From: "Janet Ibbotson" <s*@britishcopyright.org
Date: 30 December 2008 18:05:06 GMT+01:00
To: <m*@ucdavis.edu
Subject: RE: Planting for windy sites
Hi Karrie and Jeremy,
Thanks for replying. Will take the point about waiting for the winds to moderate on board. I am not sure about Opuntia, I'm a bit fearful about handling it and I'm not sure I'd want it so near the house.
In the last year, minimum temperatures on Skopelos were -1c or 30.2f with a maximum 34.7c or 94.46f. The lowest windchill was -7.8c or 18f and during November 2008 it was -0.6c or 30.92f. The house is about 360feet above sea level so hopefully the salt spray won't carry.
For the area between the back of the house and the hillside I had planned something with a courtyard feel, somewhere away from the all-consuming sea view, restful with dappled light, gravelled but with two citrus trees for shade and colour and some seating and informal planting to go with. Somewhere I can potter rather than bask! Instead we seem to have created a wind tunnel. I also need to incorporate planting around the front door. I'd hoped for rosa banksiae, jasmine and ceanothus on the stone building with agapanthus in pots, then some evergreen waterwise shrubs with a more delicate understory spreading onto the gravel - informal not formal. On the white plastered part of the building I had hoped for bougainvillea with a lemon tree in front. This side of the house is west facing but the heat is not too intense as we don't get the sunset.
As far as windbreaks are concerned: just South of this area is an umbrella pine (juvenile but about 16 feet high) which creates dappled shade from the South but don't stop the wind. At the North end is a parking 'ramp' and a dirt track down which the North West wind howls. On the banks of the ramp I have started to plant Italian cyprus but they're going to take some time to establish. Due North we have a couple of small olive trees and a builder-battered fig, but there is room for a proper windbreak hedge both on the boundary and closer to the house. Beyond our land to the North is an almond orchard and beyond that a pine forest (Aleppo Pine), though following last Winter's storms it has a big gap in it.
Any thoughts and lists would be greatly welcomed.
Janet
