Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Robert]

Alan, Tim, and Maggi,

I definitely appreciate the meteorological data! This helps me put your situation into perspective. Tim and Alan, your situation is much warmer and drier during the summer than I first thought. In addition, it appears that the gardening methods in the U.K. can be somewhat different than here in California. In inland California, nobody plants, and then walks away from a new planting without giving considerable attention to watering. This includes wintertime planting. Maybe an exception would be planting during a wintertime rain storm, but then nobody is planting out at this time anyway.

[johnw]

Alan  - I'm surprised at your temps, rather similar in July to ours here on the coast.  Right here annually we get a bit more than the city's 56" of rain and well remember 1971 when we got 184.9mm (7.25") in one day Maggi!  How much drops from 112 days of fog I guess is unknown.

john     - an extremely clammy 19c with drizzle.

[Alan_b]

... In inland California, nobody plants, and then walks away from a new planting without giving considerable attention to watering.

There is a minority of plants that you could probably get away without watering after planting out; lavender springs to mind (although I would not risk it).  And some plants like hollyhocks seem to be able to seed themselves into very dry poor soil, suffer badly from rust and yet still flower well.  On the other hand I planted out five small Betula utilis var. jacquemontii three years ago.  I have lost two of these so far and the remaining ones still need water in the summer.  But, like Tim, my soil overlies chalk and I inherited some mature trees, both of which factors exacerbate the lack of rainfall.

[Robert]

Alan,

Good tidbits of information. Here in California, Birch are considered "water hogs" i.e. they will always need regular irrigation during the summer. Root competition from other plants is always a good consideration. Morus alba and Acer saccharinum are two of many trees that come to mind as having greedy, aggressive root systems. Around here they are very difficult to garden under, drawing moisture and nutrients from a wide area.

[Alan_b]

A few years earlier my wife took a seedling birch (that came from a tree elsewhere in the garden and had been growing in a pot) and established it in just the vicinity where I subsequently planted my B. utilis.  But that was, I think, our native silver birch, Betula pendula.  Once or twice it has lost its leaves prematurely after a hot summer but it has managed to keep going without significant extra water.  My inherited trees are horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum.  There is a time in early June when the spring plants, cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) and any grass growing beneath  or close to these trees all die back suddenly and completely, leaving just a few things that will continue to grow.  The greater celandine, Chelidonium majus, will grow but I have never yet managed to germinate either of the fancy forms, laciniatum or flore pleno.

Sorry, Tim, I'm hijacking your thread but at least we do seem to garden in somewhat similar circumstances.   

[Tim Ingram]

Alan - I don't mind at all you hijacking the thread! I think gardening is all about communication and sharing of experiences and this Forum is rather good at this  . We have several species of birch in the garden and quite a few early woodlanders do reasonably well under them, notably summer dormant plants like cyclamen, erythroniums, even the woodland anemone, some snowdrops and hellebores (which effectively stop growing in the summer and wait for autumn rains and cooler conditions to resume growth), and Geranium phaeum which seeds around in pretty dry spots. I usually weed out chelidonium but perhaps should leave more of this in the future. We do mulch quite heavily every few years with good compost but this rapidly disappears and the soil looks as dry as ever in the summer. At this time of year these areas can/do look dishevelled and weedy (weeds have the capacity to grow with no rain!) but come winter and spring everything comes back wonderfully refreshed.

Or you could always grow birch as a monoculture  . This is a picture taken in Blean Woods near to Canterbury last autumn, with bracken and chestnut seedlings in the foreground. (Blean, for those who don't know, is a significant area of 'ancient' woodland - which means very long managed over many centuries - very diverse in tree species and with wonderful expanses of anemone and bluebells and other flowers in spring).

[Hoy]

Although I haven't contributed to this thread before I have read it

Much of interest here. I am very impressed by your work Tim! Do you ever have time for a holiday?


You all garden in better climate than I Well, are we ever satisfied with the weather we have?

