Disgusting.

Whoever built or renovated the house simply buried this waste (illegally depending on the state and period in time it happened) rather than paying for the waste to be hauled off.

For some reason this pops up a lot in Texas and Oklahoma. I have no idea if it's legal there (which it shouldn't be, especially for roofing waste), but those areas see too much of this practice.

While it is possible for plants to grow around this kind of stuff in the soil, getting that much waste in such huge chunks in such a small amount of digging is going to make things a bit difficult.

Raising beds 6-12-18" would give the plants a shot at some quality/easy soil before having to work roots down in that mess, but people generally don't like to grow roses in raised beds.

I don't know too much about the rooting of roses, myself, or their tolerance of something like this.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Sun, Aug 18, 13 at 18:05

Thank you for your response! I'm gonna try and dig out as much as I possibly can. This is just plain ol'awful! Some people are so darn lazy!!! Arrg! Can I do anything aside from compost to give this poor sad soil a helping hand? I've read that ammendments aren't good for soil. Is that true?

Wow! Never seen anything even close to that.

To your question - can you fix it? Yes, but it won't be easy. The solution is to dig it out, sift it to remove the junk, then return the cleaned up soil to the bed. With that much volume fraction you'll probably need to add quite of bit of imported soil.

If this is a foundation bed,which I would suspect given the roofing debris, and you're thinking raised bed built up over the junky soil, you'll be limited if how high you can go on top by the foundation sill line - you want at least 4" of free space between the top of bed (including mulch) and the sill line.

I faced something similar, but nowhere as bad - just 100 years worth of broken crockery and bottles, over and under an impermeable layer of rocks from an old driveway. I had to go down 30 inches, more or less, and it was a real pain, but boy, did I feel virtuous when it was done!

The soil that was left was utterly lifeless and dusty, so I put in anything that could decompose - compost, some organic fertilizer (it had cottonseed meal, feather meal, and other stuff like that), grass clippings, leaves, cut up wool and cotton yarn, cotton fabric scraps - really, about anything I could think of, everything cut very, very small. I guess you could call them all amendments. The worms were back within months, so the soil came back to life. I keep it mulched, which also helps with getting organic matter back into the soil.

Amendments aren't bad. You may be thinking about the recommendation not to amend the planting hole of a tree, and that rule exists because you don't want the tree sitting in an area that absorbs water at a different rate than the surrounding soil. In your case, there is no surrounding soil, so you're starting from scratch. I wouldn't make your soil super-rich, but if all you've got is dead dust, there's no way to go but up.

When I was doing my excavation, I relied on my long-handled garden fork and a hand-pick; I always used gloves, and I got a tetanus booster when it became apparent what a mess I was dealing with.Just fyi.

Good luck! As I said, you will feel like Superman when it's done.

"I've read that amendments aren't good for soil. Is that true?"

Depends on what you mean by "amendments". Compost added to soil is an amendment, and so long as it's not overdone, it's a great thing. Were you thinking of something in particular?

Wow, that's horrendous, and yes, it's probably illegal. I swear, if we were to ever build a house, I'd be there day and night watching them like a hawk. If they're not burying debris, they're scraping off your topsoil and selling it to the highest bidder.

I would say do what you can to remove a lot of the debris and then build a raised bed for growing the roses. It's very nice of you to do this for your grandmother. Don't kill yourself in the process.

TXED, what I meant by ammendments was adding in stuff like green sand, coarse sand, decomposing granite etc. All the neighbors say they're also dealing with the buried junk then hit soild clay/cement. And added sand to help with drainage. But to me adding sand to a cement like soil would make things worse not better. (But I know absolutely nothing about that) So I'm hoping and praying yall will let me pick your brains a bit ;-)
Thank you for your help!!!
-Lyna

The lazy person's approach ..... do the roses absolutely have to go in that spot? Have you done any test holes elsewhere in the yard?

Lyna - generally the best amendment you can add to soil is organic matter, and that is best served by compost if you either have it or can get it. For a permanent planting that can be added up to about 10-15% by volume. Beyond that, you stand to run into shrinking soil over time because you won't be able to maintain the OM at high levels.

A couple of questions - about where are you located, what's the native soil like, and where is the new bed located - is it a foundation bed or is it out away from the house?

We're in central tx (waco) from what I'm told by our local nursery the soil in our area is clay limestone and chalk. Thia new bed is going to be by our fence line out away from the house so my hubby can make my grandma a gazebo to sit outside and be surronded by her roses. I've tested all areas of the yard, to be honest this spot had the least amount of junk to deal with. That's partially why I chose it. Plus it gets morning sun and when the sun ois the hottest it gets filtered by some nearby pecan trees. Will the compost help this type of soil drain? We had an usually heavy rain last month and we ended up with a lake for a yard for about 3wks, I think the sun made it all evaporate.Cuz its dry as a bone after the first 4-8inches deep

After the layers of Junk I hit solid ??? Rock ??? Not really sure what this is???

After the layers of Junk I hit solid ??? Rock ??? Not really sure what this is???

