Our new home is on a lot that is mostly clay.  Heavy, sticky, nasty stuff. Lots of rocks...from 3/4 of an inch to baseball size.  Thankfully, it is gently sloping...two feet over roughly 100 feet.  I cut down four large and healthy fruitless mullberry trees along the back side of the lot, so I know stuff will grow here.   But I am concerned for my fig trees.

I've planted ten fig trees to date, and another ten or twelve rooted cuttings will go into the ground over the next couple of months.

Do any of you with similar soil  do anything special when you plant?  Any  considerations or techniques I should be using/doing?  I have been  adding gypsum, planting the rootballs partially above grade and mulching heavily with a sand /compost mix.  I planted my favorite (an unknown mission type fig) in a raised bed, but building and amending raised beds for this many trees is undoable for me.

Looking forward to reading your suggestions, thoughts, and ideas.

Thanks...Dave

I have that.  What I do is dig a big hole then crack the edges and stuff the cracks with composted and fresh grass and tree leaves.  You don't want a smooth bowl as a planting hole because sometimes the roots stay in that bowl.  You want the fresh leaves/grass to attract earthworms.  Sometimes I buy worms and add them after the tree's planted.  Once you've broken up the edges of the planting hole then put the original soil mixed with top soil, peat moss, composted manure, etc, fill until you can put the tree in so the original soil level on the trunk is slightly under the site's soil level, put the tree in and continue to fill in with the improved original soil.  I water then fertilize.  Others will do it differently.  Red clay is very nutritious.  I've heard bad things about black clay but never experienced it.  You don't want water to pool around the roots so don't plant the figs at the bottom of a water channel.  Plant to either side if you have that type of feature.

Wait till the trees outgrow a 5g pot before planting. Larger, more mature trees are more adaptable.

I have sandy soil where the sand grains range from 1" to 18", with a little sticky clay drizzled in between. Not a problem. Add lots of compost (4-6" per year) to the top of the soil, which will help keep the weeds down and add fertility to the soil.

I am going to have nightmares tonight for sure Jon, I (try to) grow carrots also. You may live in heaven, but hell is apparently only a few inches below ; )

Well said, Brent. And I thought MY soil was rocky!!

I live just north of Dallas Tx and have red clay also - yuk!  I was told composted cotton burrs help to break up the clay.  I did what rcantor did but used the composted cotton burrs about a 6" wide, 12" deep around the tree - I make a doughnut with the tree being in the hole.   I also used Jobes organic stimulate, and broke up the rootball a bit to help the roots grow out from the tree instead of a circle from the pot.

Dave,

Get your soil tested for pH and nutrients. In-ground fig trees really do not require much help. What you describe sounds like what I have after a hard rain (minus the rocks). My soil is alkaline with a ph in the range of 7.6-7.8 and high in Potassium. I do not amend my soil with anything for figs. They get planted about 2" deeper than grown previously in a hole about twice as large as the container they were growing in and a thick layer of mulch is added (helps keep soil cool, moist and brings in the earthworms). One of the keys to watering in clay soil is to do it slowly. 5 minute trickle for small trees on up to 20 minutes for the larger trees. Too fast and it will spread far but not go deep. I water every 7-10 days or when the trees show first signs of wilting. That's it. My trees have put on over 4 feet of growth this Spring and begin bearing by the next year (unless they were already with fruit when planted in the ground). We are in the same USDA zone. I can put my first season cuttings with no/slight protection (a small pile of dry hay or an inverted plastic pot) and they will resume or come back the next season. No BS. The hardest part about growing them is keeping the birds at bay and keeping the growth from getting out of control.

a video was linked or posted here some time ago about fig trees in spain.
the soil was clay.
maybe some one can find the link.
it showed how they dug the hole, much deeper than the plant was tall.
put lots of rocks, gravel in the bottom and planted the tree very deep, so that it would root out from the stem creating a larger root mass.

Grant

I have lots of rocks and gravel to put into the holes.  Sounds like a good idea. 

Soil ph was tested and is  6.3 to 6.5, and it is red clay.  I didn't test for nutrients  We are in the desert.  I have been putting in fence to keep the javelina out of the yard.  We've had very little rain in the past few months, yet the soil is damp and sticky at the bottom of my post holes.

I put a lot of time and effort into my cuttings and trees.  Our last home (also in the desert) had very different conditions.  Rock and sand.  Had to water new trees three or four times a week.  Here...onceevery 5 or 6 days or so seems to do it, even on newly planted trees, and our temps have been in the 80's and 90's for several weeks allready.

Thanks to all of you for your advice and suggestions.  I am going to save this thread to refer to.   I lost a little celeste transplant last week, and I'm not sure why.  Things like that make me anxious.

Hoosier, you need to discover raised beds, for your carrots.

Our soil is also basically clay, but we are in the foothills, and drainage is very good. Although clay, the soil when dry is crumbly and loose - very much like old fashioned kitty litter. Around us are commercial lemon and avocado orchards. The several in-ground fig trees I've seen in the area are doing extremely well. Best watering here is long and slow as with soaker hoses, and very infrequently. It both drains well and retains water.  PH of soil and tap water is pretty consistently 8.

I grow the carrots in the "old potato patch", where there was several feet of compost added over the years and the rocks were all picked out. The biggest challenge has been the perennial morning glory and woodchucks.

Monsteratt Pons digs a deep hole, "Paul and Irene" describes it well in the below post and you can see a planting hole at around 13 minutes into the video. http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/pruning-Grafting-and-planting-by-Montserrat-Pons-5801607