Viewing post #1282483 by joannakat

Oldgardenrose said:There is also a general principle for all holes used for planting saying that the old soil should be mixed with the new soil in order to prevent the "well effect". One of the expert members had, in past threads, cautioned against simply digging a hole and placing the new plant in it. The roots will grow out to the edge of the hole and turn back into the richer soil which will, in time, cause the roots to strangle themselves or grow back across each other.

Wow, I never heard of that! So glad you explained. As luck would have it, the entire landscape where I live is on top of compacted rocks. They began only about 6" down so basically, we have sod on top of a few inches of topsoil and then it's rocks and more rocks. So I've dug them out to a depth of about 15" or so (what a pain) and then added another 10" of raised bed on top. I hope this will suffice for peonies, I never thought to ask. I just measured my bare root--it's 8" from end to end.

The upside of all this is that all the old soil (very sandy) has been mixed with the new stuff, and now I have enough rocks to build a rock wall around my raised bed!