lime loving plants
maisie_mac
Posts: 42
in Plants
can anyone tell me what plants grow best in lime soil?
0
maisie_mac
Posts: 42
maisie_mac
Posts: 42
maisie_mac
Posts: 42
maisie_mac
Posts: 42
can anyone tell me what plants grow best in lime soil?
Posts
Lime soils can vary greatly in texture and fertility and moisture retention so please be more specific.
Do you have poor chalky, stony soil or fertile alkaline loamy soil of alkaline clay soil? Is it well drained or moisture retentive? Also where are you and how exposed is your garden to winds, frosts, salt laden sea breezes? Which way does you garden face?
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
I am trying to rid our garden of marestail and understand (looking on the internet) that applying lime to the plot may be helpful. They do not advise digging it out and the roots will travel further. it also suggests that ground cover may help. The patch is continually wet with very little drainage. Perhaps I am grasping at straws in trying to get rid of it. We have recently planted fuscia bushes and lilies in the area, unsuspectingly. These will be lifted and put into large planters at the end of the season and checked thoroughly before transplantation next year. I have no wish to propagate this menace further! Thanks for any advice.
That weed is a nightmare as its roots go metres deep and just keep coming. As it has a high silica content you really have to trample and bruise it before applying systemic weedkillers or they don't penetrate. I did once kill the tops with a non systemic weedkiller but that still left the roots to regrow.
The best thing you can do is to leave the offending patch of ground bare for a while and just keep on pulling or hoeing off any new growth. leave it to dry out completely then put it in your wheelie bin or on a bonfire - nowhere near a compost heap! It will eventually weaken but you'll have to be very patient.
Another possibility would be to put a layer or two of weed proof membrane on the ground and then build deep raised beds that you can plant into. That would also solve the drainage problem and with clever design, you could use the walls as seats. You could also try digging out a trench at the back of the area and filling it with rubble topped with more attractive gravel for the final layer. This would act as a sump or soakaway and make it less hospitable to the weed.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
The 'patch' tends to stay wet even on the hottest of days, as it is always in the shade. They seem to like this. Aghast to hear the roots can be metres deep!
Even roots that go metres deep need some to^p growth to photosynthesise and feed them so if you keep on top of top growth removal the roots will eventually weaken and die.
What is casting the shade and can you do anything to reduce it?
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Thank you for coming back. The problem is in the area of the garden which gets very lttle sun And it cannot be changed. Hydrangeas seem delighted with the site. We had to take out an old potentilla bush/tree which was dead and, since that time, we have had the problem! I have looked on YouTube without success.
Try the RHS website - written by experts. https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=257
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Don't panic, marestail is a nuisance but not the end of the world. I have found that just pulling it up really discourages the stuff. Every time I'm in that part of the garden, I pull up any bits I see. When we got here it looked like a jungle, but now there is hardly any.
Masie Mac, Obelixx is so right about finding out more about your soil first, if it’s very acidic, a bit of lime might not change it much and soil does have a habit of reverting to type, so easier to go with the flow in terms of what you plant. Good luck getting rid of the marestail!