Beautiful flowers can be difficult to grow in hard clay soil gardens. In order to have nice foliage and bright blooms flowers need to have access to air, water, and the proper nutrients. Those nutrients can be tied up in clay soil. Where the soil has been tilled it nutrients can become available for a time but the clay soil eventually reverts back to the hard compact state. This happens because the fine clay particles wash into the air holes and can become tightly packed resulting in hard dense clay. This inhibits air, water, fertilizer and healthy root growth.
Improving Clay Soil Around Flowers
Flower gardens are often a mix of perennials and annuals, so continually breaking up the soil becomes impractical especially when all the annuals are in place. Due to the nature of traditional amendments, it is also impractical to try to get them to penetrate into the soil.
Traditional Amendments
Gypsum and lime are often suggested to amend the soil in order to suspend the destructive dispersion of fine clay particles that clog air and water paths. Two problems are getting it into the soil after your flowers are in place and that the effects are usually temporary.
Sand is also a popular suggestion but again there is the problem of getting it into the clay after the annual flowers are in their new home. Even if you till it into the soil before planting the dispersion of the fine clay particles still exists. This can give the clay more structural support making it even more like concrete.
Compost has even larger bits of material and is even more difficult to get into the soil. However compost can have a benefit even if applied to the surface since the organic material is rich in nutrient holding carbon. Even when compost breaks down to the small carbon particles it is still difficult to get it into the depth of the soil where the carbon is more beneficial.
A Better Easy to Use Solution
ClayMend is a better solution. It comes in a liquid form that is easy to apply in clay soil around flowers. Even though ClayMend is not harmful to plants it is best to wash it off of the foliage after applying it so that it gets down into the soil where the benefits occur. Because it is liquid it can get down around the roots deeper into the soil. It addresses the causes of destructive dispersion and then helps to build a better soil structure. The beneficial microbial activity works to break down organic material. Restructuring of the clay results in a more open porous structure. This improves air flow, water flow and fertilizer efficiency. Since water and nutrients can penetrate deeper into the soil so can the root systems. This draws them away from the surface giving them more protection from the elements. Using ClayMend in your clay soil around flowers helps process nutrients to give a more balanced diet to the flowers.
When ClayMend is used, compost can be added to the surface and as it breaks down it can get deeper into the soil and provide greater benefit than before.
If your flower garden just isn’t dazzling because of problems with hard clay soil around flowers, start using ClayMend. Start with a small bottle and see some results in just a few months. Benefits can accumulate with additional applications spaced at least 30 days apart.
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