Clay Soil and the Plants that Love It

When anyone can restore sterile, saline and alkaline clay soils into a collection of redwoods, oaks and giant timber bamboo, well, I want to hear about it.

  • Topic: Soil
  • Author: High Country Gardens
  • Keywords: Clay Soil, plants, soil conditions,
  • Date: February 2006

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If I didn’t have to go to a four-year-old’s birthday in Albuquerque this Saturday, I’d probably show up at this week’s seminar. When anyone can restore sterile, saline and alkaline clay soils into a collection of redwoods, oaks and giant timber bamboo, well, I want to hear about it.

Around my house I have patches where weeds won’t even grow. It’s that darn clay soil. But one way to out smart this dirt (and I’m gearing up for summer already, making my list of plants!) is to find plants that like living in it. At first you’d expect them to be tough and prickly. Not so.

Try Blue Flax, White Bouquet Tansy and Moonshine Yarrow. Amazingly enough, these are gentle flowers.

And try spot amending. Rather than amending a whole planting area, merely amend the spot you’re going to install the plant. This will give them a boost while getting established. Once they’re established, their roots will take readily to that lousy soil they seem to like.

Following are some of the plants that thrive in less than optimum situations:

  • Variegated Bishop’s Weed
  • Hollyhock
  • Silver Beardgrass
  • Poppy Mallow
  • Lanceleaf Tickseed
  • Russian Sage
  • Maximilian’s Sunflower
  • Purple Prairie Clover
  • All the salvias
  • Prairie Skullcap
  • Goldenrod
  • Silky Thread Grass

What I recommend is picking up some of our handouts such as—

  • Clay Soils—Suitable Plants
  • Attracting Hummingbirds and Butterflies
  • Gardening for Wildlife
  • Fire Resistant Plants
  • and the one about zones

—then cross-reference these with one of Judith Phillips books—“Plants for Natural Gardens,” “Natural by Design,” or “New Mexico Gardener’s Guide.” She gives a lot of good information for specific plants and varying soil conditions. We carry all three of her books in our Garden Center.

If you make that plant list now, you’ll be ready when planting time comes, and that time is not so far away.