Why I don't grow in the ground

[Maiden69]

I've been hearing about ground growing and how awesome it is for tree development, but that is not always the case. If you live in a state where the soil is pretty much garbage for growing anything, you need to look up to other alternatives. When I moved to Texas I noticed how much smaller the trees are here, comparing with other states and countries I have lived on. Oaks, elms, bald cypress and pretty much any other species that you can find here and in states with rich soil and smaller here. I have seen bald cypresses growing along the road and in parking lots that are probably 15-20 year old, yet they are almost the same thickness as my 5 year seedling.

When I decided to start developing material, I opted for above ground beds. At the moment the reasoning was that I lived in a residential area with a small backyard. Then after researching soil alternatives I realized that what most people use, was not available here... at least for bonsai development. To me, potting soil used for garden vegetables is substandard, and will require a lot of cleaning once the tree is removed from the ground and placed into a pot. It was then that I decided to use Root Pouch grow bags, after seeing the results @cmeg1 had with them it was a no brainer.

Back to the reason why I will never ground grow here... we just had a company come and dig a trench to run water into our studio. Take a look at the wonderful soil we have in our backyard. And from talking to the guys doing the trench, this is pretty much the same everywhere, unless you live in an area that was previously use as a growing field and was prepared for it. We have a whooping 2-3" of top soil above hard dirt/clay/slate/rock bed.

After seeing this, I think I am going to double or triple my biochar treatment, and as soon as it starts to rain I plan on treating the entire area with Penterra, to see if I can push as much biochar and nutrients a few inches further down the ground. I asked the contractor if coring will help and he stated that he thought the small coring machines they rent at Home Depot probably won't have enough weight or force to pierce though. He recommended the treatment of Penterra for a few months before even trying. I have a hand help corer and I tried to puncture the ground... LOL, that was a no-go.

I'll update during the week with pictures of my grow beds and results I have attain with them.

 

[crab apple]

I lived in the Florida Keys for a while and once tried to plant a palm tree that we had used as a christmas tree. I started by renting a jack hammer, after about 30 minutes of hammering I had a hole about the size of a beer can.

 

[Shibui]

Nice soil!
Agree that not every site is great for ground planting. I think I'd probably go raised beds in that situation too.

 

[Cajunrider]

Yep. You can't ground grow much with soil like that.
I have some friends who practice permaculture. In places like yours, they sign up with the utility company to get the chipped tree material free for their yards. Some of them have a layer 18" deep all around their yard. After a few years, the soil is excellent for any plant.
My brother in Florida also signed up with the utility company. He got a dozen truckloads of tree chips after the hurricanes. It also took a while but his soil is good now.

 

[Paradox]

Yea that area would need some serious soil amendment to grow anything

 

[Kevin1968]

You have the same issue I have in Jacksonville. The problem starts with the builders of newer neighborhoods. They come in and strip the land removing the nutrient rich soil, then put in the roads and curbs, then put feet of lime rock and clay in to build up the property. So the yards slope and drain properly, then put a few inches of topsoil and sod to top it off. They sell all of that good soil for a premium amount. This practice started in the 1980s here that I can remember.

Since my post "Pots in pots". I too have decided to use raised beds. I am working on getting what is needed to do so. It is just the easiest way to get the same outcome with out issues. Thank you for your information and help.

 

[Maiden69]

I have done 3 treatments with humichar and biochar since we moved in. But I think between now and the end of fall I am probably going to do 3 more, at least of humichar/biochar and probably around a dozen chicken feed bags for organic matter.

@Kevin1968 we were here when they started the developing. Our home is on the crest of a hill, they did a lot of cutback in the area slightly above us. Our lot had to be level, which is where I think they removed the half decent top soil, but I checked the area behind our fence that was not improved and the soil is pretty much the same. Maybe about 5" of top soil, then hard dirt. I chose this lot because of the big juniper and oak trees behind it, the rest of the lots available at the time had nothing behind them, or had a backyard with containment walls or big slopes.

