Drainage & water retention materials

Somebody please tell if this is accurate:

Horse manure for drainage
Leaves, hay, & corn cob grit for water retention

Any other suggestions for drainage ammendments (not sand)?
Thank you for any suggestions. ~~~ Carol

I use wood chips, sticks, compost, and mix it with manure, and soil I have. Mine is clay. The other assist to drainage is raised beds.

That's my problem is the clay (and rocks). I have a strip that I have been working on for a long while adding ammendments and raising the height. I try and double dig the depth of a spading fork and work as large an area as I can (although many times the clay ground is SO hard that I can't get more than a fraction of an inch at a time) working in leaves, horse manure, hay, straw, some decomposed bark mulch, veggie & fruit scraps, gypsum, misc cut up paper (usually junk mail), tea grounds & bags, and corn cob grit. It drives my husband CRAZY! He thinks I am wasting my time and that it is unnecessary activity.

This message was edited Nov 10, 2006 1:02 AM

If you need to bust up the clay, a mixture of pine needles and shredded leaves is great. Aim for 15% organic material, which would probably safely include your shredded junk mail. If there is a clay "shelf" under there, you won't be able to eliminate that permanently. Over time the soil will shift around back to the way it was in terms of consistency and clay content. But if you have a raised bed on TOP of that, you can create an area of good drainage at least as deep as the main rootmass of your plants. Earthworms will pull nutrients DOWN into the soil, so all you really have to do is add more on top each year.

People who plant lots of shrubs and trees are perhaps more aware of this than flower gardeners. Folks used to think that it was best to add a bunch of compost and manure when you plant a shrub /tree. Turns out it is far, far more important to dig a big enough hole. In order for the shrub/tree to become established, it has to build out a really good root system and in some soils (clay, for example) the roots run into the "interface" between the native soil and the recently disturbed soil too quickly. Also I suspect the disturbed soil has lots of air spaces and has better drainage. So you dig a hole at LEAST 3x as wide and 2x as deep as the rootbal of the shrub /tree, and fill it back in with the native earth maybe mixed with a bit of organic material.

So your DH is partly right, but probably not for the reasons he thinks. Keep adding good stuf on TOP of your soil, and let the worms do the rest.

Ammended clay ground will ALWAYS revert back to hard-packed compacted clay? No chance otherwise? :.-( (boo hoo) Very upsetting.

Sorry, it's geology. The mass of the clay that you extract is very tiny compared to the mass of the clay around it. The movement of water, freeze & thaw, etc. will "homogenize" the ground over time, including clay -- but the timeframe we are talking about is years, not days!. This is just another reason why we use raised beds to elevate our plants and create "perfect" drainage, because the raised beds won't homogenize. Over time they may sink a bit, but you just need to keep adding organic material on top.

Bummer.
How many inches, or feet, of soil can be placed on top of post oak tree roots for a raised bed?
Is there an easy way to create a "rock" raised bed? Is it feasible to cover a LARGE portion of ground under my trees with raised beds? (to act as barriers for the water washing through and to provide growth under the trees) ~~~ Carol

You might want to try creating berms and swales, with the berms made of raised beds of organic material. This is a recommended technique for xeric soil and water management, and I think it gives the landscape a more naturalized feel. The trees you have to be careful about -- don't dig into the root zone within the drip line, and keep mulch away from the base of the tree trunks. You can put raised "mini berms" around the trees though. Picture is an example of a new tulip bed planted this fall using layers of leaves, farm compost, and rabbit stuff. Behind it I have built up a mini "berm" that will (later this year)become a rock-lined planting wall (2' high) behind the tulips. It will create a nice visual illusion of mass planting, even though most of the area directly under the trees is just deeply mulched and not planted.

A berm is a raised area, is a swale a low area? We would love to do that all over the property, but haven't figure out how to get the dirt to stay in place.
Would really love to have rock walls and sections to add soil and plant all kinds of stuff.
What about the dirt in between the trees?

I use rocks mostly. If you have a natural incline, you can use the change in grade to create a terraced effect. Be sure to have a path or other channel available for water to find a course downhill though, or you will have a big mess when it rains hard.

A path set along the downhill side of a berm bed can make a great swale. Just make sure that the OTHER side of the path is at least raised a bit, and double dig the high edge of the downhill berm so the water will sink into the soil instead of running around or over the bed.

This book (http://www.amazon.com/Gaias-Garden-Guide-Home-Scale-Permaculture/dp/1890132527 ) is a terrific resource for exactly the questions you are asking.

That sounds JUST LIKE what I need! I want a more permanent landscape that doesn't have to ALWAYS have issues; and that looks natural. Looking natural is one important issue to us around our log house.

Do you know anything about "How to Make a Forest Garden by Patrick Whitefield" ?
OR
"Create an Oasis With Greywater: Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems [superseded by new edition] by Art Ludwig" ?

I believe those are both cited in the "Gaia's Garden" I linked to above. I have Ken Druse "The Natural Habitat Garden" and Forster & Downie's "Woodland Garden", both of which cover much pf the same material.

So, you think that the "Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture" is the best one to start out with?
Although "The Natural Habitat Garden" sounds very interesting.

Start with the permaculture. It gives all the fundamentals of soil chemistry and biology that help make sense of the others. It is also a very PRACTICAL book, whereas the others have > pretty pictures in proportion to usable information.

Does the book talk about xeriscaping?
Thanks SO MUCH for all of this information.

It does talk about xeriscaping in terms of creating an environmentally *appropriate* garden that will require the minimum amount of added water, artificial fertilizers, etc. The point would be to set up interactions between plants, soil, and soil microbes so that they can fully utilize available resources.