in gardening heaven in lonely soil and all of a sudden you're gardening in clay there are some tips that you might want to keep in your back pocket