That almost sounds like the recipe for concrete.
If you dig a hole and pour water in it how long does it take for the water to dissipate? If it take over 15 minutes.
Now a lesson on soil. Clay particles are the smallest of the soil particles and they pack together. Gypsum will help release to hold of the clay particles, but over a period of years. That is why organics are so important.
If worst comes to worst build a raised bed and put in good soil.
I use wood chips for mulch and my beds are being built up with organics. My ph is 6.2 right now. I have a professional PH meter, a Kelway Have your soil checked to find out for sure, don't guess at it. Take the soil from about three or 4 places in the area and mix them together. All you need is about a cupful. Most County Agents do this or if you have a University nearby that does this. You can also send it off to be done

Hi Dan , I appreciate it.
The water drains in about 20 mins. Not too bad but much longer than it usually takes to drain. I'm bringing a soil test in on Monday. Can you enlighten me about the horse manure and what you mean exactly when you're referring to "organic's?
Also, when grabbing the dirt samples, should I take from unamended dirt ?
Thank you.

Hi. I understand your frustration. When I moved to Ireland I battled a new type of soil. Took me two years to figure out what worked for my particular type of boggy clay.

I'd highly recommend the soil/compost forum. Those guys have a ridiculous amount of knowledge and are geniuses when it comes to ammending soil. They helped me out and now I have gorgeous, healthy soil.

M

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenweb Soil, Compost, and Mulch Forum

1. I mixed sand into clay in one garden and it was a mistake. This is counter-intuitive, but adding sand to pure clay just makes the soil heavier until you reach a tipping point of over 3/4 sand. The recipe for adobe is 70% sand, 30% clay. The clay fills all the pores between the sand grains. However, if your heavy soil is a mixture of clay and silt, adding sand will make a desirable loam. You can look up "soil jar test" and "soil triangle" to learn about your soil texture.

2. Mushroom compost is usually a mixture of manure and lime. It is usually quite alkaline and not good for roses. If your soil mixture is alkaline, you may have a chronic problem with deficiencies of iron, manganese, etc. (However, garden center roses grafted on Dr. Huey rootstock are fairly tolerant of pH 7-7.5.) As Dan says, you should check the pH. I use an inexpensive Rapi-Test meter, which works fine. Still, I recommend a soil test to see what else is going on. Use sulfur if needed to lower the pH to 6-6.5.

3. Drainage. A drainage test is meaningless unless the soil and subsoil were already soaked to begin with. So dig 16" deep, and unless it is already wet, fill the hole with water twice and let drain. Then fill again and time it. If it drains 12" in 6 hours, that's fully satisfactory drainage. If you have poor drainage, the only remedy is to raise the bed. Just 6" is enough.

4. Manure. Don't mix a lot of fresh manure into the soil where it will be in contact with fine roots. Fresh manure can be used as a mulch or to prepare soil at least two months before planting. Composted manure (available in garden centers) can be mixed into the soil at a ratio of 1:4. Any kind of organic matter as a mulch will improve heavy soil over a few years.

It sounds to me like you are worrying about the wrong things. Clay is good for roses. It holds water and nutrients. PH is only a problem if you want to grow multiflora hybrids or roses grafted onto multiflora. Then you do need to drop the pH so it is acidic. It is much easier just to avoid those roses, particularly at first.

Unless you are planting specimen shrubs, like R. hugonis, don't dig and amend holes, but dig and amend beds. It is a lot more work up front, but once done, it is done. Amend the beds with whatever organic matter you can get easily and/or cheaply. Unless you raise animals, don't expect enough of it to come from your property. Any aged manure or compost is fine. I usually dig down about 1 ft, and add an inch or two of manure, the mix it up.

Get your samples from a spot not amended. That way you have a base mark to go on. It wouldn't hurt to sample the amended area too!
An organic is anything that has to rot to breakdown. Chopped leaves are free and real good. I use the bark mulch I get from a tree company. Horse manure is good if it's aged.
Start with you soil sample and we'll go from there