I'm fairly new to gardening and live in a hot, dry climate...zone 9. I'm already off to a rough start. I didn't quite do enough research before planning and building my first raised flower bed. I haven't tested my soil so I'm not sure about its properties but it's dry, rocky, and seems to turn into a concrete like substance after it gets wet then dries. I dug down about 10" then filled it in with a 70/30 steer manure/rocky soil mixture. Within days my plants dried up and the leaves were crispy. After talking to a few people I realized I basically burned the roots with too much manure. I removed the plants and dug up the entire flower bed, removing every bit of steer manure and rocky soil. I replaced the soil with a 50/50 mixture of top soil and potting soil from the local nursery called "Pay Dirt". The bed is raised about 10" so it's a total of about 20" deep until it hits that hard as rock natural stuff that resides below. I replanted and whatever was still a little green has turned dry and crispy with some having no leaves at all. Red cedar mulch covers the bed with a drip irrigation system providing water. The emitters are rated at 2gph, 20 of them in all come on at 6am for 60 minutes. The flower bed is built in a 1/4 moon shape in the corner of a brick wall in my back yard. The sun first hits around 8am and gets full sun until around 5pm. I am sure they are in shock and nervous I have killed them with all that has happened. The first 2 weeks they were only being watered for 10 minutes, 3 times a day. I didn't know...just set it to a preset schedule until I realized they weren't getting enough water. Too much sun? Not enough water, too much water??? I have thought about moving them to the other end of my small backyard to where it doesn't get quite as much sun but still at least 6 hours I believe. Here's what is in the garden, in which I have no idea at this point which plant is which because after the first move they were so dried up looking I couldn't tell them apart. Oh yeah, when I removed them I rinsed off the roots to make sure all that manure was gone then placed them all in rubbermaid containers filled with water until I could exchange the soil from manure to dirt/potting soil. Roses- Mardis gras Enchanted Evening Mister Lincoln Veteran's Honor Gold Glow x2 April in Paris Double Knockout (mini) Tiffany Christian Dior Lavender (French) did well, Spanish died within 2 days Asiatic Lilly I just added 3 vines of "Miami Pink" Bougenvillia against the brick wall to help protect from reflecting sun. Any advice would be extremely helpful...
Likely the burning up is due to them being dug while in leaf rather than the properties of the material filling the beds.
Can you please explain what is meant by "in leaf"? They were transplanted with leaves on them from the container they were in, which I'm assuming is okay. But they burned up or were in shock or something before I dug them back up. But yes, the ones that still looked decent went dry immediately after replanting the second time.
