Re: Soil amendmending
Joe Seals wrote:
>
> Moira:
>
> I was brought up Roman Catholic in a very guilt-ridden
> Italian family, so I have never been accused of being
> "Calvinistic". Nor chauvinistic. I was, however,
> once accused of being "Machiavelian"; I'm not sure the
> accuser knew what that meant.
Well Joe
My feeling after reading your account of your upbringing is that in fact
it was really more Calvanistic than Catholic in that, as Bill so wittily
iimplied, you were denied any chance of having a good time or feeing
good about yourself!
And that I have read is what Calvin and his henchmen did to the rank and
file of his church, (though it is also recorded they were considerably
more lenient towards themselves).
However to explain my use of the calvanistic term in relation to your
recommendations for growing in ghastly soils, I intended to suggest you
appeared to be agin giving the plants any sort of relief from their
naturally difficult situation.
> Research at the Universities of Georgia and Oklahoma
> suggest that, even in the worst soils, the existing
> soil be removed at a volume twice that of what is to
> be planted, the soil then "broken up" and stones/rocks
> removed. The broken, cleaned soil is then put back
> into the hole to fill in around the newly-set plant.
> Without amendment. This is enough to give the plants
> the "good start" they need to fend for themselves in
> later life.
Well, that I _could_ go along with, though I am surprised that they
recommend removing _all_ stones as I have always undestood plants really
like a few stones or at least pebbles in their soil to open up the
texture, provide a reservoir of minerals and even to act as foci in the
soil to attract water. Anyway in most parts of _my_ garden (on a stony
loam) they have no choice and I have never seen anything to suggest the
plants have any objection.
Last year I carried out an exercise which might be of some use to
anybody dealing with a poor dry soil. Near the top of my garden I have a
sun-facing terrace which was originally filled with a pretty poor soil
got from goodness knows where and which had become so hard and weedy it
needed a severe treatment of some sort. I had a good pile of well-rotted
tree grindings my son had got from a local arborist and passed on to me.
These had rotted to a coarse grey powder.
The weeds were tramped down in spring and the entire surface coverd with
a thick layer (10 sheets) of newspaper and topped with about 5-6 inches
of the tree mulch. The only plants perserved were a few Diantus along
the edge and a very fine bush of the Marlborough daisy (Pachystegia),
which were just mulched around.
Without waiting for the mulch to sink in the bed was then planted with
lavenders
(mainly cvs of angustifolia), Argyranthemums, small cistuses and and
various silver-leaved plants, except for the shaded area at one end
which instead got a Geranium madrense and a couple of Arthropodium
clumps with a few small scented leaved Pelargoniums along the sunny
edge. All the planting was done by making a hole in the mulch and
punching out the paper just below.
Like you, I was trying to get deep roots and so my bed got only very
occasional deep waterings. For a few months nothing much happened,
except some of the lavenders looked pretty sick, but gradually they
picked up and last winter, with plenty of rain they really took off so
this last summer I had no less than three flushes from the lavenders and
a good flowering from the dasises until near midsummer, when they seemed
to run out of steam (they are now beginning to recover, I don't think
they like the really hot summer sun.)
We are now experiencing a quite severe and unusual drought (it is mid
autumn here), but the lavenders look really good and the daisies are
picking up. They get one watering with the trickle hose for a couple of
hours about every 10-14 days and that seems to be doing them splendidly.
I presume the roots have got well down and the mulch is going some way
towards protecting the soil from complete dessication.
The weeds, you might be interested to know, seem to have been vanquished
by the treatment, but bulbs, mostly South African like Ixias, Babianas,
Sparaxis and spring Gladioli plus Ornathogalums and the ubiquitous grape
hyacinths have not been at all suppressed by the thick mulch, but have
come up and flowered with renewed vigor.
> May I also add that there is a place for well-amended
> and fertilized and watered and pampered soil. Many of
> us have vegetable beds or annual borders or other,
> "high intensity" garden spots. I certainly wouldn't
> suggest that any gardener try to grow celery on
> compacted soil or portulaca on dense clay. These
> kinds of plants are not "appropriate" (to our climates
> and soils) but they are part of a "cultivation
> society".
I would certainly go along with this too.
>
> So, let's not all go back to living in caves. Is that
> what "Calvinistic" means?
Would this not be "Trogladytish"??
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
