Mud glorious MUD.!!! (General Garden)

Name: leviathan

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Product:	General Garden
Date:	03/12/00 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Will encourage wild-life

Disadvantages: Looks a bit like a motorway embankment

You would think that having a garden which slopes like the north face of the Eiger, drainage would not be a problem.. But when the soil type.. And I use the term soil loosely you understand..Is Blue Clay then drainage is a major problem..
Water sits on top of my Blue Clay most of the year nowadays, turning the lawn into a quagmire, and the flower beds into a syrupy soup that defies spade,fork, or garden claw.Then when we do have a hot spell..It dries out and forms cracks deep enough to lose your foot down.
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Very few plants survive for more than one season ( weeds excepted) which makes normal gardening very expensive..

Over the years I have followed the advice of garden experts..I've dug in farmyard yard manure, peat-free composts, sharp sand, and grit..I've employed large strong men in a vain attempt to turn over the top two feet, and shovel top soil..But the Blue Clay remained impervious.
Then a naturalist suggested I give up trying to fight nature, but to go with it..To plant shrubs, grasses, and flowers that thrive on Blue Clay..
So now my garden is filled with ox-eye daisies,yellow loosestrife, ragged robins,buttercups, and mallows..I grow teazles, cow-parsley, and honesty for drying.And my naturalist friend has procured enough wild grass seeds to re-seed the 'lawn' next spring..It will doubtless contain varieties of plants most lawn devotees would shudder to see growing on their immaculate 'bowling green'type swathes, but if they soak up some of the water I could care less..
As anything will be better than the mud bath I look out on at present..

Summary: