To ask for your clay soil experience/tips?

[Philmitchell]

Im asking here as I know I will get a good response

Our garden is clay soil, awful. Everything dies.

Does anyone have any tips ? Best plants/flowers that survive?

We have clay too - it’s actually quite nutrient rich, but takes some improving! We dug in lots of manure and compost and that has helped a lot.

Roses are tough and take well but are greedy and will take lots of manure. I’ve also got a couple of thriving peonies - if you can get them to take they’re tough as old boots. Pyrocanthus grows well up fences and gives lovely coloured berries which the birds like. I’ve also got alchemilla mollis growing like billyo and you get lovely acid green foliage from that!

Best tip tho - sacks and sacks of manure and compost!!

We have heavy clay here. Plants that seem to thrive easily in my garden are crocosmia, clematis, buddleia, raspberries and forsythia.

But yeah, if you can, dig in lots of compost.

Heavy clay here. And I'm a bad gardener,,my forsythia and raspberries failed. Ceanothus and salvia doing well. And brambles! I look to see what's thriving in neighbours gardens and try that. And put garden compost on soil when I remember/can be bothered

Really heavy clay here, it's almost impossible to dig. Layer of compost over it and things do suprisingly well. Acer, jasmine, heuchera, bamboo, poppies etc.

Anything too fragile just gets eaten immediately by slugs, robust leafy things seem to do best

Aquilegia grows like crazy too. Clematis and honeysuckle, not so much.

Im a rubbish gardener too i did add loads of manure last summer but its all rock hard again. Don’t even get me started on the grass

Some good plant/flower ideas though will save them.

Slabs

I've got a very clayey, quite shady and damp border which has astilbes, purple loosestrife, dogwoods, hydrangeas, vinca, ferns, aconitum (I tried to get rid of this when I had DD but it refused to go and is still thriving 20 years on).

I chuck homemade compost on it every autumn and let the worms dig it in. Raised beds are helpful if you can be bothered.

Plants that like my soil are roses, astilbe, aqilegia, primulas, cowslips, penstemons (some of them anyway!) hardy geraniums.

Yabu

Weirdly rosemary bloody loves my clay soil - grows like a weed! Erysimum Bowles Mauve grows anywhere. Just dump a ton of compost on top and let the worms do the hard work!

Tons of manure.

Put it on in autumn, at least 6 inches deep. By the time you get to April worns will have done most of the digging in for you and you should be able to plant stuff.

Repeat for 2-3 years.

You do need organic matter like manure and compost, but above all you need sharp sand. And lots of it. Clay soil is very nutrient rich, but the issue is that the clay particles stick to each other and create waterproof lumps, so drainage is massively compromised. It's horrible to contemplate, but good soil preparation at outset will be worthwhile in the long run. If it sounds like too much hard work - and it will be very hard work - perhaps as a one-off you could employ someone to do it?

There are so many plants that you'd love that would have to be excluded, the majority will only thrive in well-drained soil. There are some plants that are, ahem, quite robust and you'd be more likely to succeed with them, like the Alchemilla mollis a PP mentioned. If you feel you really can't get digging, add as much grit/sharp sand, leaf mould, compost, well-rotted manure on the top before winter and hope the worms will pull it in for you...

Our clay soil is so heavy (the area used to be associated with a brickworks) we had to have land drains put in under the lawn as every heavy downpour resulted in two inches of standing water in the back garden. Plants in the front garden often rotted. I trust yours isn't as bad as ours was...