Beginner Gardening: New House, Clean Slate!, 1 by NancyGroutsis

NancyGroutsis wrote:
Wifeygirl, the soil marks I'm referring to are from the photos you posted in the Cottage Garden forum. I hope you don't mind I copied a section of one of the photos to show what I meant. Notice in the attached photos there are straight-line impressions in the surface of the soil as if squarish objects had been sitting there and were removed? That's how clay looks when an impression is made on it.

This is only from my experience. Clay tends to be light-colored and very dense, so an object placed on it when it's soft would leave a clear long-lasting mark. Loam tends to be dark and fluffy like store-bought potting soil, so if a person makes a footprint in it the print will be rough and eventually the wind will straighten the print and it will look blurry or gone altogether. So just by looking at your light, dense soil with strong, clear line-marks on it left from some square-type object that was placed on it I assumed you had clay soil.

Our yard has a clay substrate a few inches under the loam topsoil, and the NE side of our house is pure clay so I'm used to working with clay. We have a variety of plants that do well in this soil. Clay holds water and nutrients very well. Our mock oranges didn't thrive in clay soil but our begonias, hostas, pachysandra, asters, hydrangeas, thujas, and so many other plants grow well in the clay.

Nancy G.