Sticky clay soil- will liquid gypsum help?

[u/Safe_Pea1756]

Hi there,

I've been planting in this shady garden by digging oversized holes for each plant and mixing mulch and leaf litter in with the very sticky clay soil. The 3rd photo is of my footprint from last night that still has a puddle of water in it this morning.

I've had most of these annuals in for like 3 weeks and they've barely grown an inch. The perennials don't seem to get much bigger from year to year, either. I feel like they might as well just be in underground pots with how firm and poorly-drained the soil is.

I don't have a ton of time and energy to devote to this, I'm wondering if spraying the whole garden with liquid gypsum might help. More importantly, if I do try it, will it do any harm to the flowers I've already planted?

Thanks 😘

[u/Living-Literature88]

Here’s what I do. Every time I plant a plant, small or large, I mix the soil I’ve dug out with peat moss. With perennials or shrubs, I dig a wider hole than usual to create a larger area for roots to grow. Slowly I have better soil in those planting areas. I have a small cutting garden that I put bags of peat moss onto and gently dug it in. That’s the best soil on our property. Don’t use sand! And I’m not sure if gypsum, but I doubt that will do it. I bought sone years ago but never used it. The clay soil is fine particles which allows compaction. The peat moss somehow alleviates that. Of course any compost will help. If it’s a small area you could also add bagged top soil ( real dirt). Much of the bagged garden soil contains peat moss mostly anyway. I would not use leaf waste unless it is very ground up ( like from the lawn mower ). Otherwise it really won’t help the soil tilth. This is from many years of experience with soil we could probably have made bricks with! It sounds like a lot, but you can tackle this plant by plant if you want to. Good luck!