My yard suffers from some pretty terrible soil conditions. It’s full of 2-6” round “river rock” boulders to the point you rarely get a shovel in the ground without hitting one. The soil itself is very clay-heavy, compacted, and slow draining, with limited water penetration beyond the (roughly 3-4”) of top soil. I can still get a shovel through it once the rocks are out of the way, but it’s pretty packed/hard digging.
I recently bought a 2” caliper (12ft tall) honey locust I was hoping to plant in this hole, but I’m concerned as to whether the roots will even be able to escape the hole (not to mention, whether the hole will drain enough to avoid root rot. I know honey locusts are pretty adaptable, but is there any way to improve my chances of success?
The hole itself is currently 3X the root ball, with sloped sides and just deep enough to keep the root flare out of the dirt. I’ve been told you should only backfill with native soil (no amendments).
Does else deal with similar? Am I worrying too much? Is there anything I should do to encourage outward root growth out of the hole (and avoid water logging)?
by Nature_Boy_4x40
6 Comments
Get a brick of peat moss, Lowes, Menards. A bag of fertilizer, Drop some fertilizer in the hole. Half a bucket? Then break up the peat moss, dump half in the hole. Drop your tree in. Then cover the roots with more peat, and some quality top soil. I do this with every tree I have planted. They grow like crazy.
Make sure the sides of your hole are rough and not smooth like in picture 1. This helps roots dig into native soil. Backfill mostly with native soil but mix 5-10% compost in there. This helps getting tree established and has a low enough concentration of amendments that it doesn’t just want to stay in there. Lastly I would soak the hole before planting. That soil looks dry and this can help tree root into it.
I saw a video where someone dug out something along the lines of a star pattern in the soil instead of a basic round hole. It allowed for the roots to push out more easily. With soil like that, you’ll want to avoid the bathtub effect. Also, fill the hole and wait a day to see how it drains. If the water is still all there after 24 hours, you’ll want to aggressively supplement the soil.
I recently bought a mattock (one side with a pick and the other with an adze). It has helped a lot with digging in packed clay soil, where I live a shovel is basically useless until the soil is broken up. Once I’m at this stage, I use the pick end to rough up the edges of the hole. The adze cuts through roots and helps scoop soil out. There are some YouTube videos with instructions on how to use it.
I also have found it helps to do a deep watering the day before I dig to help the clay come out in chunks. Frankly it’s really hard to dig big holes in clay soil no matter what!
You need a jack hammer. Thats what we use in Vegas. Our soil is so dry, shovels break from tryin to dig here
Add some claybreaker soil