[PHOTO] Re: Japanese beds

Coral Kincaid wrote:
> cathy,
> Do you line your JI beds so they retain moisture?  If not, how do you keep 
the soil as moist as they like?
> 
> Coral, Nova Scotia, Zone 6

I did that at my old house. Dug 3 foot trench, lined with 6 ml plastic, put a 
few holes in plastic about a foot or so from the top, refilled with dirt. The 
longest I had JIs in there was 4 years and they grew well every year except 
for a few clumps that were overdue for digging. Then I moved...

In these new beds, if you CAN dig down 3 feet (its pretty tough clay) you 
would soon hit water. As you can sorta see from the attached pic, 20 ft on 
the other side of the fence is a large pond. So here, I laid out soaker hose 
attached at the one end to a timer and place to add fertilizer, the soaker 
winds its way thru one bed, then attaches to a very short piece of regular 
hose that goes underground in a pvc pipe to the next bed where it attaches to 
another soaker hose. Then another underground connection to the next bed and 
so on.

Et voila! A homemade automatic watering system for the beardless beds!

My test here will be if I water lots, and have the slope to the pond, I want 
to see if this will alleviate the need to replant JIs in brandy new soil 
every 5 or 6 years. I will be planting a few of the same cultivars right at 
pond side for comparison.

cathy
nj, region 19
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