Those are the trees right behind my back fence now before they started building the house. On the second picture you can see where they added crappy dirt to level the backyard slightly. That's the crap I am dealing with.

 

[jradics]

I've been hearing about ground growing and how awesome it is for tree development, but that is not always the case. If you live in a state where the soil is pretty much garbage for growing anything, you need to look up to other alternatives. When I moved to Texas I noticed how much smaller the trees are here, comparing with other states and countries I have lived on. Oaks, elms, bald cypress and pretty much any other species that you can find here and in states with rich soil and smaller here. I have seen bald cypresses growing along the road and in parking lots that are probably 15-20 year old, yet they are almost the same thickness as my 5 year seedling.

When I decided to start developing material, I opted for above ground beds. At the moment the reasoning was that I lived in a residential area with a small backyard. Then after researching soil alternatives I realized that what most people use, was not available here... at least for bonsai development. To me, potting soil used for garden vegetables is substandard, and will require a lot of cleaning once the tree is removed from the ground and placed into a pot. It was then that I decided to use Root Pouch grow bags, after seeing the results @cmeg1 had with them it was a no brainer.

Back to the reason why I will never ground grow here... we just had a company come and dig a trench to run water into our studio. Take a look at the wonderful soil we have in our backyard. And from talking to the guys doing the trench, this is pretty much the same everywhere, unless you live in an area that was previously use as a growing field and was prepared for it. We have a whooping 2-3" of top soil above hard dirt/clay/slate/rock bed.

After seeing this, I think I am going to double or triple my biochar treatment, and as soon as it starts to rain I plan on treating the entire area with Penterra, to see if I can push as much biochar and nutrients a few inches further down the ground. I asked the contractor if coring will help and he stated that he thought the small coring machines they rent at Home Depot probably won't have enough weight or force to pierce though. He recommended the treatment of Penterra for a few months before even trying. I have a hand help corer and I tried to puncture the ground... LOL, that was a no-go.

I'll update during the week with pictures of my grow beds and results I have attain with them.

View attachment 503266

View attachment 503267

all the BioChar in the world wont help that too much. If you want to try, wait until a hurricane dumps rain on you for a few days then rent an aerator and go crazy with it. do't just make a single pass like you would with a lawn mower, go in every direction multiple times. Once you have "tilled" up the yard, add your organics, sand, gypsum, whatever to build some pore space in that awful stuff you live on top of

 

[Kevin1968]

@Maiden69 That is a nice little grove.

Texas does have some dry soil even with out the builders help. I have a son that lives near Lake Jackson.

 

[jradics]

for what its worth, I live on some pretty lousy stuff too. I cant do the whole yard but in a 600 sq ft area, when I am feeling froggy, I use my demolition hammer ( mini jack hammer) and poke holes in the stuff and fill with sand. The logic being, with 8-12 inches of sand in the hole, the grass will be able to drop deep roots and stay cool and moist.

 

[Maiden69]

all the BioChar in the world wont help that too much. If you want to try, wait until a hurricane dumps rain on you for a few days then rent an aerator and go crazy with it. do't just make a single pass like you would with a lawn mower, go in every direction multiple times. Once you have "tilled" up the yard, add your organics, sand, gypsum, whatever to build some pore space in that awful stuff you live on top of

Yeah... not in central Texas. Even with the hurricanes that land on Houston all we get is a little wind and a few inches of rain. We do get a small rain season in spring before summer and sometimes at the end of summer beginning of fall.

 

[rockm]

That top whitish layer is caliche. There's a lot of it in Texas and the Southwestern U.S. and arid places. It's the old remains of the inland sea that covered vast areas of the land a few million years ago. Old seashells (calcium carbonate) are among its ingredients. It can be hard for many non-native species to grow in it s it tends to not allow a lot of drainage and can compact to a very hard shell. Bald cypress is one of those can have issues in punching through that top layer of caliche. It can be done, takes some effort.

