Agree on compost. My sister in CT gets compost free from her village, and her soil is super-fluffy, she sent me some plants, and her soil is so loamy, just like the potting soil that Roses Unlimited came with. Compost (from leaves & forest) is better than horse manure (high in salt). My heavy clay is rock hard, from new-construction-soil-compaction, plus I'm right next to a limestone quarry. We are cursed with dandelions here. The foreclosure houses, which haven't been fertilized for years ... have more weeds on their lawn than grass.

For dandelions I used to spent hours with a long shovel to dig up the roots ... too much work, so I use a high-nitrogen-fertilizer to encourage grass, without the nasty-chemical-weed-kill. For dandelions I use the below scoop to chop the top off, then pour vinegar into the roots ... it's so much easier. I can kill dozens dandelions in less than 20 min.

This garden-scoop from Menards .. is also great to scoop fertilizer, holds up to 1 1/2 cups. I use it to make a basin around roses, to collect water. Due to its large scoop, scooping up soil is fast. See picture below of my garden scoop (less than $5), from Menards, next to Mirandy rose ... very disease-resistant, zero BS after wet June and humid July. I killed Mirandy on purpose due to its nasty thorns, my kid asked me to. When she was a toddler she asked me to kill 3 Knock-outs, I shovel pruned them even when Knock-outs were big & healthy. My kid comes 1st before roses.

My remaining 3 Knock-outs: they bloomed more when I piled up leaves around them ... for winter-protection, making soil fluffy, plus keeping the moisture in. I don't water my Knock-outs nor Flower-Carpet for the past 15 years. I WILL NOT use chicken-manure, since chicken-manure (high salt) can burn tiny-roots when we got a dry winter & dry spring like last year.

I like that garden scoop. I think Menards is like Lowes here.

We have Menards, HomeDepot, and Lowes. Menards has the most bargains, I get big roses with many buds, only $8 from Menards, while HomeDepot sells them for $27, and Lowes over $25. Sam's club is another place to get big roses & lots of buds for $8 per gallon.

I love Sam's club, that's where they sell MG-Moisture-Control potting soil for $10 per huge bag (55 qt.), twice more than Walmart. Too bad they don't sell Austin roses at local stores. There's on-line-coupon $10 off to use for David Austin $90 per 4-fragrant-roses (free-shipping), which makes it only $80 for 4-fragrant-roses, and one can choose own-root for some varieties. I got lots of free-glossy-catalogs from David Austin branch from TX .. very enjoyable, I should order from them sometimes.

Jim: Thank you for the info. regarding hybrid-teas don't do well for you. Hybrid teas consume an ungodly amount of calcium for their tall canes. I pruned them in late fall, and the yard-waste bag was solid-heavy. Calcium-depletion was what killed my Firefighter rose. It survived 2 brutal winters, then in the spring it sprouted tall-cane, and the strong wind broke it off ... then it died. When I dug it up, the soil was fluffy. Had I supplied it with calcium, the cane would be stronger, roots would be deeper, and it would still be alive. Looking back, the calcium-deficiency was there: first the blooms had many petals, then it became less petals. Then the canes were so hollow that they were infested with cane-borers.

I researched on whether potassium helps with winter-survival, some agricultural studies said "yes", others say "no". I researched on calcium, and studies point to calcium helps the rigidity of stems & tissue against extremes in temp., be it heat or cold. Plus calcium is vital for root-growth, thus helping with winter-survival. Here's the info from the below links:

"The present study investigated the effect of calcium on the
cold acclimation-dependent, acquired frost tolerance in winter barley genotype
'Nure' and it was found that reducing the calcium level using the calcium
channel blocker lanthanum or the calcium chelator EGTA significantly decreased
the frost tolerance of 'Nure' seedlings following rapid cold acclimation."

http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/20133092488.html;jsessionid=C9E4FC751AC81396DA3A036EF6BEEF32

"Calcium is an extremely important mineral in plant nutrition. Many soils, particularly in humid regions, contain this element in amounts so small that plant growth is limited. One of the primary roles assigned to calcium is the key role it plays in the cell walls. Calcium is also important in root development, since short roots are observed on calcium deficient plants.

