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The Deep Middle


Gardening & writing in the prairie echo

Why I Prefer Clay Garden Soil

4/10/2018

16 Comments

 
We have a been hammered with the idea there is only one "good" garden soil, and that if you want to have success then your landscape should feature something like a rich, crumbly loam akin to potting soil. Nothing could be further from the truth. Amending soil for the average homeowner isn't just out of the budget, it's out of their body's ability to work the soil or have the time to do so. And you know what? You don't need to change your soil 95% of the time; the only real reason to do so is if a soil test shows some severe contamination or you're trying to improve drainage around a basement wall. But even if there's contaminated soil, depending on what it might be, one might be able to use plants to help remediate it (indiangrass and sunflowers are good examples that clean soil, removing lead and even radiation).

Choosing the right plant for the right place is how one gardens successfully -- every time. Changing the site to fit what you want to grow is like trying to change your spouse to be the perfect mate... in the end, you'll have wasted a lot of time and energy while you'll eventually give up on the relationship altogether. So fall in love with clay soil.

Clay has the smallest particle size of soil ingredients, which include sand and silt. It has a very high water-holding ability, and is a fantastic nutrient holder, as well. A lot of our clay soils organize themselves in layers or fine sheets that are negatively charged; plant nutrients are positively charged, and so are attracted to the the soil levels and "stick" like opposite ends of a magnet. This is why clay soil is often a very rich soil to work in, even though we'd assume that's not the case.
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Dalea purpurea & Rudbeckia hirta do fine in clay -- and pollinators love them.
Now, let's say someone wants to put prairie plants in a garden bed because they know they are native to them, are purported to be less maintenance, and will support pollinators. They might know they have clay and figure it needs to be improved, so they come along and till in compost. What the tiller will do is destroy those wonderful layers of clay that hold nutrients while killing soil life. Sure, the new soil might appear better to us -- and it's certainly easier to dig  -- but it's now no longer fit for lots of of those prairie plants.

Take pale purple coneflower, Echinacea pallida, a mainstay in prairie garden design. It's deep taproot is designed to punch through clay soil, which also makes it pretty drought tolerant. When you put it in a loamy bed this coneflower grows too fast, gets too tall, flops over, and has a much shorter lifespan. Why? You gave it a far too rich soil and it went bonkers. It's not evolved for that kind of soil. And now you have more maintenance because you've got to replace the plant. Many prairie forbs like pale purple coneflower have evolved these strong taproots for a purpose, just as the more fibrous roots of grasses and sedges. Together, all these plants reach into clay soil and slowly amend it naturally, adding nutrients while opening up spaces for water and air to penetrate. In fact, up to 1/3 of prairie grass roots die each year, and as they decompose they enrich the soil. This is why farming is so successful in the upper Midwest and eastern Plains.

So love your clay. If it's too hard to dig into, try using smaller 3" pots or plugs instead of massive and pricey one gallon pots. Consider a mix of sowing grasses and forbs with some potted plants. I like to create designs with forbs then come in and sow a groundcover of grasses -- which speeds up planting, saves my back, and costs less (plus that means no wood mulch). You could also sow a cover crop of annual native grasses and forbs, even biennial forbs like Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed susan) and Ratibida columnifera (mexican hat coneflower), to help prep the soil for a year or two. Otherwise, at planting time, a thin layer of 1/2" to 1" of compost doesn't hurt to add some organic matter if tests show the soil could use some.

When I meet a client who drops their head in their landscape sighing "I have clay soil, I know there isn't much we can do," I love to smile and say, "actually, because you have clay, we can do so much more."

Say it with me. Love your clay. Plant for it, not against it. Use nature to your advantage. Learn to be one with the force.

To learn more about sustainable wildlife gardening, check out some 200 articles or try one of these 15 online classes.
16 Comments
Kelly Taylor
4/10/2018 08:13:27 pm

Thanks. This gives me inspiration to actually work with my soil!

Reply
Benjamin Vogt link
4/10/2018 08:25:00 pm

We have to unlearn what we have learned. A lot of the images on this website are of gardens planted in topsoil stripped, tractor compacted lots in clay.

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Regina Newlin
4/11/2018 09:50:56 am

Thank you for the clay soil salute. I was much surprised when attending a soil presentation at the Michigan Master Gardener College, last summer where I brought a soil sample, that my clay soil wasn't so bad, after all. I have been expanding my butterfly garden into the lawn about a yard each year. I sprinkle leaf mulch and compost on my garden 1-2xs a year and that helps and keep planting natives. It seems to help!

Reply
Benjamin link
4/11/2018 09:55:50 am

That's an excellent point. I do soil tests for design clients all the time, and pretty much each garden's clay has good fertility. So it's more matching plants to the site that evolved to work the clay soil structure, and the boom / bust cycles of moisture. It sounds like you probably don't have to be adding compost every year, perhaps.

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OzarkMtnNana
4/11/2018 11:56:19 am

Maybe we should just leave a certain area or bed as it is for those native plants. Many greenhouse raised annuals really need the enriched soil to thrive.

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Benjamin Vogt link
4/11/2018 12:05:50 pm

Any plant that demands conditions I don't have in my garden is one I sure don't want. Too much work. But that's just me. :)

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Martha Ferguson link
4/28/2018 05:28:58 am

Great article again, Ben! When faced with a lot of post-construction soil, I decided to just plant prairie plants right in it and was amazed at the result. I did put in a cover crop of seed oats as it was on a slope.

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Adrienne Boullianne
4/28/2018 07:52:10 am

great article, ben! love your work! i add annuals/perennials to my established bed every now and again, but with my clay, i get so many volunteers that i let my garden transform itself, while i keep a little order. well, maybe i need to keep a little more order... haha. my main job is eliminating invasives, which is a full time position!

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Lynda
4/28/2018 08:09:40 am

I don't live in Nebraska, but I do have thick, red, clay soil. This was an informative article for me. So now I will work less on the soil and more on eradication of all the invasives that keep showing up all year. Thanks Benjamin.

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Randy Chorvack link
7/15/2019 11:17:53 am

It's so cool to me that sunflowers can clean your soil! Replacing your dirt is a lot of work and time and money that can easily be spared just by buying a few sunflowers. It's good to know I can use nature to help nature!

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David Norriss link
1/27/2020 02:21:19 pm

I think it's great how you said that the right plant has to be planted in the right place in order for your garden to be successful. This could help a ton of people understand why their plants and gardens don't work out well. If people never realize this they could end up ruining their whole landscape by planting the wrong things in the wrong places.

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Lori Clayton
12/9/2020 06:13:28 pm

Thank you for this article, my soil is clay and it’s given me so much hope and excitement to plant.

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Kristofer Van Wagner link
11/22/2021 03:19:42 am

The other day my mother mentioned that she would like to start gardening. I am grateful that this post highlighted that it is important that we choose the right soil as it will impact the health of our garden. Since I am going to the nearest nursery later, I will definitely ask about the best soil for my mother's needs.

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jameslehner992 link
6/7/2022 07:51:24 pm

Nature is so beautiful! You wrote wonderfully, it inspires me to do gardening.

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MUNKASHIR HOSSEN link
8/24/2022 06:42:55 am

Nice post. It really helpful post.

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Mohit link
9/1/2022 05:39:24 am

Thanks! Really helpful article.

Reply



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    Benjamin Vogt's thoughts on prairie gardening in Nebraska. With a healthy dose of landscape ethics, ecophilosophy, climate change,  and social justice.

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