Re: Acid Rain or Mt. Aetna Fallout?
- Subject: Re: Acid Rain or Mt. Aetna Fallout?
- From: T* &* M* R*
- Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 09:14:42 +1200
Charles Butler wrote:
>
> When did this take place? On the evening of July 30, a very, very strong scirocco blew in here at 38ºN/3ºW and continue unabated for about 40 hours, leaving alot of havoc in its wake, most notably a forest fire that destroyed several hundred hectares of mature pine in no time. I watered heavily, but a number of plants couldn´t get it to the leaves fast enough and dried out regardless. Imagine laundry drying in ten minutes in the shade and you´ll get the idea.
>From experience here when I used to do garden maintenance I can attest
to the damage just ordinary wind can do, especially if it has the chance
to pick up even a little salt. There was one garden which I serviced
which lay in the teeth of the westerly gales blowing up a long valley
from the sea about 10km away. This wind was pretty nearly perpetual. A
still day was a special bonus.
I found it virtually impossible without making strenuous efforts at
providing shelter to grow anything but plants with the most tough of
evergreen leaves.
The vulnerability of deciduous trees and shrubs was unfortunately made
worse by the fact that the most severe of spring gales exactly coincided
with the opening of their delicate young folige. This often meant that
the first crop of leaves was virtulally destroyed before the could even
expand and though many managed a second crop later when things had
simmered down a bit they were progressively weakend and would eventually
give up altogether. i planted a copper beech on what I had though might
be a protected lawn behind a buliding only to have it die in this manner
after two years. I gave up the struggle then and replaced it with an
Atlas cedar, which managed to survive.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand, SW Pacific. 12 hours ahead of Greenwich Time
