Troughs

[Graham Catlow]

Graham,  that's a very interesting way to exhibit using bricks, I really like that.  If I can find a suitable spot, I'm going to give it a go.  So easy too.  Did you stick them together with cement or just leave them loose?

Hi Chris,
You can find the method I used in this thread http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=4656.msg201854#msg201854 No cement! It took me a while to find the thread. I suppose I should have put it here in Troughs rather then Crevice Gardening.

Graham

[Graham Catlow]

Graham - I am really struck by your shade troughs. They contain all the plants that are so difficult to grow down here in the south. We have never had many troughs but now have the opportunity to buy a collection of them (not stone I hasten to add!) and I am greatly encouraged that this would allow a whole lot of new plants to succeed in shady corners of the garden. How many do I need? I was aiming for 10 or 15 but now Lesley has had 22 and Cliff - I'm not sure how many are there but quite a few? (How many people stop outside the gate and peer over at all those treasures?). The lady whose troughs I am considering had around 60(!) and some very nice plants in many of them. But 60 might break the bank! (as well as the back).

Hi Tim,
I'm pleased you have found a little inspiration from my troughs.
I have 21 - at the moment . I don't think I have room for more but who knows if one comes available.
Buy them all and find somewhere to store them until you can use them.
Maggi is right - you can never have too many.

[Lesley Cox]

The short answer to how many troughs you need, is - You need more. I had about 100 at one stage but some fewer now but more are planned. The most precious are carved out of blocks of solid limestone of various sizes. It is second grade stone (not suitable for building material) and more porous than the first stuff so that I discovered early on if I filled them to the brim with water from a hose, it had all seeped away by next morning, thus doing away with the need to have holes in the bottoms. They drain perfectly.

[John85]

Lesley you are lucky to live in a mild climate.
That may be fine in Z9 but even in Z8 such a stone would freeze into pieces during the first winter.
I was told that throughs made from concrete with light aggregates like expanted clay are damaged even in Z7.
Please share your experiences.

[Lesley Cox]

It is probably thoughtless of me but I'm so used to my climate and have never gardened in a harsher one, that I assume hardiness of just about everything I plant. I do protect a few things like the chocolate cosmos seedlings but not the established plants. They're more likely to die of summer drought if I don't water enough. I've never had a pot or trough crack from frost. But Weldenia roots can force their way through strong hypertufa and split a trough down each corner. Salvia microphylla has done the same. My best hypertufa troughs are from Hokonui Alpines, a nursery south of here and I've mentioned them before. The ones I made myself are much less solid having a higher humus content and lower cement content but though those have crumbled around the tops, the only two to have broken were driven into by a visitor when he misguided his car.

Dunedin airport get as low as -8C sometimes and that is a couple of 100 metres below us in altitude. We rarely get more than -3 or -4C because being high on a hill, we get wind drift most evenings. Dunedin city 20 kms away gets a little more than we do, especially in the shaded areas whereas we are exposed to all the winds that blow.

[Maggi Young]

Quite a few troughs in this week's Bulb Log....
http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/logdir/2012Jun061338982706BULB_LOG_2312.pdf

[Tim Ingram]

Maggi and Ian - wonderful and inspirational troughs. I love the underlying desire to give plants just what they want and to watch the garden develop. So refreshing. Here are a couple of examples from Robin and Sue White and Peter Erskine after our group was extremely lucky to visit their gardens a week or two ago. Really like seeing a virtuoso performance with plants in both cases ... if only many more could see plants like this!

[John85]

Is this a dwarf cv of armeria maritima?I have a few but none is so compact.Nice!!!Only my armeria juniperifolia is that size.

[Ian Y]

Maggi and Ian - wonderful and inspirational troughs. I love the underlying desire to give plants just what they want and to watch the garden develop. So refreshing. Here are a couple of examples from Robin and Sue White and Peter Erskine after our group was extremely lucky to visit their gardens a week or two ago. Really like seeing a virtuoso performance with plants in both cases ... if only many more could see plants like this!

Thank you Tim - I do think of gardening as a process not a product and patience to wait for and enjoy watching the plantings develop is much more satisfying than the instant gratification of TV type makeovers.

Is this a dwarf cv of armeria maritima?I have a few but none is so compact.Nice!!!Only my armeria juniperifolia is that size.

We got the original plant tens of years ago as a dwarf form of A. maritima but I have never researched to confirm that name it could well be A. juniperifolia as you suggest. It is a very useful wee plant.

[ChrisB]

I started collecting armerias a few years back with a view to having a NC eventually.  Rafa kindly sent me a link to a botanical paper describing those native to the Iberian peninsula, but it was all in Spanish of course.  But it did have lots of b&w illustrations.  What I found was that there are many many dwarf armerias similar to the one growing in Ian's garden and they might be any number of species really, I couldn't get my head around them and eventually gave up as all the ones I had were probably mislabelled.... but they are fascinating if very similar.  They seem to be self fertile too, as I tried growing many from seed with great success, and they always came true.

[astragalus]

Pictures taken during the pre-Nottingham tour.  The troughs were really wonderful.

[DaveM]

I planted this trough with sempervivums a couple of years ago and it's now beginning to fill out a bit. I made a similar trough many years ago but it was systematically ransacked by birds  , so this time I made a net that I keep over the trough most of the time.
(Pics taken today)

[ChrisB]

Know just what you mean Dave.  I may do something similar with mine if it happens again.  I hope to have it growing well enough to show at our local show later this summer but not if the birds get at it...

[olegKon]

Some things in my troughs
1. Heuchera parishii
2.Dianthus ferrugineus
3.Dianthus arpodianus

[Maggi Young]

Your troughs are  looking good, Oleg. Is the lovely primula in this post also growing in one ?
http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=8426.msg249289#msg249289