Troughs

[Maggi Young]

That's a nice article about Michael Shrimpton, Luit, thanks for the link - I love  hearing that he discovered a love of alpines when visiting the mountains to watch Le Tour de France!!
Cheery photo of him with the copper kettle too.

I believe  he and his wife are also successful at AGS shows.

[Great Moravian]

The problem with putting crocks or other drainage material at the bottom of any container is that it does not actually help the container to drain - in fact quite the opposite, it actually hinders drainage by, amongst other things, raising the perched water table.

Paul, raising the perched water table doesn't hinder drainage in troughs if above crocks in bottom.
The basic effect of the crocks is free access of air to the perched water table through the draining
holes and the free spaces between the crocks, so that the water is sufficiently saturated with air.
The purpose of the bottom drainage is to prevent anaerobic state which in reality kills the roots,
not the water.

[Lvandelft]

I believe  he and his wife are also successful at AGS shows.

That is good to hear Maggi, he must be far in the 70ties by now.
I am always on the search for stories on plant names and still surprised how much I can find on the net 

[ChrisB]

Thanks for the link Paul.  I was told to stop using crocks quite recently and have now done so.  What I failed to do was realise I should use the same science for my sinks.  I will do so from now on.  But I have a question - if I put rocks into a new sink is it wise to put them in right down to the bottom of it or is it better to put smaller ones in leaving the bottom largely soil mix?

[kindredspiritkevin]

Gone circular.     

First one, saxifrages in Tufa and water-worn limestone.







I quarried some limestone myself for a second saxifrage circular trough.



Sempervivums in Sandstone rock.

[Lesley Cox]

Again Luit, thanks. So it was the son Michael who named the Calceolaria hybrid after his father. A nice touch.

I'm very relieved to hear too, that Michael found his initial love for alpines on a trip to see the Tour de France. It was a great worry to me, how much Maggi and Ian were obsessed with the race, when they could have been outside gardening. But it seems the cycling event can be of some benefit to gardeners after all.

[Tim Ingram]

Chris - if I were you I would use rocks rather like Vojtěch did in Tábor, building them up high rather than burying them deep - might as well show them off as much as possible and create high crevices to improve drainage even more.

[ChrisB]

Tim - maybe I should but didn't he put a lot of chunky stuff in the bottom too? I seem to recall he half filled the chasm with it before adding soil mix?

[Tim Ingram]

Oh - I missed that bit whilst I was watching Zdeněk and (was it Paul?) planting their trough. You pays your money and takes your choice!

[Matt T]

Tim - maybe I should but didn't he put a lot of chunky stuff in the bottom too? I seem to recall he half filled the chasm with it before adding soil mix?

Would chunky stuff then create the problem of a perched water table though?

[Lesley Cox]

Matt I don't think that would be a problem if some of the compost mix went right down to the bottom of the trough. I haven't been able to do a high trough as not enough rocks and my climate is maybe not suitable anyway but I did put large chunks of rubbishy rock in the troughs, almost filled them in fact, then added the compost and built that up as far as possible and added just a few small rocks on the top. The plants have done really well, much better than planted in just compost mix and I'm sure that it is because the roots have been able to find their way among the buried rocks. I'll do some pictures later today.

[astragalus]

I have a small collection of pieces of tufa left from splitting large pieces and from drilling holes because sometimes I got too close and accidentally sliced off a piece.  All of these were saved and in troughs for lime-lovers I takes handfuls of the "smalls" and place them in the bottom of the trough.  As I add mix for the bottom layer it gets stirred with the tufa.  Large rocks are then placed etc. and everything firmed up before placing the smalled connecting rocks etc.  At the very bottom is a piece of landscape fabric which drains well and prevents things (worms, etc) from working their way into the trough.  This seems to work well even on the troughs which are partially buried at one end (some of the troughs are on a sloping scree so one end is buried partway in the scree although resting on block.

[Maggi Young]

Gone circular.     

These round containers are rather nice - gives an extra challenge to the planting to REALLY have to make things attractive from all angles - which is not always done with square/oblong troughs. 

[Ian Y]

Tim - maybe I should but didn't he put a lot of chunky stuff in the bottom too? I seem to recall he half filled the chasm with it before adding soil mix?

Chris, As I recall Vojtěch filled the bottom with gravel from the ground, as did ZZ because they had not brought enough compost to fill both the troughs up as they would have liked.

Any gravel added should be mixed through the compost and not left in a zone at the bottom.
Large rocks can be bedded all the way to the bottom of the trough if you want or I start by building as high a mound of compost as I can in the trough then start to add rocks. Sometimes I need to remove a bit of compost to accommodate a large rock.

[ChrisB]

That's very helpful Ian.  Yes they did put stuff in the bottom looked like the rough stuff used under Tarmac to me so I started getting confused and that's quite usual for me these days...  I'll keep in mind when I make my next containers thanks everyone