Where are you from?Where do you live?

[Auricula]

Hi
I have noticed many posters have moved as adults, and now garden under different conditions ( weather,soil,terrain)
I thought it would be interesting to find out about how people faced and ( hopefully) conquered these differences.
I moved from dry,flat,gravelly north Essex to damp,hilly,peatyloamy west Cornwall 5 years ago and am still learning what not to do!!
My bulbs left in the ground overwinter were either eaten or rotted There are slugs and snails everywhere and the weeds never have to endure a cold spell and therefore don't die off
On the plus side, I can grow restios,aeoniums and other exotics and they survive I can garden all year round ( the webbed feet help!! ;D ) I am becoming well versed in the cultivation of rhodos and camellias
Would love to hear other posters experiences

[andy]

Smack bang in the middle of the south downs in Sussex. Apparently, there was allotments on our house plot before it was built so the soil is quite nice and loamy.....until you get down to 24" when you hit solid....and i mean solid flint and chalk.

One good thing is the soil is incredibly well drained....and it doesn't dry out like clay does either so i'm fairly lucky i guess.

[Deleted]

Dublin city centre - my first garden so I don't have anything to compare it with. Soil is pretty fertile, but chock-a-block with stones, and in some parts the soil is very shallow (huge granite rocks-or-something a few inches down). Very mild which means I can grow tender perennials ;D ;D - but a magnet for every slug and bug in Dublin ... cheers ...

[Weeterrier]

I've gone from heavy clay to light friable soil. The latter is very easy to work, but give me my clay back any day.

[andy]

Feb 12, 2008 18:58:56 GMT Weeterrier said:

I've gone from heavy clay to light friable soil. The latter is very easy to work, but give me my clay back any day.

Must admit that i prefer the clay of my parents house

[Plocket]

I'm originally from Kent and my first garden was in Beckenham. I don't remember much of what I had in it but it was always quite pretty.

[Barbara]

i garden on clay, i have managed in the eleven years i've been here to break it down, and i think its wonderful stuff, but the bottom bed at the front is still being worked on so thats hard work.
in my last house which was a new build i worked mainly on builders rubble ;D. and that WAS hard work.

[Amo]

From south coast Dorset, neutral to acid sandy loam and alluvial. It was good soil and kept hold of the compost you dug in. Could be a little hydrophobic but lots of muck soon sorted that.

To north east Dorset and neutral to alkaline chalk with the delights of flint. It doesn't hold the compost dug in so it's a continual addition and I can't grow the acid lovers that have surrounded me for years. When it's normal weather it's free draining but after a certain saturation point, it's sticky, slimy and unworkable! The flints are a digging pain too. Oh, to just thrust that spade in the soil!!!!

I have, however, read that there is a larger variety of neutral alkaline lovers than neutral acid lovers, it's just a stigma thing.

I'm adjusting.

[JennyWrenn]

Cheshire - newish house complete with BUILDERS RUBBLE

The things I dig up you wudnt believe

Very heavy clay soil and a waterlogged back garden and lawn - even after treatments
Very hard work and lose many plants cos of the water retention
Tend to use pots and grow my clems in pots otherwise I cudnt have any

[Barbara]

jenny, i used to dig holes, fill with small stones and then put the clay back, mixed with compost of any sort, and eventually got a decent workable soil, sand helps, and egg shells,
but horse muck is definately best, if you can get some just pile it on top

[purplejulia]

I was brought up in Surbiton in Surrey. My mum still lives in the family home they bought in 1955.
My father was a great gardener and would grow flowers from seed as well as growing vegetables.My mum has finally had the greenhouse taken down as many of the panes were destroyed by the strong winds recently. The soil in the garden is heavy clay.
I have lived in several places since I left home aged 24 - mainly London and Cambridge for a while in the 80s.
I am now living in Chingford, East London. We are very close to Epping Forest. When my kids were young we used to all cycle in the Forest and eat in a lovely pub called The Owl.
The soil in my garden in Chingford is much like most of London - heavy clay. The veg I grew last year were a great success so I am complaining. It is a pain to dig though - spent today digging away at the weeds in one of my beds. I want to cllear it for my sweet peas.
PJ

[JennyWrenn]

Feb 13, 2008 19:34:50 GMT Barbara said:

jenny, i used to dig holes, fill with small stones and then put the clay back, mixed with compost of any sort, and eventually got a decent workable soil, sand helps, and egg shells,
but horse muck is definately best, if you can get some just pile it on top

I threw in many bags of manure didnt help much plus a load of topsoil - the clay seems to be here for ever

[farmersboy]

Jenny,you need lime,it flockulates the clay.

[JennyWrenn]

It whats the clay

Lime - where wud a laydee get a bag of lime from anyway

[farmersboy]

See,i can use big words ;D dont know if its spelt right tho,it means break up the clay into small flocks

[JennyWrenn]

Ooo you are clever FB - how did you know about that - I will see where I can get some lime from will it not kill the plants tho

[farmersboy]

It might well do if you put it on them,i was thinking more of bare ground,thed digging it in.

