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Plants for boggy/clay like soil

nancymaenancymae Posts: 6
in Plants
Hi, Our house is built on an old mining area. Our soil is boggy in parts and quite hard thick clay like soil. I grew a beautiful hydrangea in a pot last year and then moved it over into the garden and it died within days which was very annoying. I want to dig up the side on the garden and plant shrub like plants down the one side. What is he best option for this type of soil that doesn't drain that great, and also what won't be harmful to my dog? Thank you
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  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    It's VERY odd that your hydrangea died so quickly. If the roots were undamaged when you planted it, I would start to ask questions about the soil, especially as you mention mining. Do near neighbours have problems? Are you getting underground water emerging and draining into your plot? Did someone nearby go bananas with some weedkiller? Plants die, obviously, but not in days unless something very nasty has happened to them.
  • nancymaenancymae Posts: 6
    Posy said:
    It's VERY odd that your hydrangea died so quickly. If the roots were undamaged when you planted it, I would start to ask questions about the soil, especially as you mention mining. Do near neighbours have problems? Are you getting underground water emerging and draining into your plot? Did someone nearby go bananas with some weedkiller? Plants die, obviously, but not in days unless something very nasty has happened to them.
    Hi, the area got very waterlogged so not sure if that was the reason. It was perfectly fine in the pot but moved it over, I didn't damage the roots when moving it so not really sure what happened. It was very upsetting after the hard work I had put in to get it to grow 
  • BijdezeeBijdezee Posts: 1,484
    Strange that the Hydrangea should die like that. They like a lot of moisture hence the name. Maybe there was something wrong before you moved it and the move accelerated it's demise. Or Like Posy said - something bad in the soil.

    Apart from that, I too have very boggy soil with clay. I would advise digging in lots of good fibre rich compost and maybe some grit. Be careful with the grit as although it helps with drainage if you don't have enough fibrous compost in there it will make it worse. Doing this has been the answer in my garden and now after 2 years the soil is 75% improved.
  • PosyPosy Posts: 3,601
    It is upsetting. But hydrangeas tolerate wet soil and even standing in a bucket, would not die quickly. Was it hardened off before planting?
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    So sorry you lost your lovely hydrangea. As a new gardener I have lost quite a few things to ignorance and disease, but that does sound like a drastically quick and suspicious death! I would definitely take Posy’s advice about investigating possible ground contamination first by getting a soil sample tested, then sort out your drainage issue. I garden on very heavy clay and have had to create raised beds and dig in tonnes of grit, composted manure and compost to improve drainage to have anything decent to plant into. If your soil is contaminated though, that might be a waste of money and you may lose anything you plant even if suited to boggy clay. Monty has heavy clay and a boggy area and there’s lots of good info about how to deal with it and what to plant in it in his book The Complete Gardener. No he’s not paying me commission :)
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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  • Mark56Mark56 Posts: 1,653
    Does it dry to rock as clay in the Summer? 
  • nancymaenancymae Posts: 6
    Mark56 said:
    Does it dry to rock as clay in the Summer?

    No it's constantly wet further the to end of the garden there's a bigger boggy patch where the grass doesn't grow well either. So was hoping yo plant something that will suck it up 
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  • nancymaenancymae Posts: 6

    This is the problem area not sure if that's better then my explanation. So I'm looking at digging up the side by the fence and planting there 
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