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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2006 16:50:08 GMT
Hi all ... I'm even beginning to bore myself the number of times I ask for help, but am really at my wits end with this one. Today I started tackling a full-shade corner which I hadn't really touched yet. When digging I found yet another granite slab about 8 inches beneath the surface (I moaned about a previous slab last week). The problem is, these seem to be old foundation stones and they extend to (and presumably beneath) the garden wall. They seem to be solid granite and there is no practical way of removing them. I had planned to plant this bed with fuchsias, but I don't think they'll tolerate such a shallow root run. Are there any other shade-loving smallish shrubs that will tolerate these conditions? Or am I condemned to just planting ground cover like Vinca major and leaving it? Any advice gratefully received, as always ... cheers ...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2006 17:55:11 GMT
I'm not sure that you'll find any shallow rooted shrubs to put up with those conditions. You might be better off looking for perennials that are shade tolerant like foxgloves, geranium phaeum, bergenia and iris foetidissima.
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Post by 4pygmies on Sept 22, 2006 18:10:55 GMT
Oh, dear what a pain! The thing that immediately springs to my mind is that you make a virtue of it and build a small raised bed over it so you have some depth of soil. Our yard is full of strange lumps of concrete which are huge and impossible to remove, we planted whatever we 'd brought up from our move - lavenders, loganberries, a few shrubs and they are still there! Um, that was 16 years ago.....and they are still only in about 18" of soil on concrete against a wall.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2006 19:56:04 GMT
Thanks to both of you! 4P, the raised bed idea would actually work well in my square bed where I have the same problem, so I'm going to do it there... but I can't have too many raised beds over all these slabs or the garden will start looking like a chequerboard (or, even worse, one of those awful landscaped things). Sahdylady, I googled geranium phaeum, and Thompson & Morgan has seeds in their 'Kew' range, so I'll be going in tomorrow to get those. I actually have a bunch of foxgloves elsewhere which I can move to this dratted corner as a short-term fix - at least, if it's OK to move them now. Thanks for the help ... cheers ...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2006 8:29:55 GMT
If it's any help, I have a very shallow bed next to my front door - I had got the turf off and started to dig it out when I realised that the only soil in situ was what was clinging to the grass roots, the rest was crumbled breeze blocks, cement, old plastic bags etc etc. However, having done a lot of work already at that stage I decided to continue, scraped off the worst of the stuff on top and filled that area with lots of cheap compost. Surprisingly it's doing quite well, though there's no depth of soil to speak of. I have Camellias, a Dicentra that gets enormous, several different Alpine type things and a Pieris which is surviving nicely. Considering the fact that what is under the top layer ought to be pretty toxic I think it's a monument to the orneriness of plants!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2006 11:05:10 GMT
Thanks, Thelemon, that's encouraging ...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2006 15:16:34 GMT
Well, I think you have more depth of soil than I have, so you could try one of your Fuchsias and see how it goes, you might be lucky. It's amazing how at times you can follow all the rules and nurture someting really carefully to have it give up the ghost, then other times you throw something in and abandon it and it grows just to spite you!
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Post by Jonah on Sept 28, 2006 10:13:22 GMT
Hi CC
Next to my front door I have a flower bed which appears to have quite a large slab of concrete under most of it and it is North facing. I have hostas and ferns doing well, some small cyclamens, hellebores and heucheras. I add a bit of compost every now and then to try and up the level of the soil.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to tackle another part of the bed where I knew there were bricks buried about 4 inches below the surface. In a space of about 2 square meteres there must have been 60 or so house bricks 3 deep! All that would grow there before were native primulas, but now I am hoping to add a few deeper rooted plants.
Matbe you could put some of the fuschias in pots and plant ground cover around the pots?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2006 11:39:52 GMT
Thanks to everyone ... lots of useful suggestions, and I think I'll take the plunge and even try a fuchsia or two ... cheers ...
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