One thing about Texas, don't like one region, move to another. East Texas has some caliche, but the Piney Woods region is a lot more hospitable to BC, cedar elm and oaks.

 

[Cajunrider]

for what its worth, I live on some pretty lousy stuff too. I cant do the whole yard but in a 600 sq ft area, when I am feeling froggy, I use my demolition hammer ( mini jack hammer) and poke holes in the stuff and fill with sand. The logic being, with 8-12 inches of sand in the hole, the grass will be able to drop deep roots and stay cool and moist.

This reminds me of the time where I used a drill and spent a weekend drilling 3/4" x 12" deep holes in my hard clay yard and filled them pine bark soil conditioner. That effort took me two solid weekends from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm every day. The lawn was so much easier to manage after that.

 

[Tieball]

I’ve often wondered during my travels why trees and brush in general looked the way they do. Dry. Crisp. Muted color in many areas. Now I know more about the ground situation.

 

[Maiden69]

tends to not allow a lot of drainage and can compact to a very hard shell.

Yes... I can clearly see the water sheeting over the terrain with the first rain before it finally soaks in. The Penterra is supposed to help with that, braking the tension of the hard soil allowing the water to penetrate. The thing is that it has to be applied with a lot of water, or running the sprinkler system for a long time. Hopefully we will get some rain by the end of the month, will be wearing a rain suit with my Dewalt sprayer backpack applying that thing.

@Cajunrider that is a lot of work... I think I can retrofit a decent 1" auger to my 1/2" impact driver or my hammer drill and go to town.

 

[BrianBay9]

I'm told that in parts of California's central valley trees are planted using a powered auger in the hard pan, then dropping in a quarter stick of dynamite to fracture the ground around the hole. If they don't, they just have a big pot with no drainage and the tree dies.

 

[rockm]

If you drive east from Dallas to Tyler on I -20, you can actually see the landscape change within 100 miles, which corresponds to soil changes as well. Dallas (and Central Texas) is on top of that caliche, a lot of Mesquite and grassland, get to Canton (about 60 miles)and big oaks start to pop up, in Edom (about 80 miles) there are old growth BC in lowlying areas. By the time you get to Tyler (about 100 miles) Cedar elm everywhere and longleaf and loblolly pines get HUGE and dense. The soil in east Texas is sandy loam and clay.

TPWD: GIS Vegetation Types of Texas -- Parks

 

[BrightsideB]

Raised beds also help with developing (primarily trunk chops) because you don’t have to lay on your belly to actually see the nebari and tree at eye level.

 

[ShadyStump]

In your climate I would skip the biochar and amend with peat. It'll add the carbon and organics you want, as well as help to bring the pH down.
If major excavation sounds like too much, planting clover can help. Once it gets well established it'll grow almost a tap root that can penetrate an inch deeper into that hardpan than the grass. I hear it's also a nitrogen fixer. It's a very long-term way to go about it, but it works here.

Because of the mountain geology here in Colorado, you can have an acre of loam surrounded by that caliche @rockm explained, then soggy clay in other spots, all sand and decomposed granite in others, etc. It's all good rich stuff, just a matter of getting it broken up enough for water to penetrate.
That's why it was so popular to clear forest for farming back in the settlement days. The trees broke it up for you. Hence allot of orcharding in my region, turning to other crops as time passed.

 

[DanaWhicker]

You have the same issue I have in Jacksonville. The problem starts with the builders of newer neighborhoods. They come in and strip the land removing the nutrient rich soil, then put in the roads and curbs, then put feet of lime rock and clay in to build up the property. So the yards slope and drain properly, then put a few inches of topsoil and sod to top it off. They sell all of that good soil for a premium amount. This practice started in the 1980s here that I can remember.

Since my post "Pots in pots". I too have decided to use raised beds. I am working on getting what is needed to do so. It is just the easiest way to get the same outcome with out issues. Thank you for your information and help.

Yep, I'm just off Amelia Island just north of you. Same here.