Glad you posted this, sugar hill. I have a question - what does Walter refer to when he says to use soil conditioner?

Hope you'll invite us to your porch when the daphnes are in bloom. I'll be studying how much sun they can tolerate - maybe, maybe, I can grow them here too.

Rosie in Sugar Hill

Soil conditioner is sold under that name (at least in Home Depot it is). It is generally "composted pine bark". Nature's Helper is the brand name of one soil conditioner but sometimes they just have a "generic" one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Here's a picture

Esh and sugar hill,

I've thought of soil conditioners as any of a number of things. Have used the pine bark, cow, horse and hen manures, mushroom compost, and CLM (Complete Landscape Mix).
Also my homemade compost. Is this a question of semantics? They all serve the purpose of getting the soil in better condition.

Thanks, Rosie in Sugar Hill

Is this a question of semantics? They all serve the purpose of getting the soil in better condition.

Yes and no. Yes because all these things do serve as soil conditioners. No because I have watched Walter discuss this topic (making better soil for daphnes) on TV and he was specifically using the bagged product called "soil conditioner" and he said it is composted pine bark.

My opinion is that you can use any product that serves to condition the soil, that just happened to be "his" recipe.

Having slogged through this process, I wouldn't substitute anything for the bagged soil conditioner. None of the other amendments I typically use are going to give the same texture as bagged soil conditioner (Nature's Helper, whatever). This is not about anything except making drainage daphnes like. Substitutes aren't going to produce the same drainage. This is kind of like pie crust - you don't want to fiddle with the ingrediants.

I can understand your point, sugarhill. I followed the recipe exactly and my daphne has done wonderfully. It is HUGE.

iow, the point of soil conditioner is not adding nutrients to the soil, like manure or compost, but adding air spaces and drainage. the nature's helper still has good-sized chunks of bark in it, but not great big ones like wood chips.

i'm excited it works because I WANT daphnes. what sun exposure does it got, sugarhill?

I have no idea what kind of exposure it's supposed to get. Mine sit on the northeast side of my house near the middle of a scent garden where I ripped out the foundation planting. The tree that used to shade the area came down as a result of Ivan. So they get morning sun from dawn through midday. Around 2 PM they start passing into shade. I think, but check with someone else, that they can take more shade than this. I don't know how much more sun they can take - again check with someone else. What I did is move them around in their pots for over a year until I found the spot they liked. I let them sit in the spot where they ended up for over 6 months before I planted them - just to make sure that spot was okay.

Something else that's good to know: they need to be planted where water runs off. It doesn't have to be a steep slope. Mine are planted where the ground is slightly sloped from back to front and left to right of the bed. It's just enough slope to keep water moving past them so it doesn't pool around them at all.

The planting instructions say to set aside the top 4 inches of the soil you dig for the planting hole (the hole is 5 feet in diameter and 12 inches deep). I found that even after mixing all the soil conditioner, builder's sand, and pebbles into the top 4 inches of soil that I still didn't have enough to fill the planting hole. I recommend setting aside the top 6 inches of dirt you remove.