Red Clay Dirt

We spent a nice Christmas at my parent's house in Georgia this year.  This is actually the same house where I spent most of my high school years, an astonishing fact to me, since we usually moved every three or four years on average growing up.  My parents were originally military, and we saw a lot of the country.

It was here in Georgia where I first met my biggest gardening nemesis - the problematic Red Clay dirt.

Part of the yard with the infamous Georgia red clay that is so prominent in the region.

I remember the first time I saw Red Clay dirt.  I had moved to Georgia partway through my freshman year of high school, and we were staying with some family friends the first day while my parents were getting our house set up.  I remember going out into their clear-cut back yard.  It had rained the previous day, and the yard was a giant field of Unbelievably Red mud.  I don't think I had even heard of Red dirt before and was quite taken aback.

The red color of the clay is due to iron oxides.

That was not the only color surprise of the day, I remember.  The previous tenants of the house my parents bought had been rumored to be drug dealers, and it was still decorated in what was no doubt the latest drug dealer style - every single wall had been painted Baby Pink, the carpets were an Indescribable Green, and the vertical window blinds were Shiny Metallic Gold.  For our first supper in that house we had Yellow potato bread, which I had never had before.  Red dirt, pink walls, green carpet, gold shades, and yellow bread - I felt like I had gone down a very strange sort of rabbit hole.

Even the leaves in this puddle are covered with red clay.

Now, a couple decades later, the house has been redone in much more tasteful colors, and I do like yellow potato bread.  However, I haven't quite reconciled with the dense, clumpy, terrible-draining Red Clay dirt, which runs in veins through my North Carolina yard.

Most plants cannot survive such badly-draining soil.

The problem is that in order to garden most effectively with Red Clay dirt, one must first gently cultivate it with a pickaxe tiller backhoe, mix lots of compost and good Brown or Black dirt into it, and then pray that you've pickaxed tilled excavated a large enough area so that you haven't created a swimming pool for your plants.  A lot of people with clay give up and just garden in raised beds.

Having red clay soil can also lead to problems with erosion.  In this spot, the soil around the base of the tree has been washed away over time, exposing some interesting roots.

My mom, who likes to garden but has little time between working and her passion of quilting, has chosen a less confrontational approach to her Red Clay and plants mainly no-fuss native plants that can withstand the clay better.  Native dogwoods reside under the giant preexisting Sweetgum trees, and plantings of azaleas, hydrangeas, coreopsis, and daffodils prevail.

Thankfully there are a few plants that do well in clay, like many hollies.

Thankfully I don't have quite as much of the contemptible Red Clay as my mother's garden does.  Nevertheless, I have to do a lot of soil amending to grow the plants that I want. Even my 2 year old now eagerly points out the bags of nice Black dirt and compost for me every time we go to the plant store. (Good child!)  And when I garden, my trusty pickaxe is never far from hand.

Mr. Red House bought me a new tool to help dig through the clay, which I am excited to try out!