Lee Roy, you're a lean, mean digging machine! Well done!

Becky, I like the crepe myrtle recommendation!

Another tree suggestion...mugho pine 'Tannenbaum'. It is a conical shape, grows to about 10 feet tall. Evergreen, so year round screening. Or perhaps a few arborvitae like DeGroot's Spire? I find they give a nice architectural structure to a garden, which might fit well with your overall design. They are often used here for screening when planted in a row.
Amazing work on your garden, Lee-Roy!

I really really would like an espalier of some sorts; and I don't like conifers :S

Anyway, it's raining again...which means I can't plant for the next two or three days --' and after that it'll be even harder to mix more compost in *sigh*

I just read through this whole thread. It was fascinating. A big thumbs up for a job well done! I will be looking forward to seeing how the garden matures.

Thanks Sall!

Does any of you find this odd?: I've put so much effort in trying to get my wet, water logging clay soil more water permeable by adding ALOT of sand, gravel and compost.
Now it's been raining pretty much the whole afternoon and evening, but the water doesn't seem to drain away on its own. Instead it's like the clay clumps at the surface "melt" in the rain and form an impenetrable layer on top that stops the water going through. Because if (or when? please tell me which one is right) I just stick my finger through, the water instantly drains away. Add more sand or compost or both?

(It's gonne be rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain all coming week... )

My guess is if you used any peat in your soil mix and it was dry, it didn't get hydrated enough which might be causing the water to pool in your planters. Can you add wood mulch to the planters. Sometimes that helps, too. Or the mulch might float instead ....

Oh no, this is not odd--this is what clay does! at least mine anyway...
I'd trade you my dry forecast in a heartbeat if I could Lee-Roy!

Here are some things I've learned the hard way about my clay soil:
If I disturb it wet or dry or inbetween, it disrupts the structure and takes several seasons for it to re-establish and this results in water pooling on any flat surface and evaporating from there, running off in most cases because I live on a slope, but either way *not* draining down into the root zone of my plants, which then languish and die from lack of water. I have a rod that I shove down into the soil around new plants to create channels for the water to drain down. I also create shovel-size channels in larger areas, around larger plants, for the same purpose.

If I disturb it wet--it dries into the worst, impenetrable, hard-pack, death-to-all-plants stuff imaginable. I leave it alone when it's wet; it is unmanageable goo at that point anyway.

If I amend the evil out of it, with tons of compost and grit, at a 1:1:1, everything is better, as long as I don't leave any clumps or layers of clay between good stuff. (so, for example, in the porch garden project this spring, my lean, mean digging machine dug out about 3-4' deep, all that was piled in the driveway; we threw all the big rocks in the bottom of the holes and put 1/3 of the clay back with amendments and I couldn't be more pleased with how the stuff if behaving and the plants are doing well Of course, the pile of clay is about the size of a VW-bug and is still in my driveway growing a prodigious crop of sunflowers but that's another story)

If I don't disturb the clay but keep piling decomposable stuff on top of it, eventually the top portion becomes plantable and the transition zone becomes less evil, such that when I do disturb it to plant, it doesn't take as long to restructure. If I bring up too much of that clay when planting and it melts and makes an impenetrable layer, I make channels and wait it out still.

Hope that helps

I guess I'll just keep poking it then for the next two years :p

Wow! I had no idea that clay could be THAT evil! I guess I am lucky to have quick draining sand in my yard. I do a lot of amending with compost and decomposing leaves in my yard. Eventually my soil gets better over time. But if I don't keep my garden beds watered regularly, the sand turns to hardpan and you need a pick to get through it.

Does any area have great soil? Maybe cattle ranches?

oh yes--where I used to live in the midwest, I had 4' deep black gold for topsoil, it was luscious and drained well, and it rained there too. I thought I was an amazing gardener and then I moved.

Lee-Roy, I have clay soil also, though not as bad as what Dirt described. Mine is getting better with time...I add compost on top every year. But when I first began my gardens, I added quite a lot of pelleted gypsum to the soil along with all the other amendments you have mentioned. It did lighten the soil quite a lot.

So I bought more compost today, dug over the beds once more, raked them, put out the plants and finally planted them Now fingers crossed it turns out as beautiful as I have it in my mind's eye.

Looks fantastic, professional, and wonderful from here, Lee-Roy.

Looks like you have a great start. It will be so much fun to watch it grow and develop.

Thank you all! I've got two more plants on order, hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow. Epipacta gigantea and Cypripedium henryi. Now all I gotta do is find a spot to grow them :p

Lee-Roy - Looks awesome from my point of view!

Doesn't the established beds have the same clay soil (with amendments) in it as the newly planted beds? I see all the nice growth and how well the earlier filled beds are doing. If they are doing so well, won't the new ones do so, too, once they get established?

I have found that my soil improves with the appropriate plants being added to an area. I do amend the soil every year with autumn oak leaves, too!

lovemyhouse said:Looks fantastic, professional, and wonderful from here, Lee-Roy.

Indeed