To understand how soil is able to support plant life is quite complicated subject but you don’t need to be a scientist to be a successful gardener. You will still need to know what you’re doing so that you can make better decisions when it comes to rose soil.

Rose soil is made up of several components that combine and behave well together.

The first component is the basic rock particle which is basically made up of large like sand and grit or microscopically small like the individual grains of clay.

The second component is water as plant absorbs the nutrients (in water solution) in the soil with their roots.

The third component is the decomposition of plant and animal remains.

The fourth component is humus.

The fifth component is air.

These five components behave as if they are a single entity and if you were to remove any of them, the rose soil will not be able to support the plant and infertility will happen gradually. Fertility cannot be restored simply by just adding fertilizers.

Since not one component is more vital than any other, you need to bring a balance between the five components to ensure a good living working relationship.

Believe it or not, plants breathe through their roots and they cannot breathe in soil that is waterlogged and airless. That’s why digging is good for plants as it increase the air content which will revitalize the bacteria to improve the overall fertility of the soil.

To double dig the soil, you would dig a trench two spits deep and harrow the soil to the other end of the plot, thus keeping the spits apart. Throw the next top spit into the trench bottom, and then the second bottom spit on top.

Work your way to the end of the plot, top spit into the bottom, bottom to the top, filling in the last trench with the barrowed soil.

As for bastard trench, you need to take out the top spit of the first trench and harrow it to the end of the digging area. Instead of digging out and removing the bottom spit, you would simply fork it up and break it open and leave it where it is. If you can fork in some compost, that’s even better but make sure that the bottom spit stays down, and the second row top spit goes over on top.

Under the new planting, work in a good lump of compost or moist peat as this will serve as a moisture-absorbent reservoir to guard against the drying out of new plantings.