Gardening on clay

seacliff thanks for the reminder - we also had a very pretty wildlife pond in our garden. plus frogs and dragonflies etc .
I think the dugout clay had been used to make bricks which helped to build the lower part of the house in chequer board pattern with blocks of pebbles washed down from the Pyrenees.
Very fertile cereal growing area.

We have planted several Fruit Trees on our Clay soil, Coxes and Bramley Apple trees, multi variety Pear grafted onto one trunk, and a Victoria Plum Tree. It's amazing how much water they soak up, and we get a decent crop of free fruit during the late Summer months. The only free that showed signs of failing was a Cherry tree, so we moved it round into the front garden which is slightly more elevated and faces South so dries quicker, and it's happily given us fruit for several years, that is if we manage to get there first before the birds do!

Our home is Claybrook Cottage yes AnD1, the road near us is called Clayhills, and it certainly is.

One advantage of blueslip clay and a high water table. My OH dug out a pond years ago, with digger. It did not need lining as we had the natural clay. It gradually filled with rainwater. At least that is one part of the garden we don't have to cultivate.

Have you shown him any of the 'No Dig' videos?

I could try but I know he'll just say "Interesting" then go off and do it his own way!

I've got some pots on the gravel area and the squirrel digs in them, he's just spread soil everywhere ready for the weeds to flourish amongst the gravel.

Our home is Claybrook Cottage, says it all!

Our garden in France was pure clay and hard to work. The only thing we put on it was the soiled straw from the chicken house and it was very fertile, especially for vegetables including potatoes.
But when I tried to create a herbaceous border it failed. we did succeed with lavender rosemary and also santolina. and hellebore.
Climate plays a part too - it could be very hot and wet there. The day we left the soil drive - in was so claggy that the removals van couldn't get up to the house and we had to borrow a transit van to shuttle back and forth to the lane. Took 2 days instead of one.

weeds flourished too + +

Kryptonite I had the exact same problem with grass as you have and tried several times to get it to re-read, but nothing worked because it was either baked dry or drowned. So I had a patio laid in one of the corners and put a greenhouse up in the other.

I'd abandon the idea of grass there, Kryptonite. Just have a 'moss garden' instead...

Callistemon

MaizieD DH dug it (only 1 spade depth) over the winter but spread the manure over the surface for the worms to work on.
I should realise I can't teach an old dog new tricks.

We've got a gravel area - it's surprising what comes up in it.

Have you shown him any of the 'No Dig' videos? They're like my gardening porn

My gravel area has practically disappeared under the plants that have marched into it from the surrounding beds!

Back to clay, though. I've found that primulas and primroses do really well in it; particularly ones that are close to the native species.

Kryptonite... Keep the damp patch well ariated by spiking it every so often and apply lawn sand, this helps dry out the soggy area.

Roses love clay.. My father ( occupation gardener) told me the clay acts as a food source for roses, and need no further rose feed to help them flourish. So I plant roses in my garden as it has a great clay consistency. I do sometimes apply a rose feed too though. But my roses do thrive in it.

I have mulched with thick layers of newspaper, whilst soil is damp, then layers of old mushroom compost or even old wood chippings, to stop weeds and improve structure. People before us actually removed clay and bought in lighter soil, just for one bed.

Also on Cheshire clay (I think!). The small garden has two 'wet' patches in the end corners that are always in shade from the tall fence and the grass (from turf about a year old) refuses to grow there. Any advice would be very welcome for growing grass in this area. Don't like artificial grass.

MaizieD DH dug it (only 1 spade depth) over the winter but spread the manure over the surface for the worms to work on.
I should realise I can't teach an old dog new tricks.

We've got a gravel area - it's surprising what comes up in it.

BigBertha1, I feel your pain here in Kansas. I have had success (after years of experimenting and just plain backbreaking work), with various rich composts, mixed in, rather than straight manure. It's possible (tho I'd never have believed it) that your clay is more compact than ours. I have to add amendments every year as the ground seems to churn more clay up every spring. In addition, we have tons of limestone rocks under all the clay. We live on a rock covered with clay. I also have had great success by adding fishing worms. Lovely, long blooming Veronicas, Butterfly Bush, Clematis, Daisies do well here. Good luck!!!

Callistemon

Is he the No Dig Man janeyjane?

I was trying to persuade DH that it was a good idea

I'm very taken with his method and intend to try it for a new vegetable bed this year. I have the cardboard, I have the well rotted horse manure, I just need to do it now

I'm gardening on clay and I was heartbroken when we first moved here and plants like lavender and rosemary didn't survive. Then I converted one part of the garden to a 'gravel garden'. All I did was spread a couple of inches of gravel over the clay soil. Rosemary loves it. And so does everything else. It is the best seeding medium ever. Anything that sets seed seeds like crazy in my gravel... It always makes me smile when people suggest gravel gardens. I get huge amounts of unwanted seedlings out of mine every spring... They are a lot of work.

Is he the No Dig Man janeyjane?

I was trying to persuade DH that it was a good idea

You may want to have a look at this site charlesdowding.co.uk/

If it’s a new house the topsoil could have come from anywhere
That is if you are lucky enough to have any topsoil! We seemed to have just builders' rubbish.

Our soil is clay on limestone and we have lost a lot of plants over the years so it is important to find out exactly what your soil is and perhaps test the pH value.

We've enriched with rotted compost and manure and made raised beds for vegetables.

Roses, sedums, hellebores, a bay tree, the common or 'garden' clematis, have survived.

You could put large pots amongst other shrubs and plants in the borders filled with those plants that don't like clay.

My garden is heavy clay and it used to be a rose nursery so roses should be fine. We've got Nandina, camellia, mahonia and virburnum which are all doing fine. Our rhodos always seem to die off, although an azalea out the front has been there for twenty years - that may be because it's slightly higher and dryer. We've just planted a photinia hedge out the front too, and that's really taken off. Few perennials last long out the back where it's wet.

Heucheras like clay soil in part shade - the original plants were not called London Pride for nothing!!! Also perennial wallflowers (erysimum) seem to do very well in my garden (very stony clay) and self seed, which is good as they get a bit leggy after two or three years but are easy to replace. Ribes sanguineum have also thrived, and are easy to keep to a reasonable size if needed. I just make sure I mulch each spring with home-made compost which seems to keep the soil manageable, but the stones always come through to the top as soon as it rains!

Roses are said to thrive on heavy soil.

If you manage to get it manured and broken down a bit it'll hold the goodness' and be better than lighter, more easily worked, sandy soils. You could try putting a mulch on in summer to stop it becoming rock hard.

Effalump, I always feel that growing potatoes to break up the soil works partly because you have to dig it so much!

Try growing potatoes for the first few years. I wished I had done that to my garden. 36 years later its an absolute nightmare. Apparently, growing potatoes breaks down the clay.

Unfortunately, slugs and snails grow faster than the plants!

I have the same problem with my allotment and also dug in quite a quantity of course builders sand and grit. I broke the clay up beautifully.

The upside is that this soil holds nutrients better than any other and that means bumper harvets of flowers, fruit or veg.

Good lick!

Moved two years ago to Cheshire too.
Have spent a long time adding manure, leaf mould and compost. Made some raised beds for vegetables which have worked well.
Bottom of the lawn gets soggy in winter, so we are going to make the lawn smaller and put a gravel path between lawn and flower beds.
Have had success with hydrangeas, astilbes, clematis, roses, Japanese anemones, salvias and various kinds of geraniums. I have noticed that pittosporum grow well in other gardens and ceanothus too.