Is anyone growing a Butia in clay?

[simon]

my original Butia capitata was planted in my "Arid Bed" which is raised and has improved drainage. This plant was killed in winter 10/11 I think, or maybe the previous one. I eventually decided that my garden was lacking without a Buita, so I got a replacement in this winter's Amulree sale. Due to subsequent plantings, here is no longer room for it in that bed, so I have to look for an alternative spot. As my garden is clay based and has a layer of clay a foot or two below the top soil I was wondering how it would fair in unmodified soil. I could dig a big hole and add lots of drainage but this might just create a sump for water to run off the surrounding clay into and improved drainage didn't seem to help the last one. If others have them thriving in clay soil I might just as well save myself the hassle. Oviously I will add plenty of organic matter when planting.

[David Matzdorf]

Just add the organic matter, that will improve the clay. Plant the Butia a bit 'high', i.e., don't let soggy soil accumulate around the collar of the trunk. I never bother with gravel, it's doesn't seem to improve the drainage of clay at all. And my clay soil drains fine anyway.

[simon]

Thanks David. That sounds like good advice.

The palm seems to be potted in a very pale brown clay-looking material. I think I have read before about imported plants being potted in some sort of clay. Has the advice been to remove as much of this as possible before planting out or is it better not to disturb the roots?

[SteveP]

Mine has survived unprotected in pure London clay for about 8 or 9 years now. It survived but spear pulled following the Dec 10 freeze and is now just about back to its full glory. I'll post a pic when I get chance.

You are lucky that you at least have some topsoil, the clay in my garden comes right to the surface. With 'soil' like that there is no real option of improving conditions and I just planted mine in a 'sump' slightly larger than the pot. This may be controversial, but adding organic matter will only increase the tendency for water to sit in the sump you have created. I would just backfill with excavated material and let it do it's thing. Mine barely stopped growing following planting in summer.

I should add that adding organic matter to clay will be beneficial but only really if you are improving the whole border rather than a local planting sump. Another point is that many impermeable clays, beneath about 700-1000mm could maintain a constant moisture content through the seasons, with surface water running in the top band. Ironically the plant itself could locally desiccate the clay meaning that the moisture content could remain low even through very wet periods. It is not unusual to find bone dry clay close to trees/vegetation as shallow as 500 mm beneath the surface, even following a wet winter.

There, that's thoroughly confused you!

Steve

[SteveP]

Sorry Simon, forgot to add, do not disturb the roots. Plant exactly as it comes out of the pot.

[Ade Shattock]

Mine are in clay and Ive always taken Nigels advice and planted them high.
I have actually sat the root ball on the surface and built the soil up around them, might sound odd but done well you wouldnt even know.

[simon]

Thanks for the advice guys. It looks like planting high is a concensus, so I will definitely go with that. I will see what what the soil is like when I dig the hole before deciding what to add. Other than the organic matter that was dug in when the borders were created, I tend to improve the soil as I plant, so I will see what that spot is like. It is currently home to an over-grown Hemerocallis that is desperate to be divided.

[tony]

Not living too far away from you, and having lost a few of these despite very freedraining soil - the largest of which has a base the size of a medicine ball and was nearly 3m tall, would it not be best just to keep it in its pot and heaving it next to the house if you have no space to overwinter it?

[David Matzdorf]

Re-reading the thread, I think there's a common misapprehension at work throughout.

Clay is not, of itself, problem soil.

I grow all my outdoor Palms except one on clay, because it's the soil I have, and I haven't lost a Palm to root problems since 2001, a year after I planted a Chamaerops much too deeply and it rotted around the collar (hence the common advice to 'plant high').

The one Palm I have that is in chronic trouble is the one that is planted in a raised bed of free-draining mixed potting compost and sandy soil on a bed of several inches of ballast. It's Butia odorata and it has been in trouble, though it continues to cling on, since December 2010. It doesn't have a clear root run into the clay subsoil and it's therefore restricted, which has prevented it from growing, as well as making the soil susceptible to severe cold, which is why it got clobbered in 2010.

The Butia catarinensis that was in a large pot slowly died after December 2010, again probably because the roots became too cold. Butias with restricted root runs aren't going to become trees anyway. I wouldn't grow one in such conditions again.

By contrast, three species of Trachycarpus, three different Chamaerops, a very large Phoenix canariensis and about 10 Chamaedorea radicalis are perfectly happy rooting into clay, as long as I keep their collars away from soggy mulch.

Clay is not intrinsically badly drained. It needs a badly drained site before it becomes a problem. My garden is well-drained to a fault - very drought-prone, in part because it is about 0.5m above everything around it - and I never have the slightest problem with soggy soil, now that I have improved the clay over a period of 13 years with nothing but organic material. The one area where I tried to improve the drainage using pea gravel has the coldest soil and is no better drained than other areas of the garden - perhaps less so.

If your garden is a soggy area at the bottom of a hill or on a flood plain, it's going to have drainage problems and, in that kind of situation, with pools of standing water around after rain, a light, gritty soil might make your Palms die a bit more slowly, but it isn't going to make it Palm heaven.

Unless the OP's garden is already badly drained, I don't see any point in carrying out exhausting work involving gravel (which, incidentally, reduces the volume of soil available to retain plant nutrients). If it is badly drained, i.e., it spends periods of several days or a week over-saturated with water, especially during the dormant season, then plant the Butia somewhere else, where it will be happy.

Any normally-drained clay soil doesn't require this kind of work. It just needs to be amended locally with generous amounts of well-rotted organic material, to create a crumb-structure, which, once it has formed, will drain beautifully, as long as there are no pans or other subterranean obstructions to free drainage.

There's a general presumption that clay is bad soil. I think this reputation is largely caused by the fact that it is very bad soil for the human lower-back and thus people dislike working it. Nevertheless, it is very good soil for the vast majority of plants, including those that require well-drained soil, as long as the clay is not situated in an already-badly-drained location. Clay retains nutrients better than any other soil type, it often has a stable and roughly neutral pH, it retains water during drought better than other soils and it is particularly amenable to forming a healthy crumb-structure and then a diverse soil flora and fauna, as long as it is improved with frequent applications of well-rotted organic material.

[simon]

Thanks for the detailed explanation David. I pretty much agree with everything you ha ve written.

My garden is gently sloping and the site I have in mind is towards the bottom of the slope. I have never seen any standing water anywhere in the garden after heavy rain but have found the soil to be quite claggy when wet.

Tony, I don't think keeping it in a pot is really a long term solution. It would be nice to be able to drag it up close to the house during cold weather, but I would still be concerned with the roots getting frozen. Also there is the becoming root-bound and not achieving its potential in a pot. It may be that it doesn't last for more than a couple of years if we have another super-cold winter, but I would rather enjoy it planted out in the garden for a few years than see it languishing in a pot and gradually going into decline. If I loose this one, I probably won't buy another.