The first sign of calcium deficiency in older plants is the appearance of a reddish-brown discoloration in the tissue between the veins along the margin of the blade. The most obvious method of correcting this deficiency is by the application of calcitic or dolomitic lime. Should calcium be required without changing the pH that would result from the use of lime, gypsum may be used.

http://gsrpdf.lib.msu.edu/ticpdf.py?file=/1970s/1972/721101.pdf

I agree 100% Sam! I don't mind at all doing weeds and yard work...It may be therapy because I feel more relaxed after weeding and looking at the results of my efforts.... Unless its real dry and weeds won't come out then I may curse a bit...lol...That doesn't happen very often though...lol

Thumbs up on compost Sam!

We have a Home Depot and Lowes but no Menards....

Thanks Jim, for posting a picture of the claw-thingie on the right .. I mean 3-prong-cultivator. That claw-thingie can't go through my rock-hard clay, so I use the sharp-edge scoop. Pouring vinegar on weed-roots is fun too. Will post a pic. of how bad my sub-clay is later.

I called it a claw thingie until Sam provided me with the correct name...lol

I don't know what I'd do if I had such hard soil Straw!

I kept bending and breaking tools near the handles at weeding and digging when using two hands, so I got the one I got now at Agway. That's the 3 prong one.

The garden claw is a stand up one on a pole with 4 prongs and 2 middle tines. That I got at a yard sale.

https://youtu.be/tD0GLIKBCoM

Sam: great garden claw, my neighbor used to raved about that one years ago. I don't see that at stores. Here are some pics of the soil in my garden. One cherry tomato on my native soil, fertilized with some chicken manure in spring. The span is 4 feet in all directions, lots of fruits. But fruits are NOT as perfect as last year when I fixed the soil with gypsum.

Here's my pH 7.7 alkaline heavy clay fixed with crack corn, alfalfa hay. The black chunks are Lowe's Sta-green potting soil, which is black & clayish so I threw in the ground.

Here's my very-shady wet garden, less than 4 hours of sun, always wet soil, thanks to my putting black plastic edging dug down 4 to 5 inch. deep, to keep grass out ... it's like a shallow swimming pool. I never water that bed. Flower Carpet does better than Knock-out .. FC is continuous blooming, whereas Knock-out pauses in between. Past spring floods killed everything in that bed, including my $$$ worth of many varieties irises, and many perennials. But those roses don't mind wet feet, including Lynnie thornless rose.

Here's Lynnie thornless rose and phlox ... I fixed the clay of those phlox with gypsum & coarse sand so they can handle the soaking wet soil, less than 4 hours of sun:

My clay is so heavy, so alkaline, that compost on top doesn't help. Here's phlox in native clay, topped with 12+ years of composted leaves. The phlox are very pale, plus stunt, due to high pH soil near 8. I never water that spot, it's in my wet-bed. That's MANGANESE deficiency: diffused yellowing through-out the plants, and is different from iron deficiency (yellowing of top leaves only). Also different from magnesium deficiency (arrow-head yellowing of lowest leaves at margin) ... my clay soil is tested exceeding high in magnesium, magnesium is what makes clay sticky. When we 1st moved here, phlox were normal green & lots of blooms .. but the tree roots steal lost of nutrients over the past decade. Lots of tree roots in that spot.

Here's what re-mineralization can do to a rose. W.S. 2000 is in a shady spot, 4 hours of morning sun. When I planted that rose, I saw tree roots underneath. So I piled up minerals: red-lava-rock, and pea-gravel on top. Here's the result ... continuous cluster-blooming despite very little sun. Potassium helps with photosynthesis, esp. in low-light. Red-lava rock is high in potassium. My Mom's Lupine patch was in morning sun only, she used high-potassium wood-ash to neutralize her acidic-clay, resulting in more blooms than leaves in her many-colors lupines.

