I always obsess about drainage, maybe because I like digging around and "engineering" my beds.
But also because I garden on the rock-hard clay, no-drainage-clay that was left behind by the bulldozers after they 'dozed the park. I wonder where all that topsoil was moved to?
>> when I dug around the rose it was like a hard mud so I loosened the soil
Adding compost on TOP of clay will gradually soften and loosen the clay beneath. Like, over a few years.
That will be speeded up if you can arrange for the clay to DRAIN, which lets air into it, which allows roots and worms to penetrate it sooner.
Sometimes people plant into clay and then wonder why the plant can't take up water: it's sitting in a big puddle of water! The extra water excludes air from the soil, so the roots they just planted drown, die and rot.
The leaves wilt since there are few LIVING roots or root hairs to take up water.
People think "wilting means it needs more water", and pour more water on top of the drowning roots.
Sometimes a plant dieing of thirst means that the root zone has TOO MUCH water.