{{!gwi}}

That area has high native limestone and chalk, and is known for having caliche under clay. That hard stuff you hit may just be just be caliche, which is mostly limestone. In some places the clay soil may be just a few inches thick on top of caliche. The native soil will be quite alkaline, and you probably won't be able to do much about that in the native soil because it is largely limestone.

I don't know anything about growing roses, but since you're out away from the house a raised bed or a berm would be a great idea. I'm thinking about 12", or even more if you can. That will resolve poor natural drainage that you probably have, as well as allow you to at least partially dodge the limestone. The problem comes with getting the soil for the bed in your location. There is an outstanding soil yard and a top-notch soil guy on the west side of Austin, and there is another good outfit that has a location on the south side of Dallas near Lancaster. If you have a really good local garden center, you might check with them on suppliers. You might also post in the Texas Gardening forum for possible suppliers in the Waco area.

This post was edited by TXEB on Wed, Aug 21, 13 at 2:25

That broken piece looks black and almost glassy. Either volcanic in origin or some kind of slag.

Looked more closely at this -- on the left it looks like Houston Black soil (the official State soil of TX), and I suspect the white specs are bits of limestone which is common in Houston Black. If those little white bits are limestone they will effervesce if placed in some vinegar.

See a couple of snail shells in there, which I see a lot of down here near the south end of the Brazos. The black shiny piece may be stained quartz, or a quartz variant? The colored piece on the lower left looks like it might contain fair amount of iron.

What a good awful mix of stuff to find where you intend to dig a garden bed.

Well wouldn't ya know it ACTUALLY GETS WORSE!!! (Sorry had to get that outta my system) Ok so after talking with the original home owners, I found out they had a small apartment on the property. About 15yrs ago it burned down. The rock wall I thought I hit turned out to be the charred remains of that apartment. I was willing to try and remove as much junk as I could, that is until I found out about the burned down apt. I really really want to improve our soil so we can have a decent soil/garden. But I much rather start grandmas rose garden. Then concentrate on the rest of the property and removal of all that darn crud. Does anyone know if charred building remains contain any toxins or poisons? Anything that will continue to damage the soil? Or can I wait a few yrs before having to really dive into this issue? Thank you !!
-Lyna

Well that's insightful. Unfortunately, I don't think there is any sound generic answer. It would depend on exactly what burned, how it was demolished, and what was done on the surrounding land - were the remains cleared, buried, etc. The good news, if there is any, is that 15 years should have resolved any appreciable toxic issue if there ever was one. Time is a great healer of land, and your not talking about a decade or more of industrial pollution - you're talking about an smallish residential building. What's been growing on that spot recently?

Still, raised beds would provided a very reasonable solution and alleviate any concerns. You can just build them on top of the existing soil as island beds by piling up a desirable soil composition. Because our soils are so crappy where I am, island beds and raised foundation beds built on top of the native soil, without rigid borders, are quite the norm. It's not cheap (good soils around here average about $40/yard), but it's simple and it works well.

Hi Alwaysbgrateful: I agree with TXEB that raised bed is best. Since we have lots of rain & snow in my zone 5a, I choose resin Suncast bed, rather than wood (can decay). It's a long rectangle (enough for 4 big roses), sold for $100 at Lowe's. It took me 10 minutes to put together (I'm very clumsy).

Before I put the raised bed, I solarized weeds and grass with thick black plastic "Mulch Film" sold for $5 for a 50' x 4' large roll. Once the grass & weeds are dead, I roll up the plastic UNDER and at the out-skirts of the frame, to prevent weeds from creeping into the bed.

See picture below of Suncast Resin Raised Bed, with Charles Darwin rose bought from Chamblee's Nursery in Texas.

Here's a picture of killing grass with thick plastic "Mulch Film" for $5 a big roll. Once the grass is dead, I roll up the plastic and keep it under the brick, so grass can't crawl through.

When the grass was dead, I planted my roses .... I was too lazy to dig in "Professional Black Plastic Edging" ... so far grass hasn't crawl through the roll-up-black plastic with bricks on top.

Thank you !! Strawberryhill, I love that idea! Im definitely gonna give that a try.
TXEB, When I was talking to the former owner, he said "well it was over there somewhere" waving me off and not pointing in any direction. (Yea I know, AAARG!) He went on to say the house and propery had been in the family since 1920's-1930's, and his family grew a huge rose garden all over the property and couldnt see how him telling his construction crew to just bury any and all debris throughout the grounds would cause any issues for us planting a garden. Funny how he mentioned all that info now. Although the neighbors gave me a general area, and the apt was apparently more like a tiny studio. Really theres nothing on the property growing. Maybe enough weeds to count on one hand, but thats about it. I first thought it was the summer heat killing everything and lack of water. But even in spring nothing comes up. So, raised beds here we come! Lol! Thank you again all info has been invaluable!
Happy gardening y'all,
-Lyna

Alwayzbgrateful, I think I see some good possibilities of gold in those rocks!

I don't know much, But my brother is a pretty successful prospector and he has shown me some similar stuff and says that is supposed to be good signs!

Wertach, I think most all the "rocks" I found were charred remains. But I'm happy to be wrong ;-) Thank you for your input , please let me know if theres something I should be on the look out for.
-Lyna