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shrubs and trees that tolerate clay soil
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Posted by oyuen alberta (My Page) on Tue, Jun 24, 08 at 21:39
We moved into this 3 year old house with a flower bed on our front lawn (north east exposure) last year. It's our second summer in this house and the little mountain ash in the flower bed still has no leaves on it; but the inside of the branch is still green. It turns out that it's all clay below the 4-5 inches of soil in the flower bed.
So my questions are:
1) what do I do with the mountain ash? Is it dead?
2) if we were to plant something else in its place, what would survive the clay soil in Zone 3?
3) someone has suggested that the clay would be too big a problem and we should think about just putting rocks in the bed. We do have 3 spireas and a rhododendron spread out in the same flower bed (they look a bit "anemic" as well).
Thanks in advance for all your suggestions to us newbies.
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: shrubs and trees that tolerate clay soil
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- Posted by marric Z5a Ontario (My Page) on
Thu, Jun 26, 08 at 9:03
| We also have heavy clay. We spent the first few years amending the soil by planting cover crops. We have quite a few trees and shrubs that seem to like it here. We did try crabapples but they didn't all survive, but I think that was because of the strong north/northwest winds we get in winter. The one in the garden (more sheltered) is doing beautifully. The others that are doing well are hawthorn, oak-red and bur, maples and hackberry. For shrubs we planted golden elders, saskatoons, burning bush, lilacs, dogwood, flowering raspberry, 'Diablo' ninebark, spicebush and some viburnum. As far as your mountain ash goes, I would put compost around the base of it and water well. These trees like moisture so maybe you could mulch it. Marg |
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