harryhh
Cool Member
Posts: 68
Joined: Wed Jul 31, 2013 10:38 am
Location: Northcentral Illinois, Zone 5a

I want to loosen some hard soil for perennials.

North central Illinois.

Hello Folks,

Early this year I planted some 9 small flower beds with perennials. Mainly lilies, but a few other things. I'm think I made a mistake on one of them. The soil is pretty hard and I'm afraid that some of the bulb shoots may not be able to make it through to the surface next year.

I can try to dig up the soil this fall and find the bulbs. Then, remove much of the hard soil and mix in something like garden soil (with all that organic material in it) and sphagnum peat moss or sphagnum moss. Something that will last at least 5 years, but hopefully for decades. I don't know how long sphagnum moss lasts in the soil. At this time, I am trying to keep the cost down.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to soften this soil.

Thank you,
Harry

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rainbowgardener
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Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

Plant shoots are amazingly resilient:

Image
https://www.earthporm.com/life-finds-way ... wont-give/

If you just keep the soil moistened (don't over water, you can rot out the bulbs, but don't let it dry out) your lilies should be fine.

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Mulching will help to prevent weathering-based crusting and hardening of the soil and invite earthworms that will keep the soil loosened, too. Scratch some used coffee grounds in the soil under the mulch -- they love that.

ButterflyLady29
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Posts: 1030
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

Adding organic material is about the only way to loosen hard soil. Spread compost on the area then mulch over it. If you have worms in the soil they'll mix it in for you.



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