Searching for perennial plants that thrive in well drained, sandy depleted soils

The area in question is several 4-6 foot high X 20-30 foot long mounds of very sandy well-drained soil, lacking in nutrients. This soil was dug out to make an 8 foot deep pit (with 2 feet of water in it), and placed about 6 feet away from said pit. Unfortunately much of the sub soil (a grey, light gritty clay) ended up on the top of some of the mounds.

I'm in zone 5b but with the micro climate created I'd say this area is probably zone 6 or greater.

I haven't been able to find much useful information in my search. So far I've only found that I might be able to get away with Mulberry, Goji, and Persimmons (though I'm worried that the drainage will cause the fruit to drop prematurely). I read that " Extreme drought will cause the leaves and fruit to drop prematurely". If a really hot summer arrives, I'd be worried that this would result.

Any ideas?

I have found both mulberry and persimon to be more demanding of high fertility(here in the pacificNW).I have had success with autumn olive and other plants in that family.Heartnut is adaptable to droughty conditions.Rubus sp. like raspberries can handle well drained.Bulbs that die back in the summer like camas work.

Do you think amending their planting holes and/or spreading manure a few feet around the saplings diameter would suffice?

I'm also not adverse to sheet mulching the whole hill but if I can find food plants that can do well in these conditions then I'd rather just cut to the chase and plant.

I'm also planning on seeding a groundcover of clover and possibly buckwheat in the spring.

I did some checking up on Autumn Olive and found some sources which say it is invasive. I wouldn't want to create another European Buckthorn phenomenon. Those things have spread all over the place in central ontario, all because someone wanted to grow them as an ornamental.

Invasives are adept at reclaiming industrially disturbed sites which is what your conditions sounded like.

seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) and goumi (Elaeagnus multiflora) are both in the same family as autumn olive and similarly adaptive, but they don't spread so rampantly as autumn olive.

I've had seabuckthorn on my radar but I'll ahve to look into Goumi. Thanks

what about jerusalem artichokes and you can plant climbing beans up them for some nitrogen...in the summertime..also if you were to put shrubs ..you  could fertilize the area around the hole itself.

we have a light grey gritty clay here and it is fairly fertile, will grow a lot of stuff..

I thought about jerusalem artichokes but since they grow well just about anywhere else, I thought it best to save this spot for something that could take advantage of the warmer microclimate.

What shrubs would you recommend? I was thinking about currants and gooseberries but around here they seem to grow in wet areas. Nanking cherry, or a dwarf peach maybe?

Go the library and request the Denver Water Boards' books on Xeriscaping.
(They wrote three books, and made the word come into common usage,  I think it is Greek for "without water".)
READ!!!
Denver is generally a zone 4 (and maybe gets warm enough to be a 5 or 6 with protection from wind and sun).  These books will give you more choices than you have money or time for.
I live in Northern Colorado, in the sagebrush, Zone 3, and I use them almost exclusively.

Thanks for the tip. I just now typed in a 'xeriscape denver' search and found this link helpful: http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/Trees/xeris5.htm

Oh and Brenda; I may resort to amending the planting area but thought that I could save myself the time and effort by finding a desirable bunch of plants that would do well in the existing mound, poor soil and all.

The list says pears, apples, and plums, which sounds good to me. If I plant them near the bottom of hte hill, they'd theoretically have greater access to water, still benefit from the heat of hte bank, and I could maybe harvest them from the top of the mound

Hmmm, sweet potato as a ground cover comes to mind actually. We're growing some in that same field in a 2 ft high beds, and they're doing really well, so I could see it working out with these giant mounds.

One site I'm working with has a rocky, sandy soil. I have similar questions to the original poster.


Do you think that things like cherries, plums, apricots, and grapes will do well on such a site? Sheet mulch (cardboard and woodchips) will be laid down