Re: Fall/Autumn planting (was Hot wind)
Damian,
I agree 100% with David Feix about late fall being the best planting time
in semi-arid and arid climates. I also think holding the plants over the
summer is a good strategy if you can't easily find them in the fall. Here
in Tucson (not truly Medit climate but overlapping in many respects), the
Tucson Botanical Gardens always holds its Herb Fair in late spring. After
several years of having plants truly suffer & sometimes die from being
planted out in the garden just before the onslaught of the hottest, driest
part of summer (May-June), I now just hold all the plants in pots until
fall. I keep them on the back porch which is north-facing, so on the
"shady" side in our hemisphere, and they are also shaded by a
grapevine-covered trellis. I prefer keeping plants in clay pots so I often
double-pot them, stuffing straw in between the two pots for insulation.
(This, it turns out, has the added benefit of providing habitat for the
nocturnal geckos, which are delightful creatures.)
If I had to plant any of these plants out in the garden in late spring or
early summer, I would be sure to mulch them heavily and use some pretty
substantial shade cloth (or palm fronds/sunflower stalks/long straight
twigs/ other material from your garden laid over a framework also work
well) over them for the first summer. For me, anyway, this has proved true
even for plants that are very drought-hardy once established.
The indigenous peoples of the Southwest also often used basins or "waffle
beds", dug into the ground with a network of higher pathways in between, to
plant in. This allows for very precise flood irrigation with a hose or with
watering cans if that's what you have--particularly if combined with mulch,
this can be quite water efficient. Perhaps you could create some "holding
beds" using this kind of idea, that would lessen the watering burden?
Katherine Waser
(in Tucson, where I heard the first cicadas of the year in my garden last
Monday--a sure sign that summer heat is here)
At 12:39 PM 5/24/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Makes sense, David. I'll certainly wait before pulling anything out! I
>was interested in your comment about Autumn planting. My short
>experience also shows best results if I plant as soon as the Summer heat
>dies down. Trouble is its tricky to get hold of plants from local
>nurseries at that time. I'm considering buying some now and tending
>myself until I can put them in the ground - it will mean shade and
>tedious watering but at least I can plant them when I want.
>