I am familiar with birches. I have to species in my garden at home (Betula pubescens & pendula). Although we can have very dry spells in summer (when it is impossible to plant anything without watering) they never suffer significantly from draught. I have had to remove some though as they take valuable space and throw too much shade.
On the other hand, at my summerhouse I don't have any mature birches. They are the first to suffer in the summer with prolonged periods without rain. Oaks and rowans are better to cope with drought.

Tim, I wonder about this chalk you have beneath the soil. What is it like? A hard, massive layer without cracks? Where I garden it is usually only a rather thin layer of soil above very hard bedrock almost without cracks.

[Tim Ingram]

Trond - the chalk is quite a way down. We have a deep layer of good loam ('brick earth' - ideal for cherries and fruit trees) which is actually quite neutral - camellias grow well and smaller rhododendrons would if we had more rain). The garden slopes down, and this carries on into a field below us which shows the chalk at the bottom quite clearly when it is ploughed. We have the dry conditions of chalk downland but much more fertility and the chalk is not a massive layer. The land to one side of us was used as a brickworks a century or more ago and much of the soil removed down to a hard pan of subsoil, but even here there is not much sign of chalk and the land grows a good crop of nettles and teasel!

We don't have so much time for holidays - I tend to follow Voltaire's principle: 'One must cultivate letters or/[and] one's garden' - but would love to travel to some of the places you have shown on the NARGS Forum, if and when we get the chance. Meanwhile we travel with others when they give talks to our local alpine group. (We have definite plans sometime to visit Göteborg, and will carry on exploring the near continent, like the recent trip to the Alsace).

[Hoy]

Thanks for your answer, Tim. It is most interesting!

Although it is a lot of different soils in Norway, of course, I have little experience with other kinds than in my garden.

One exception is my parents little garden. We moved when I was a teenager to a new-built townhome in Oslo. The developer had removed and sold all the fertile soil. What was left was stiff blue clay. My father and the neighbours hired heavy machinery to plow and mix in great amounts of sand and peat. But the soil became very productive in a few years!

[Tim Ingram]

This part of the garden has been a major project through the last few very dry weeks. It was full of nettles and brambles and seedling elders and the shrubs and trees planted maybe 15 to 20 years ago needed (need) considerable thinning and pruning. A lower area was cleared last year and is now being replanted mostly with Mediterranean-type species adapted to summer drought. The idea is to continue planting this autumn come rain and cooler conditions (and at last we have had a significant rainfall - 28mm - to enable this to begin and bring up a fresh new crop of weed seedlings! Much hoeing in prospect ). We aim to use a lot of southern hemisphere species under the eucalypts that you can see in the pictures, and already there are fine specimens of Azara microphylla and Crinodendron patagua, plus the extraordinary New Zealand Chordospartium stevensonii (apparently this has now migrated into Carmichaelia). Back will go several grevilleas that we lost in one of the coldest winters a few years ago, plus olearias, hebes etc., and plants from California and South Africa. The result should be a very distinct area which will give interest to visitors on into summer (and plenty of propagating material).

[Maggi Young]

So interesting to see the progress being made, Tim - the result of much hard work, of course.( It's always easier to "watch" others work, even virtually!) This will prove a super area for garden visitors to enjoy, I'm sure - it is already a pleasure to be able to see the lovely trunks of the eucalypts.

[Hoy]

Tim,

This looks like an very exciting spot - and what will be even more exciting in years to come!

[johnralphcarpenter]

Very nice, Tim, I look forward to seeing it.

[astragalus]

Tim, have you placed the troughs yet (where you had been digging out some trees or hedge)?

[Tim Ingram]

No Anne. We have had a very hot and dry summer until just the last few days - and probably it will return - so a lot of watering and care of plants on the nursery and taking advantage of the lack of rain to clear weeds and get ready for autumn planting in parts of the garden. I still have to render most of the troughs with fresh sand/cement so I don't think we will do much until well into autumn, which would be a good time to plant some of them. (We have an Alpine Show in Kent in late September, so a good opportunity to pick up a wide range of plants). They will become a major occupation next year because we have others that we acquired already planted up that need totally replanting and from having just three or four troughs will end up with around fifteen! I suspect this number will carry on growing