While they are sitting there in the "bath tubs" or "sumps" you created by amending the planting hole back-fill dug out of a heavy soil they may be getting infected with water molds or simply drowning.

Do whatever you have to do to get them planted in a uniform soil texture, without any pockets or zones of different texture (as were created by the amending) ASAP.

Thanks...that it exactly what I am asking how to do.

Short of ripping them out...can I disturb the surrounding soil that was untouched between my holes, and mix in some matter/amendments?

EDIT - and just want to make it clear...I backfilled the holes w/ 50% of the original native soil...and maybe 30% top soil and 20% peat moss. Some things I read say this is OK, in that I didn't replace it with 100% new material...and others say it is still no good.

There is no shortcut to this. Remove the plants, amend the entire bed (if you feel it necessary) so that the amendments are fully incorporated uniformly throughout, then replant.

Amending individual planting holes has long been disproven as an advised planting practice. And amending plantings holes in clay soil is just asking for trouble.

You only planted them last weekend - they still have a tight rootball. You're not really ripping them out :)

replant ... dig a hole over to one side.. take the natural soil.. and use it to replant the plant.. properly ... see link for how to plant in BAD clay ... and throw the amended soil in the second hole ... perennials or annuals wont care ....

or ... i used to get native soil from behind the garage [somewhere out back lets say]... and use it where i needed it ... and then you can throw the amended stuff in the hole you dig ... [you can read that.. been there done this.. lol]

and if you are interested.. make that area into a nursery bed ... or some such ...

i dont see why you should waste time.. effort .. and money on amending a whole bed ... especially if all you are planting there.. is these shrubs ...

dont forget to read the link about planting high i BAD clay ... BTW.. did you test your clay to find out if its BAD clay ... clay is not always bad ... perk it ... dig a hole.. fill with water.. and time and see how long it takes to drain ...

if you were doing this in august.. your would be screwed ... one week later .. crikey.. no big deal.. IMHO ... spring is very forgiving ... thats why we prefer planting this time of year ... cuts us a lot of slack ... [cool fall is the other good time]

ken

https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub

Actually, in my opinion the sumps per se, are not a problem. The problem is that the plants are in them ;-)
Just remove the plants, create new holes 3-5 feet away in unamended soil, plant them 1-2" or so higher than the soil line, and back fill the sumps with the soil removed for planting. In time earthworms will spread around whatever "improvement" was in the sumps.

Starter fertilizer is usually a really bad idea for permanent landscape material. The plant was already sufficiently fed by the wholesale nursery that was interested in producing it as quickly as possible. It needs to grow roots now to find water and nutrients.

Thanks everyone for the advice! I will hopefully be able to address this this weekend.

I just have 2 general questions regarding the practice of not amending the soil in planting holes, especially in clay heavy areas. I'm not doubting the advice, after all I realized it was possibly a mistake after I planted...but as someone who analyzes everything as logically as possible, I can't help but have these 2 thoughts:

1) If the soil in the hole is NOT amended at all....isn't the soil comprising the container shaped "root ball" amended and obviously very different from the surrounding native soil? If we back-fill with only the native soil, wouldn't we have the same problem of the roots not wanting the leave the soil from the container? I understand at least some of the native soil would have been broken up and "soft"...but then even if the roots entered this soil, would they then not want to enter the hard clay hole boundary anyway - the same problem faced when amending the hole?

2) Roots try to find moisture, right? So can't one encourage the roots to grow beyond the planting hole by watering between the shrubs instead of close to the shrubs, say, in year 2, 3+, etc?

Excellent, excellent questions.
Really, the container mix should be thought of as a, hhmmmm, "temporary root support system during commercial development of nursery stock." It would be impractical to grow azaleas hydroponically and market them, so, ergo, you have to have something to grow the roots in. When you plant, you want to break up the root mass and partly attempt to spread it out in the native soil. Yes, you certainly want to spread around any container mix that hasn't been fully rooted into by the plant, rather that plop the whole blob down in the hole. Yes, you want the plant to "forget" about that mix it had been growing in, if I may make them anthropomorphic for a moment. The Rarefind nursery catalog has a good illustration of _one_ approach to breaking up a container soil mass (you can DL the pdf version of the paper catalogs on their website) but it's not the only approach.
As a practical matter in a generally moist climate, it's not the end of the world if you irrigate mainly in the root zone, at first, to prevent them from death or set back in dry spells. But yes, long term that kind of watering will somewhat discourage the plants from having to send out long roots to find water. Of course they have create roots to anchor themselves regardless, but maybe they won't create as good a network of feeder roots if they are getting watered near the trunk every week.
On Long Island for 90% of landscape material you should be able to eventually not have to water it, even in the sandy soil areas. (which you are obviously not) It's just not that hot and dry a climate or one subject to huge standard deviations of summer rainfall. Yes, if you have a 20 year drought and you have stuff you planted in the past 2-3 years, you will have to water it.

Thanks for the detailed answers!!

So, I guess the critical step that seems to get left out is to gently break up the container "root ball" instead of plopping it right in the soil. Plopping the root ball directly into unamended soil seems to be the same as plopping the root ball into partly amended soil. You would get the same "bathtub" effect in either case...just a smaller vs a larger "bathtub". And I guess my question of watering away from the rootball was sort of an idea to potentially mitigate the "bathtub" and turnback effect and entice the roots to grow beyond the "comfort zone".

A couple of points to ponder in light of parts of this conversation...Amending the area in between the amended holes (i.e. amending the entire bed) will do absolutely zilch (nothing) to improve drainage, except in very unusual special circumstances. In fact, it can make effective drainage worse! Smaller bathtubs (for example the original rootball) can dry more quickly than larger ones, especially when the plants roots are helping to remove moisture in the "small bathtub". You are correct in saying that "breaking up" the original rootball can be benefical, but keeping the original rootball intact (only from a drainage perspective) is not always as big of a problem as amending a large "bathtub" in which a plant is placed.

"Amending the area in between the amended holes (i.e. amending the entire bed) will do absolutely zilch (nothing) to improve drainage,"

I disagree. Sports turf managers in areas of clay soil don't spend thousands of dollars per athletic field to have Turface and the like tilled or aerator-inserted into the soil for no reason. It -can- reduce ponding and drainage related problems. BUT that is outside the scope of most homeowners and their landscapes, and furthermore seldom actually needed. In addition, if you amended an area with gypsum or calcinic limestone and it was the type of soil amenable (no pun intended) to be improved by Ca++ ions, that would also improve drainage. It doesn't work for all clay soils...more the ones in coastal areas or high rainfall areas. Some of the clays in the central & SW US are already fully charged with calcium.

And btw my advice was based on my over-arching principle of gardening: omit needless activities. The old sumps aren't going to hurt, so just backfill them with whatever is available. My point was that there's no need to scoop out the 'improved' soil and try to carefully restore everything to the pre-planting conditions. FWIW, 'dry wells' are seldom created any more but at one time were a recognized means of improving drainage. (i.e., a deep hole lined with a landscape fabric and filled with loose aggregate. The theory seems to be that the water table will preferentially migrate into those areas, drying adjacent soil)