Rebuilding a nursery - Copton Ash

[Robert]

Tim,

I agree, it is all looking very good and very quickly.

[Leena]

Tim,
that is a beautiful bed and very interesting series of pictures.
I've been wondering don't you get ants in dry raised beds (and troughs)? Here if I leave even a big large pot in the open sun for a week or two there are ants making their home in it (which results in the roots of the plant drying and dyeing)

[Tim Ingram]

Leena - yes we do often get ants. They seem to be less of a problem when there is more plant cover and things have become well established but can a real problem with certain genera (dianthus are favourites, and a plant of the rare Geranium farreri has ended up as a pile of fine soil). We also get green woodpeckers on the lawn! so I don't mind the ants too much.

[Tim Ingram]

These are three plants of Paeonia obovata grown from seed probably fifteen years ago. Where they were planted originally has become very shady and dry and though they grow they no longer flower. Clearing and replanting this new area where a large eucalyptus was blown down in winter 2013 gives the opportunity to give them a better site, plus an encouragement to continue developing this part of the garden. Where they were is being planted with cyclamen, snowdrops and other early woodlanders which are dormant through summer and autumn - especially in a year like this one when we had very little rain until recently and temperatures regularly reaching near to and above 30°C. Alongside the peonies are a variety of Bearded Irises bred by a friend in the British Iris Society, new to us and it will be interesting to compare their flowers and assess them in the next few years.

[Robert]

Tim,

I have been following your garden diary for only a short time now. I have a few questions where the answers will help me understand your situation better.

How large is the garden?

Frequently you mention "dry conditions". Do you irrigate the whole garden during the summer? Only parts? Only when temperatures are high and the weather dry?

Your response as to weather conditions was very helpful. Thank you so much. 

[Tim Ingram]

Robert - the garden is around 1.5 acres but intensively planted. The soil is a fertile loam - 'brick earth' - and was originally a cherry orchard (always grown on the best soils in Kent). We are dry climatically (for the UK) but even more because of many of the trees planted in the garden, and regularly experience periods of semi-drought in summer so Mediterranean-type plants suit the garden well except in particularly cold wet winters. (The UK has hugely variable and inconsistant weather from and in place to place even without climate change, which, with long gardening tradition, has resulted in an extraordinary range of plants in cultivation - the Plantfinder lists around 70 000 though very many of these of course are man-made hybrids and sports).

No we don't irrigate except for the nursery and new plantings and occasional individual areas where we maintain more choice stock plants; water is metered and quite expensive and very occasionally has been restricted in times of drought - ie: hosepipe bans, though growers are exempt from this). My father actually worked quite extensively on drip and trickle irrigation, mostly of soft fruit crops, and on frost protection using sprinklers, but on the whole our climate is such that these are not so necessary. My interest in plants is much more botanical and small scale by comparison, and we have long been involved in participating and running the local Hardy Plant and Alpine groups so have links with many specialist growers. Members of our AGS group in particular though are very varied - fruit farmers, teachers, engineers, gardeners, doctors: as interesting really as the plants they grow!

[Robert]

Tim,

Thank you so much for the information. No irrigation - this certainly puts things into perspective for me. This is unthinkable here in interior California for just about everything except the most xeric species (although soil type and exposure is a consideration too). When I write about xeric plants here in California - these are the species that will survive here without irrigation (or almost none), a completely different situation from yours.

Some of our native plants are extremely resistant to drought. I planted some new accessions of Salvia sonomensis this June. They have not only survived but thrived with no irrigation at all except when they were first planted out.

Fantastic progress in your garden! I look forward to your next installment. 

[Tim Ingram]

Robert - the most famous example of a xeric garden is Beth Chatto's gravel garden in Essex, near to Colchester. Here the annual rainfall is 20 inches or less on average and this particular part of the garden is over very poor sand and gravel, just a thin layer of soil. When this was planted it was watered initially and then mulched heavily with straw (and straw was also rotavated into the ground to retain more moisture). After this initial planting it has received no more irrigation at all! (except presumably as new plants are established). It is one of the finest plantings in the country, full of dryland grasses, euphorbias, cistus, phlomis, verbenas, alliums, yuccas etc, etc. Unlike the Mediterranean or California rain does fall throughout the year - there is not the pronounced summer dry/winter moist dichotomy that you experience, though it has come close this year before heavy rains this August - but even so the conditions must be pretty close to yours a lot of the time. We are not quite as dry as this and have much better soil, but her garden was and is a huge inspiration for what we grow.

[Hoy]

Interesting about climate. It is obvious not only the precipitation which counts but also the evaporation. And the evaporation is depending heavily on the insolation which I suppose is much greater in California than most places in Europe!

The driest place in Norway is Skjåk in Gudbrandsdalen with an annual precipitation of 10 inches and the wettest is Brekke in Sogn with 141 inches

[Tim Ingram]

Not sure how much rain some of the peaks in the Lake District get but it must be not far off Brekke! But 10 inches is extraordinary, verging on desert (certainly steppe) conditions - I would not have expected that in Norway. Shoeburyness, near Southend, in south-east Essex is reckoned the driest place in the UK, I think an average of 18 inches annually, not so different to Beth Chatto's garden or the very north-east corner of Kent (Broadstairs).

[Hoy]

Skjåk is circumvented by high mountains! The evaporation is greater than the precipitation but a river, several creeks and man-made water channels make it green. Another place almost as dry (11 inches) is Lom in Gudbrandsdalen.

[Matt T]

Shoeburyness, near Southend, in south-east Essex is reckoned the driest place in the UK, I think an average of 18 inches annually...

A good reason to consider moving back home (I'm Southend born and bred) as my beloved bulbs would just thrive there, but then I would not be able to grow so many of the cool-growing alpines I've come to love and which grow so well here. Not sure I could live without my porophyllum Saxes or Primulas!

[Robert]

11" of precipitation sounds like the Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world - frozen deserts. From many of the photographs posted by Trond, Arctic conditions in Norway seems very likely especially in the far north of Norway.

[Hoy]

Although it is arctic regions in Norway, Skjåk is not!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skj%C3%A5k#/media/File:Solsida_Skj%C3%A5k_1994_Wikipedia.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skj%C3%A5k

The valley lies in the rain shadow of high mountains.

[Robert]

Trond,

Are the Arctic regions of Norway relatively dry? This is generally true in the Arctic regions in Alaska.