Sounds like you both have a way better detailed sense of your soils than I do. One of these days I ought to do a soil test to look at nutrients, but since I'm mostly too lazy to do more than add organics and the occasional alfalfa to the soil I probably wouldn't use the information unless it were devastating. I'm pretty sure it isn't, since we're blessed here at the edge of the receding glaciers after the Ice Age to have loamy clay for the most part around here. I absolutely sympathize with the sticky clay you mention Lisa, or the high acidity you have Ann, or the rock hard soils you have to dig with a pickax in parts of the Southeast or the high draining sandy soils that can't be irrigated enough in so many coastal and desert climates.

Our soil starts pretty good, a pretty dark brown with crumbly bits of clay that don't stick and harden until we get into drought conditions (which unfortunately we do get often, but nothing like as badly as California). Amended with organics over 10 years or so (topdressing with leaves for the most part), I can replant spring bulbs that the stupid tree rats dig up by scratching in the soil with my fingers and replacing at their 4-6" level without problems as long as there's enough moisture. We're definitely on the alkaline side of things, since hydrangeas are never blue even with amendments, and I have to supplement the soil sulfur on my blueberries every two years or so. Still, we're not overly alkaline, since multiflora rootstocks do OK here as far as I can tell. Any grafted rose will fade after about 6-8 years in many cases, regardless of rootstock. I can grow roses on either multiflora or Dr. Huey reasonably well, but in the long run with my winters and inevitable graft failures they'll eventually go own root or die.

I figure the soil kinda helps make up for the winters so like anything else in rose growing it's a tradeoff.

Cynthia

I have sandy soil, rich sandy soil, and orange clay depending on what part of the property I'm on. The front is clay and hardly drains. Around the house was very sandy. The beds I made and added composted manure over the years is nice. Out in the back wooded areas where pine needles, oak leaves, and branches, etc. have been decomposing for who knows how many decades, is very rich compost with a little sand. Even though sandy our soil is acidic. Our well water has a lot of sulfur in it.

Gees, my soil is sand and it is more acidic side. Been working on it for months with lots of manure.

I been following Chris advice since it is "water proof" and there is a word for it and I can't remember. I can water an area. Water sit still but won't drain down instead you see it rans all directions. Underneath the sand soil, it is dry.

Mine is WIP (work in progress). And many months to go. Growing Daikon from seeds. Once it is grown before it reseeds then I am chopping the greens and leaving it there to decompose for my roses.

Chris, thank you so much for your advice. You are a gem , my friend.

Jin

I also have voles and moles. And no ants, termites , earthworms or anything in soil. Been working on it for over 3 months. Just wish, I can see some earthworms or anything. I am afraid to see what nutrients I have in soil. I have to do that. Soil tested :)

Jin

Plumeria Girl you are fortunate to have acidic soil. Most roses are happy with a ph between 5.5-6.5. I wish they grew as well in neutral soil (which is what I'm pretty sure I have).

I've got pretty sterile sand on top of caliche or compacted decomposed granite, if you can call either soil. Testing shows high phosphorous and potassium, almost no nitrogen, and slightly alkaline. My house was built on a slope and I think the backyard was created by putting up a retaining wall and filling it in with sand to make it less steep (enough to make it less intimidating to buyers but not enough to make it flat). The further from the house in the backyard, and toward the retaining walls, the deeper the sand. Underneath the sand it is so hard that you need a jack hammer to loosen it, even when "wet" as it is granite bits held together by calcium deposit. Doing so just creates a bucket that roots can't escape, or they have to crawl up the sides of the created bucket to reach the sand. I've dug out trees that show this. Typical Albuquerque foothills I suppose.

Interesting to see what everyone has to work with. When we first moved into our house, not quite 30 years ago, I used a field guide for trees to figure out what was growing in the woods behind our house. Nearly every description said something like "an upland tree of poor dry soil" Some added "rocky". Mother Nature did that part of the soil test for me. Years ago I used a little home kit to test the ph of our soil. It was off the charts acidic. While they are notoriously inaccurate, I'd say that test hit it pretty close.

While I do have excellent drainage, gardening has been an uphill battle here ;-> I have had success with some surprising things- azaleas, my long-suffering not-meant-for-cold-winters camellia, some blueberries, certain herbs and even a few southwestern plants, if I can give them enough sunlight. Poison ivy, honeysuckle, and Chinese privet are serious weeds. Multiflora rose grows well. Too well. My soil is sort of a gray and becomes indistinguishable from the rocks starting in spring. Everyone in my neighborhood has both a shovel and a pick. When cooler and rainy, we use the shovel to dig and the pick for rock removal. When hot and dry, we use only the pick. No topsoil here, unless it's brought in.

I've grown roses in 2 very different soils. My 1st rose garden was on the eastern side of my state where I had heavy clay soil with very poor drainage, raise beds were a necessity in areas of my yard. Additionally the rock under my soils was dolomite limestone, pH of 7.8-8.0 & could never get pH lower than 7.2. Growing healthy blueberries, azaleas, rhodies & rugosa roses just not in the cards. Moved to the western part of my state a few years back. Now my soils are pure sand with excessive drainage, never have a problem with standing water in my yard no matter how hard it rains. I even had to pour water in some post holes I was digging in order to keep the sand sticky enough to lift out with the post hole digger. Also my soil pH is around 5.5 so all the acid lovers are happy growers here. When I made the move, it took me about 3 years to readjust my gardening practices to fit the change in soils.

I have red clay for the most part. I have some spots that have that gross sticky gray clay. And some parts have nice dirt. I did a soil test on three of my beds and they were all too acidic at 5.9-6. Like Ann, I have never seen a pink hydrangea here. I bought one that was pink and it turned blue. However, Dr. Huey seems to love my yard. I can't kill it. Even when I dig it up, it comes back. I have bought some roses from Palentine and they are doing great. And I have some on Fortuniana that also do very well.