Straw.

Thanks for helping me understand

With your descriptions in past posts that's what I imagined it was like. Thanks for showing me a picture. I saw soil like that near like Travis in Austin Texas.

I tested pea-gravel for its rock-dust effect on Evelyn: Lots of blooms, but one per stem. Rock-dust is high in calcium. Here's the result:

Nice tool Sam!

Fantastic pics Straw! Awesome! Love that first pic with the birdbath and last pic with many nice blooms!

We have no nasty sub clay like that Straw! If I had that I would replace it with something that had better drainage for sure...

Weeding is fairly easy here esp. when soil is wet. All weeds pull easily out by hand. I use the little shovel thingie to slide under the weed so I get all the roots. Slide shovel under weed pull weed out with my hand.

Jim: Your clay is perfect & fluffy like potting soil. Looks great !! My delight after weeding in the garden: Butter-pecan ice-cream. I'm very picky about ice cream, like eating a few teaspoons twice a year just to taste, also picky about the salt, the sugar, or the preservative. This butter pecan variety is perfect: not salty like other types. An ideal indulgence would be butter pecan ice cream, pound cake, and fresh berries. The last time I had pound cake was decades ago. The memories is better than the guilt.

I'm going out to make a milkshake now Straw...lol...

4th big bloom on Tchaikosky, bought end of June from Roses Unlimited for $10 per gallon. Heavy clay is rich in minerals, if made fluffy with gypsum, LARGE organics, and coarse sand. No fertilizer was used on Tchaikosky. Picture taken today August 13:

Ha-ha roses watch out or you get the shovel. Between that and your next door dog Hans the roses will be scared straight. Hehe. Good thing TA is protected .

Reminralization with 1 tablespoon of Azomite per gallon of water. That's the only time I water Marie pavie. She's my no-water & drought tolerant rose. Big growth spurt, much better than any nitrogen fertilizer. Picture taken yesterday, August 12:

I love Sam's joke. That's funny! Grafted-pink-peace is very disappointing, the color is so gaudy that hurts my eyes. It was a BS-fest, so I dug that up 4th of July to put lime & compost in the planting hole, plus to break up compact clay. No more black spots, but the color STAYS gaudy, from the acid secreted by Dr. Huey. Picture taken today, August 13:

GRAFTED-pink peace can't compare to OWN-ROOT Pink peace: lighter, more pleasing color, more petals, thanks to more effective water-transport ... doesn't have to go through that grafted-juncture. Below is OWN-ROOT Pink Peace, also taken in hot August ... that was much, much healthier than my present grafted-pink-peace.

He he Sam...

Wow Straw Tchaikosky is chocked full of petals Straw!

Will Azomite make roses bloom better? Thought maybe Thomas Affleck could benefit from a shot of Azomite... (Next year)

Mike McGrath says to soak the ground. Then the weeds slide out and all the roots.

I don't know about that but I do know its mucky.

You guys have better soil than mine: more loamy & easy to dig. I figure out the secret to healthy roses: loamy underneath, and organics & minerals on top. Alfalfa pellets is made out of pressed & compact alfafa meal .. which still glue up with clay. Below is a large clay-glued up with alfalfa pellets, which I dug out from Pink Peace's hole. Will have to pour vinegar to soften those clumps. The yellowish clay behind is at 2 feet level. That's why I spent 1 hour digging any hole: Throwing out the yellow clay, then breaking up the compact clay with gypsum, coarse sand, and alfalfa hay. Months later, came back, and saw tons of earth worms .. that's the reward. Lots of earthworms below red-lava-rocks too.

Mike McGrath also says for weeds a flame weeder works good or herbicidal soap and or vinegar. A flame weeder one doesn't have to get down.

