Originally, my planting areas were bare ground next to my building where grass was not grown (typical red clay soil). After I put in borders to delineate flower beds (THIS is for flowers, THAT is for creeping grass!!!), I've had the flower beds amended annually for the past 5-6 years with organic matter (usually pine bark mulch or whatever I had left over from the previous year: cow manure, spaghum peat moss, MG garden soil ONCE, humus, store-bought compost, used coffee grounds etc). This was dug in to a depth of one foot.
I think now I have well-draining soil (but I'm not stopping my annual soil amending: I want loamy soil!!). When rain water makes lakes and ponds atop the grass,, my flower beds look well-watered but without any pools of water! Also, when I first started, my flower beds had NO worms. . . . now, simply by turning over a few shovels of soil, I get enough to go fishing!!!
I think I should revise my plans to plant chinese asters (for summer blooming / int4erest) on top of the hyacinth bed: I don't want to destroy IT, too. What do y'all think about putting a plantar atop this area for summer and planting annuals in IT? Would watrering the plants in the planter go down and rot my bulbs?
