I need information for bad soil

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idohair Pineville, WV May 16, 2010

Ok, I am a mediocre gardner at best however, I love gardening! I have a 50-50 shot at everything I plant to live or die. I seem to do much better with trees like maples, japanese maples, and bradford pears rather than flowers, except black-eyed susans and day lilies. I think most of my problems stem from my soil. I live in southern WV and the soil here is a reddish-yellow very compact clay soil. In the middle of summer when it is hot and dry it becomes almost as hard as cement, in the winter and spring it is soft and at times almost soupy. When I plant something I amend the soil with miracle grow tree and shrub dirt, I also use the miracle grow fertilizer spikes in the fall and spring. On my lawn I use scott's any season lawn fertilizer twice in the spring, which takes away all the yellow and turns my lawn a deep green (my lawn is mostly clover which is fine with me because it is green). I want so badly to have a beautiful landscape but everything seems to do well for a year or two and then starts to turn yellow, doesn't thrive, and it either dies or it looks so bad I dig it up and trow it out. I really need some help and this seems like the place to get it. I also need to mention I have a bad deer problem, and I get full sun all day. Due to financial restrictions we must do all the work ourselves on 1 3/4 acres (so I don't have a small yard), ! Thanks for any input, I hope I'm not a lost cause.

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themoonhowl Prairieville, LA(Zone 9a) May 16, 2010

Idohair, You need to add organic matter to your soil in the form of composted materials. Leaves and grass from cutting the lawn, after the grass turns brown, bags of compost and manure, bags of soil conditioner or finely ground pine bark mulch....etc. her are a few links for you with info.

http://gardening.about.com/od/gardenprimer/a/Amending_Soil.htm

http://www.gardenguides.com/91057-amend-clay-soil-organic-gardening.html

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07235.html

I hope these are of use to you.

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missingrosie Hillsborough, NC(Zone 7b) May 16, 2010

Don't throw out what doesn't make it - compost it and it will do 'double duty' for you!

PS If you have a local landfill - often the compost is really inexpensive - you can get by the truckload. In the spring the land will be easier to work. Maybe you can rent or borrow a tiller if you don't have one -- you have a lot of land there to take care of. Or, if you make manageable sized beds -- look up the lasagna gardening here on DG and you will end up with soil anybody will envy! I have similiar problem as you with the deer and the clay but our clay is greyish and smells or the red type you describe. There are lots of deer resistant plants (although I do gnash my teeth over the ones I can't plant that the deer/rabbits etc. do love) Just start with one area .... work hard to get the land prepped and then design and plant that. Then onto the next at another time. One will motivate you to do the others. Good Luck.

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