Ola Pamela
....from down the road in Portugal - where we
have just had our first serious rain shower in 4 months.
I am really just writing to express my sympathy.
It must be quite depressing to see so many plants fail, including quite a few
toughies.
I am still on a steep learning curve with
my garden and lose quite a few plants - so I am definitely no expert. I too
have an alkaline (~pH7.8) clay soil that is like concrete for 8 months of the
year.
I have three thoughts for you based on my own
disasters.
1. Some plants I have bought (from
nurseries getting most of their plants from the Netherlands) have been grown
too soft and just cannot handle poor soils, reduced water and blazing sun.
They look great when bought, but often do not thrive. A particular
problem is they are often reluctant to put out roots beyond their original
root ball. I think I need to tease the roots out more when planting and
sometimes root prune to encourage new roots.
I have known about Dutch
plants for a while and will not on principle buy them. I have been unsure
about teasing out the roots when doing so have always been very careful but I
will now try this method in particular and also planting the
the mud method as suggested by Kris Kozminski via Tanya Kucak's
post. I thought that was a really interesting article.
2. I tend to dig too small a planting hole -
often too shallow I think. It is so hard to dig the ground that I give up too
soon. I am sure that I have lost some plants in the winter from water pooling
in too small a hole.When planting, I add compost and I used to plant into
compost + some of the original soil. Now I use much less compost and just use
it to open up the planting soil a bit - often with a bit of grit added. I
think I am getting better results with this.
We have
never used grit or sand but we are also going to try this...its difficult to
get anything other than 'builders sand' here and I don't think that this is OK
so I have been reluctant to use it.
3. I have been too "kind" to the plants -
too much water and too much fertilizer - especially when they are getting
established.
Yes,I probably commit this
indiscretion too.
There have been some
interesting posts on using rocks as mulch. We have been doing this since I read an article in the MGS
journal about growing vines in Negev desert and using round stones as mulch
and for irrigating the vines due to the overnight moisture runnning down the
stones. But I am now having second thoughts about
this here and it was confirmed that
they heat the soil and they certainly
do. I lifted some rocks which we had put around the aforementioned
lavenders and found the soil very
hot underneath.The rocks were hot as well. I removed them immediately but I think
maybe the new roots got cooked in
the process
Karries email sets it out well they' ADD to the
plant?s water loss by increasing ambient temperature'.
......
We
use mulch (grass from neighbours lawns loads of composted Oxalis pes -caprae
and we leave some of our pine needles to break down. We also have a
compost bin ( Moira' s recipe which we have had from the start and we now have
some worms in the garden).
There has been an awful lot of good advice for me from the members of
the group and I hope that others will benefit by it and that in time I will be
as helpful to others.
Pamela
I just wish you better luck in the
future.
Boa Sorte!
BrianO