[Barbara]

Feb 13, 2008 20:53:13 GMT JennyWrenn said:

It whats the clay

Lime - where wud a laydee get a bag of lime from anyway

at the garden center it called clay-breaker.

[Babyswan]

Hiya,

Dublin city centre too, across town from Canarycreeper. My parents' house, it had a back yard. A concrete yard with a small border at the base of the boundary wall. The front garden was a postage stamp of grass-south facing.

Now, I have a south facing back garden, 90% grass, 95% hedge boundary with the grass very very very compressed and full of moss. I used to roll the grass as a youngster, my grandparents lived in the house at the time.

I don't know the type of soil. When I was young, I was volunteered to dig over the beds my granny had...I keep saying to myself that I don't have the time to commit to opening the old beds back up. I'd like to, maybe I will this year. I've just hacked down a silver birch that was smack bang in the middle of one bed. And I cut back a lilac that was shading part of this spot too. I've a 4' silver birch stump to remove yet. Would the roots be much of a problem in either growing something like spuds or onions- or getting them out of the ground? It's not an old tree, perhaps 10 years old. Those trees don't generally have massive roots, do they?

Front garden is two small patches of grass, very damp and mossy with the north aspect. About 4 years ago, the pavement was renewed a tiny bit too high and the downpipe flow from the gutters isn't taken away to the street gulley. I think it mostly feeds into the front garden. It's quite wet a lot of the time. I'm only in the front garden coming and going from the house tbh!!!!

[Barbara]

if the roots are ONLY ten years old it should'nt be toooooooooo difficult, but rather you than me, we had a crab apple tree in our front, we cut it down, and i garden round the roots, and i planted a saxifrage in what was left of the stump.

[Deleted]

Lived in Manchester till 1964 no garden but used to go to a friends allotment
Came to australia and have a large garden and can grow nearly everything, very few frosts here in Adelaide but HOT dry conditios and we are in drought.

[chickadeedeedee]

I live in the same home my parents purchased one month before I was born ... 49 years ago. There is heavy clay here and has been ~somewhat~ improved with compost and mulch over the years.

We cope with the soil but find as the trees have grown and matured, the bed where the roses were growing happily is now in dappled to moderate shade. The wildlife pond has had the liner edges raised as the roots of the Olive tree and Mimosa (Silk Tree) have grown and pushed up nearer to the surface. The Pear tree was ill for years and the tree was nearly cut to the ground but new growth shows the tree is not done yet. This change now will increase the amount of light substantially in the veggie garden.

As the Weeping Willow trees have matured some branches have died offering nice housing for the various woodpeckers and other cavity nesting birds.

We're planning on shifting the plantings this year and for the future to adjust to our maturing garden space.

[Babyswan]

Barbara,

thanks for your reply. Yeah, we will be in the house ten years next September, and when we moved in it was only about 3'-4' tall. Maybe it's 12 years! I have a big axe, I can hack away at the roots (hopefully)

[farmersboy]

Ive lived in several different houses,but all in Sth Essex,where i am now the soil is mainly brick earth,very good,easey workable soil,also very productive.About 50yrs ago there were 3 brickfields,all produceing bricks,whithin a 5 ml radius,one by one they have all gone.

[Barbara]

Feb 19, 2008 9:25:53 GMT @supergran said:

Lived in Manchester till 1964 no garden but used to go to a friends allotment
Came to australia and have a large garden and can grow nearly everything, very few frosts here in Adelaide but HOT dry conditios and we are in drought.

where abouts in manchester, supergran.

[Deleted]

Born in Denton moved to Manchester got Bombed out moved to Longsight then Audenshaw finally ended up in Stalybridge before coming here ;D

[Missredhead]

Born in West London, moved around a bit but always around London then settled here in Cambs 2yrs ago

[cjhomebird]

Rather boring but still live in the same town i was born in.
Garden on very heavy clay, but dont seem to have much trouble with growing anything. Previous owners had the house from new and did not touch the garden so consequently when we moved in 12 years ago we were digging up all sorts of builders remains, including half a wheelbarrow!!!
Happy Days.

[Tig]

Born in Nelson, Lancs, moved to Newton Abbot, S Devon when I was 10. In 1970's moved to Midlands and lived in Victorian terraced house with a medium sized back garden (tiny front garden always in shade!!) until early 1990's when we moved here - bit bigger rear garden with space for veg ;D, south facing front garden which is too hot and dry in summer to do much with.

[Rosefriend]

I lived in Sheffield for 20 years and then came here and have been in Germany for 28 years now.

I never did any gardening in the UK and I have no idea what the earth was like in Sheffield but my Dad grew loads of roses.

Here it is sandy - I have made it a lot better throughout the years though and of course it drains well. A neighbour bored a well and had to go down 21 meters.

Only on one area, where we used to have a pond - we had to get earth in to refill it and that has a lot of clay in it - we could hardly get the stuff off the spade when we were doing it. I have got that better as well but I can't plant any bulbs in it - they just rot.

Rf