I'd agree with Jim. Places out here in gumbo country that are very high
in clay, such as the intermittent "hard-pan spots" that are easily
noticed on the grasslands, usually support only a few widely spaced
individual plants. I've grown fond of these vignettes, but you might not
appreciate 2 or 3 feet of bare space between individual tuffets of
Astragalus barrii, Allium textile, Oenothera caespitosa or Lesquerella
ludoviciana. Given this sort of space, the Lesquerella will often show a
beautiful little radiating wagon-wheel of flowers. Opuntia polyacantha,
O. fragilis, Artemisia cana are some of the larger plants you'd see on
these spots, which are often ovals from 4'x10' but can be hundreds of
feet in dimension. I could only guess what might happen with more than
about 12" of moisture annually.
Cindy Reed
Hot Springs, SD zone 4
On 2/11/2011 6:40 PM, Jim Hatchett wrote:
I am sure there will be many opinions on this but I think that to use the
clay as a substrate to grow plants on will be mostly an exercise in "death
by clay", at least for plants that you care about( I am sure Oxalis would
thrive in it). Put it in the kiln and make rocks out of it and you're in
business.
Jim Hatchett
Eagle, Idaho zone 5
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Nathan Miller
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 12:26 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Alpine-l] Clay bed
My wife and I recently lost our ceramic studio space and had to move it all
home. Among other things, we have a few hundred pounds of dried ceramic
clay. I've been running my reclaim through a plaster bat and firing them as
ceramic "rocks" that I'm using to build rock garden features and stepping
stones. I was planning on sending all this clay through that process as
well. Then my wife suggested just piling it up and turning it into a clay
bed. That's an interesting--and less labor- and time-intensive--idea. Such
a bed would be much like how I envision the much-maligned gumbo clay that
some east of the Rockies must endure. While most of us grow our plants in
some mixture of gravel, there are other worthy plants that don't grow in
gravel, but rather in heavy soils, even heavier than the alluvial silt-loam
here in the Willamette Valley floor. I have two questions to pose to this
list:
-Should I attempt this?
-If so, what plants should I consider for this kind of substrate?
-Nathan Miller
Newberg, OR Zone 8-ish
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