Soil and Bindweed
- To: perennials@mallorn.com
- Subject: Soil and Bindweed
- From: L* P*
- Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 07:18:41 -0800
HiDere, Perennials-Listers...Doug, I always enjoy and learn so much from
your generous contributions to the 'net. A friend of mine once wryly
called the Internet "the world's largest Vanity Press". Thankfully there
are many folks such as you whose contributions are genuine and modest --and
always so informative. I know ya don't need praise from the likes of me,
but hey, enjoy it anyway, ok? :-)
It is surprising though how little talk there is on the garden lists about
soil. Learning about soil opens up a whole fascinating micro-world of
organisms, mineralogy, and quite a bit of good ol' physics. Does anyone
else have fond memories of "making mudballs" in physics class to learn
about cohesion, pore space, and water? Chemistry was a real gas,
especially the day one of the class clowns burned a neat hole clear through
his thick lab notebook with a blowpipe. Then there was trickynometry
class, where I passed a Fig Newton wrapper with the note "You are my
significant fig" to Mr. Dreamboat who is my husband of more than 30 years :-)
Ok, back to gardening where all the sciences give us wonderful lessons in
observation. Try getting into some hands-on stuff such as mooshing around
with your soil and making a few mudballs. It is both a bit of fun and
amazing.....Gardens often have important micro "zones' for soil just as
they do for climate. Our place happens to straddle three USDA-mapped soil
types: sandy loam, silt loam and clayey silt loam. Add to that peat beds,
rock garden scree, and other objects of my fancy, and the variety is
endlessly fun!
Alas, we have two types of bindweed and as you say, Convolvulus sepium
grows robustly in my unkempt "open wilderness" areas of clayey soil that is
relentlessly compacted by both the big G and winter rain. C arvensis is
the bindweed here that is a serious agricultural pest and does best in
cultivated soil. Local common names are Hedge Morningglory for sepium and
Bindweed for arvensis.
One thing that is helping me to gain a foothold on areas that I can't
realistically weed is to just cover them with any kind of organic material
that I can get my hands on. Sawdust and wood chips are often to be had here
for free and the areas that I have used it liberally are much less of a
problem. Since there are many plants such as dryland bulbs, penstemon and
some salvias that dislike amended soil, I do have plenty of area with
native soil "as is".
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil Conservation
Service) of the USDA has a wealth of information about soils in almost all
areas of the US. Detailed soil manuals with ~very detailed local maps are
available for each county in the US and are free. Canada has a similar
agency, as (I would imagine) do all countries, with equally helpful
information about local soil and microclimate.
Cheers, Louise
Corvallis, ORegon US
Co-listowner, Penstemon-L
p*@peak.org
Siggie humor
ADMINISPHERE - The rarefied organizational layers beginning just above the
rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often
profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed
to solve.
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