# Does Everyone in America Have Hard Clay Soil?



## Tellycoleman (May 10, 2017)

I believe America is just clay. 
Who else has hard clay soil?
I do red clay?
Home wouldn't pass perculation test because clay was so compact.


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## Spammage (Apr 30, 2017)

@Tellycoleman Houston Black silty clay here.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Tellycoleman said:


> I believe America is just clay.
> Who else has hard clay soil?
> I do red clay?
> Home wouldn't pass perculation test because clay was so compact.


Here in New England, the "soil" is mostly sand, unless one is in an area which was historically flooded seasonally, such as the Connecticut River valley or the Merrimack River valley. What isn't sand is rocks. Big rocks, medium rocks, and little rocks.

Water percolates right down into the soil at an astonishing rate in most places. Puddles in the lawn from a hard rain disappear in minutes. The only time I ever have standing water in the yard from rain is while it is actually raining hard, or from late December through early March, when the ground is frozen solid.


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## soupy01833 (Aug 10, 2020)

I lived in MA for 55 years and my yard was gray clay. 1 mike away was mostly sand


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## BobLovesGrass (Jun 13, 2020)

I am in Wisconsin, have pretty hard clay, couple miles south there is an area of black concrete the farmers tell me is way worse, mile west of that is sandy.
You can tell how sandy areas are driving thru, eastern WI agricultural land has no irrigation, but as you head west it becomes quite prevalent. The rain eastern WI gets comes from the west, they get the storms before us but they still need irrigation.


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## Mightyquinn (Jan 31, 2017)

I live in the "Sandhills" of North Carolina so my soil is mostly sand and drains pretty good.


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## mwemaxxowner (May 30, 2020)

Mine is mostly just sand.

It's great for digging projects but boy does it get everywhere.


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## FATC1TY (Jul 12, 2017)

Red clay here. So much clay you can dig it up and mold it into something.


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## TN Hawkeye (May 7, 2018)

Bright orange clay here. I don't use concrete when I put in a mailbox. I just wet the clay a little and tamp it around the post. Sets up like concrete.


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## SWB (Sep 22, 2018)

Mine is like yours & TN Hawkeye's...I have one area that is so hard I couldn't get the probe in more than an inch to collect a soil sample.


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## ABC123 (Jul 14, 2017)

Here's a interesting map


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## Ware (Jan 28, 2017)

ABC123 said:


> Here's a interesting map


This. I think a lot of people that think they have clay soil do not have clay soil.


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## ken-n-nancy (Jul 25, 2017)

Ware said:


> ABC123 said:
> 
> 
> >
> ...


+1


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## rjw0283 (May 11, 2020)

Map confirms, loamy sand. My front yard is mostly sand, backyard is sandy loam/loamy sand, from years of filling in dog holes with whatever. And I'm on a pretty decent slope, so everything runs downhill to the backyard


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## Keepin It Reel (Feb 20, 2019)

Red clay here in sc


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## Redtwin (Feb 9, 2019)

Almost straight sand down here.


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## g-man (Jun 15, 2017)

Most people think the have clay soil, but they just have dry soil.


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## turfnsurf (Apr 29, 2020)

g-man said:


> Most people think the have clay soil, but they just have dry soil.


 :lol: :lol: :lol:

I know this is factual...but it came across as funny after all the comments in the thread.


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## thebmrust (Jun 29, 2020)

I am in Southeastern Washington. We have mostly sand and river rock. Our shrub steppe geographic area used to be river basin. I can watch water slide off the sand because it's repelling it and then once it finds a spot, it just disappears. It'll probably be dry in a day (depending on weather).

We have had three days of smoke filled sky and 80 or below temps. I can water my yard for 5 minutes or 8 hours and not a spot of standing water. It doesn't evaporate it absorbs. LOL


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## dicko1 (Oct 25, 2019)

NE Illinois here. Loamy sand. The entire county is one big sand quarry. Glaciers from the last ice age did an incredible job of leaving sand everywhere.


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## Deadlawn (Sep 8, 2020)

When I lived in Northern NJ, the soil was a few inches of topsoil on top of CLAY. Growing a lawn there was like shooting fish in a barrel.

I now live in Western MA and have a few inches of topsoil on top of SAND. The only grass that grows well here is crabgrass!


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## mwemaxxowner (May 30, 2020)

I'm growing centipede pretty well in sand. It's taking more fertilizer and water than I read that centipede should take, but it's doing well nonetheless.







A few pictures attached. It was wet here after a day of rain. When it's dry it gets powdery.


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## thebmrust (Jun 29, 2020)

After seeing mwemaxxowner's sand... I guess ours has more loam than I realized. But our granules aren't that big either. We aren't silt though either.


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