This was super great and helpful, thank you! Your video made this newbie gardener happy that a seasoned gardener feels the same pains of clay soil. I wish I had found this video last year when I started my first garden! I have clay soil and 15 black walnut trees in the backyard and one million squirrels because of the walnut trees. The squirrels sit in all my pots and eat the black walnuts all day, every day. Then the squirrels bury their walnuts and dig up my bulbs while doing so.
Love the way the weeping spruce and iris look. Would love to see how you till the soil and what you use for this. Would also love to see you prune the yew. Soil conditioner has helped me a ton with my clay soil situation. Great topic!
Ha! I say folage too! Your garden is beautiful and I love your enthusiasm 😊 I live in northern Illinois as well and every year experiment with new perennials and move things around when they don't do well. Your store is about an hour away from me. One of these days I'll take a ride up. I love what I see on your website!
Enjoyed this video. You have a beautiful home. I have clay soil also, and rabbits! I’m going to see if you have any videos about that if not maybe you could make one in the future. So many beautiful flowers I like the bunnies also love. 😂
You could try air layering the tall gingko for a year and if you get good roots growing, transplant that half of the gingko which is rootstock to the edge of the forest or to another part of the yard. That would leave the dwarf gingko graft behind. Gingkoes are incredibly tough trees, having outlived all their natural enemies. The wood has crystals of natural insecticide in it. I love gingkoes.
Clay soils in the midwest or the east coast are usually "easier" than our european clay soils, because your climate is quite moist in summer. In France, near Paris, I'm lucky if I get more than 60 mm of rain in summer. And in winter, it's just mud in the lower parts of the garden. So yeah I mulch what I can with wood chips, but wood chips make the soil a bit too rich for many beautiful flowering perennials. So it's tricky. I do have a few plants that will tolerate both the dry clay on the top parts of the garden (so good drainage in winter, but dry in summer) and the heavy moist clay in the lower parts (wet in winter, but holds water better in summer). Weirdly stipas do fine in both soils, as well as the classic calamagrostis Karl Foerster. If we're talking flowers, centaureas are great (especially centaurea montana), then achilleas (especially achillea filipendulina), all echinops, and most eryngiums (eryngium planum is super easy). And of course most sages will grow anywhere. I'm on the fence with Monarda, it doesn't like the dry summers at the top. And agastaches won't like the heavy winter clay. I'm experimenting with veronicastrum, echinacea and eupatorium of course, but I've been trying them for 2 years only, and the veronicastrum are super slow growers, while eupatorium is still not at adult size either. Veronicas grow faster, and veronica teucrium seems to be the best. I think if I have to choose 3, it'd be achillea filipendulina, veronica teucrium and echinops.
I'm in central Texas with Black Land Prairie clay. Some of the most nutrient dense soil, but some of the least draining soil. Unfortunately our soil is also alkaline. I love hydrangea, but they don't love alkaline soil. I was curious if you have acid, neutral, or alkaline clay?
Brand new to your channel! I struggle with Clay soil and have lost many shrubs each year due to soil conditions and or watering. How much sun does your back area get where the boxwoods are? Are they protected from the wind? Mine have struggled every year I have to replace them.
@@gardeningTLC thank you for your response, do you have any recommendations for Clay soil and an evergreen type shrub along a fence line that is not a wood fence but an open fence so it gets lots of wind 😩
I'm so upset! I have recently learned that when I hired professional landscapers, they treated my "problem area" of red lava rock by leaving the rock in place and putting clay soil on top of it. What a nightmare! I have been moving and adding some plants to that area and it's a beast to work with. I feel sorry for those plants. Wish I had seen your video sooner! I did add some pine bark soil conditioner, but it will take years of adding organic material to this area to change the soil composition.
Well that is a trick question...lol. it depends on a lot of factors.....so it is different everywhere..for me...my average has been about 5-6 years and they are ready to be replaced.
i wish you would mention zones while talking of your plants. I realize you are in zone 5 but some of your plants would be fine for us other gardeners. I am zone 9. Also terrible clay. I love agastache but they dont seem to like clay
So odd to hear you planning your annual plantings. I've been harvesting flowers since April! Our last frost is mid February in N FL zone 9a. We are done planting for the season.
