A UK gardener in northern Spain

Until a year ago I gardened in Suffolk, England, on freedraining, alkaline, loam which had been
enriched over many years with good garden compost and farmyard manure. Although East Anglia is a
windy area - sometimes with winds directly from Siberia - a surrounding hawthorn hedge broke its
force. I enjoyed growing a variety of spring bulbs and cowslips followed by a mix of traditional
and some more unusual perennials and shrubs, with emphasis on winter colour produced by bark,
berries or leaf colour.

Oh, how things change in a year! Last May we bought a 4 hectare olive and almond farm in
Catalunia in northern Spain. (Barcelona is 170kms up the coast from us) We are in the foothills
about 8kms inland and although the height gives us a good view of both mountains and the sea it
does nothing to protect us from the winds, some of which reach 70 - 80k an hour. The soil, if I
can call it that, has never had any organic matter introduced into it and is consequently like
concrete and is interspersed between great slabs of solid bedrock, useful for making sure we don't
slip down into the dry river bed which runs through our land but does nothing whatsoever to help
with trying to make a garden!

To say designing, preparing and buying plants has been a challenge would be an understatement.
Conscious of the work involved in preparing ground and then having to keep new plants well watered
while they become established, I didn't want to take on too much at once as at the same time we
were renovating the house. Now most of the building work is finished, including renovating many
dry stone walls and building new ones to help with the garden design. I have tried to utilise the
moving shade of several olive and carob trees which grow around the house and constructed garden
beds beneath and around them, and I bought in 4 cubic metres of top soil which has been
incorporated into the existing earth - some of the initial "digging" was done with a wrecking bar.
I am trying to make compost but the small amount which I can produce goes nowhere - in Suffolk I
had three large New Zealand compost bins plus two smaller black bins and so produced many metres a
year.

I have devoured any book which I can lay my hands on about gardening in dry climates and I am
getting a fair idea which plants thrive on minimum water and in hot dry conditions - but here is
another problem, the book may suggest a plant but trying to buy it is another matter. The local
nurseries sell "Jazmin" "Rosal" "Salva" but as to varieties, or their ultimate height and spread
the label does not give a clue and the staff in the nurseries don't seem to know either.

I get frustrated with not being able to get what I would think of as quite ordinary plants, but am
enjoying the challenge of gardening in a completely different way, with flowers in the winter and
lovely bright colours which clash quite happily together - very different from my carefully colour
coordinated garden in Suffolk where I was able to plan the differing heights to best advantage
with perhaps the late afternoon sun streaming through a stand of Stipa giganta and Verbena
boriensis, or Bowles golden grass in front of the Bishop of Llandaff. It is quite liberating just
letting things grow, although I am trying to group oranges together so I can plant a Plumbago
through them and I have just planted a white double Rosa Bansksae to climb into a carob tree and
hopefully cascade down the outside.

I have been enchanted by the pelargoniums here - great pom-poms of gaudy colour which I would
never have planted in Suffolk, but in billowing blocks against the dry stone walls they seem to be
just right. Very different from the variety of lovely wild flowers we have, so many scabious, and
wild gladioli - magenta flowers with a blueypurple sheen over the swelling flower buds, they grow
out of crevices at the bottom of the walls and in the wild verges along the lanes. Later the wild
clematis will surprise me again with its tiny, white delicate flowers withstanding the driest
conditions in the hottest sun, we have some growing near a fig tree which when the sun is full on
it exudes a strange, sweet smell. Some of these wild flowers I am trying to transplant to a
terrace directly below our sitting area, my long term aim is to create a Spanish equivalent of
prairie planting as we also have some lovely grasses growing here - including Stipea gigantia -
but transplanting even the tiniest seedlings isn't working yet. The rosemary and cistus
transplant easily as do the small pinky white, star flowered ashphodels, but the lime green
euphorbias suffer in the growing heat of early summer.

Although there are moments when I miss my previous garden with its enviable soil and availability
of excellent nurseries - we gardeners thrive on challenge, and it certainly is a challenge
creating a garden from nothing and being mindful of having to use water very wisely as we buy in
most of our water from a village 10kms away. But each day I am now seeing little changes to the
plants, and as flowers come into bloom swathes of colour are beginning to transform the bare earth
and turn it into a garden.

I hope that this Forum will help me enjoy even more, the process of making a garden under
challenging circumstances.



Regards

Valerie Bailey

email: bailey@valcol.com
www.valcol.com
tel: 0034 (Spain) 630 25 38 12 mobile: 0034 660 86 97 48 eFax (UK) 0044 (0) 870 131
5044
mail: Bahia Mar, Plaza Gonzalez Isla 12, L'Ampolla de Mar, 43895 Tarragona, Spain.

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