My sister who once lived by a creek about 3/4 of a mile from me had soil so hard in parts of her yard that I could not even break through it with my spade shovel. Had to get a giant axe! I planted two Knockout roses for them and they both died. Soil was terrible in just some sections of there property!

Below is the effect of cheap cow-manure from Menards, which came rock-hard, high pH .. they use the BAD LIME (quick lime) to deodorize. This tomato was planted mid-May, yet it's stunt & burnt, only one-tenth the production of the same-variety planted July 4th, fixed with fluffier Moo-Manure (HomeDepot), coarse sand, and gypsum. I post the icky tomato planted mid-May first:

Here's the tomato planted 4th of July with Moo-manure, coarse sand, gypsum .. BOTH of them are much smaller than the ones planted in my native clay, not fixed. That's to show manure is inferior to mineral-rich clay. Manure is much higher in salt than clay, plus it has added salt, antibiotics, hormones, phosphorus, and the bad-chemical-quick-lime, which raises pH and cause chlorosis:

It makes me wonder where originally do roses grow in nature? and if we mimic as best we can we will have good luck growing them. Obviously Rose need full Sun but geography wise what do they require well draining loam soil. ? Valley side of mountain? Warm night cool dry nights? I think Rose originally come from Persia China and France I don't know just some thoughts?

Here's the same-variety tomato planted in my clay, NOT fixed with anything. All of them were fertilized with chicken manure. This tomato is dark-green, with a span of at least 4 feet in all direction, 10 times the amount of fruits compared to the cow-manure ones.

Sam: Roses vary depending on where they are bred. If they are bred in England, acidic soil, high-rain & less sun ... some Austin roses do better in partial shade. If they are bred in high-sun CA like hybrid teas, they demand full-sun. If they are bred in France, in the gypsum areas, they want more gypsum like the Old Garden Roses. If they are bred in Southern France, alkaline clay & hot sun, they have vigorous roots that can go through my hard-clay & bloomed well at over 90 degree, like Romantica Meilland roses: Liv Tyler, Frederic Mistral, Peace family ... but these don't last long in zone 5a winter. I saw Francis Meilland rose with tons of blooms in a pot, at Menards, watered with high pH-alkaline-tap water. Meilland roses like alkaline clay, that's where they are bred.

The above apply to OWN-ROOTS, which are true to their genes. W.S. 2000 as own root-Austin rose can't take full sun (I already tried that and had to move it). Partial shade is best for the wimpy own-root Austin roses (Jude the Obscure). England is more foggy & less intense sun than U.S.

For GRAFTED on Dr. Huey, they prefer alkaline soil, since Dr. Huey was bred in alkaline CA. I have Basyes Blueberry, the parent of Jim's Thomas Affleck. Basyes Blueberry was bred by Dr. Basyes, in his dry & hot Texas, high-lime area. Basyes Blueberry bloomed tons when I gave it gypsum & in a dry area. But when I moved it to a wet & shady spot, it died.

Jim: Those wood-chips are free from the village. They trim a variety of trees, and grind them up.

What kind of wood chips are those by your tomatoes Straw!

Fossils found show roses have been on this Earth 35 million years Sam....

https://extension.illinois.edu/roses/history.cfm

That's the kind of wood chips they actually recommend Straw and not the dyed shredded wood mulch types sold from different vendors... You got the good stuff! :-)

I also think they are good because they weren't sitting in a bag too long .

They say wood chips should be courser in size and natural like what Straw uses from the village...Some people get stems and chips so fresh they still got leaves on them.. The more finer dyed shredded chips like vendors sell around here are actually to fine to use in certain areas...That may explain why a lot of KO roses around here look like crap! Most are mulched with those finer chips...

I'm guessing they shred it so fine so it disappears faster so people will have to renew it more often...

I have some larger sized chips in my compost from tree branches/shrubs etc....Not much but some...

I have some branches that are a bit to large...lol

Amazing how your rose blooms look so clean and fresh Straw! Our blooms always have flaws of some sorts...lol

Yes I agree too Jim