Help with soggy soil

d.middis says:

A brief history. For many years we enjoyed having a large Laurel in our garden. It was about 15 feet high and 10 feet across; so it was pretty big. Last September, we noticed the leafs were turning a hue of yellow and was dropping more leafs than usual. We gave it a fairly through haircut and hoped this would do the trick, but by April this year it was looking worse, so we put it down to one of those things and decided to remove it and create a new flower bed. On removal from the ground the main root ball was soaking wet and clearly this is what had caused the problem and put it down to the wet weather we have experienced. I cleared the bed completely, removing a lot of the old soil, replacing it with quality top soil, mixed with mulch and garden grit and planted  a row of Red Robins at the back and filled the front section with a range of shrubs. In pride of place in the centre we planted an expensive Hydrangea Annabelle. This was back in May. Last week we removed the Hydrangea because it had died and the root ball was sodden.  All other surrounding plants are fine. So I enlarged the hole where the Hydrangea lived and dug down as far as I could which (about 3 foot deep) and hit and what I can only describe as soggy mixture of sticky clay the colour of light sand. During the night it rained and filled the hole with about 4 or 5inches of water and however much I spike or poke with a spade the water refuses  to drain away. We live in South East London/Kent border

So I'd be grateful if anybody can confirm what I've found at the bottom of my hole is completely normal and should I just plug the hole with appropriate  material to soak up the water and perhaps even more intriguing; why is this happening in just one small area in the centre of the bed?

Many thanks for any advice

See original post