Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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Hairyloon
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Soil recovery after laurelI have cleared an area of some laurel. The soil under it is pretty barren and takes a long time to recover naturally.
Anyone know what to plant to improve the rate of recovey?
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oldish chris
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I'm guessing that the main problem is that the soil is bone dry, exacerbated by the fact that any organic matter has long since decomposed. The become fertile I reckon that large amounts of organic material are required.
Conservationists keep banging on about the importance of preserving various animal species. In an ecological order of importance, animals are unimportant (even or especially thee and me), then comes plants. Most important are bacteria and then fungi. So, if you've got your very own bit of desert, I'd suggest that you need to get the soil eco-system up and running first.
You can grow plants, some species have evolved to grow in such an environment ("the colonisers"), but they are "weeds". Pinching ideas from hydroponics would give an instant crop of something.
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Hairyloon
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| oldish chris wrote: | | I'm guessing that the main problem is that the soil is bone dry, exacerbated by the fact that any organic matter has long since decomposed. The become fertile I reckon that large amounts of organic material are required. |
No, it's wet and organic enough, but it is very acid. I know Rhododendrons have toxic mycorhyzae which can stay in the soil for 7 years. I'm not sure if laurel have anything similar, but even the brambles & nettles are still struggling on patches I cut year before last.
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oldish chris
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Flashing through my brain is "potatoes", something in the back of my mind is a "fact" that spuds are one of the plantae that don't have symbiotic relationships with mycorrhiza, so they might not be bothered.
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Hairyloon
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I've not had great success with potatoes at the best of times, but worth a go.
Though I suspect if they do well, the badgers will likely eat them, but that's not a bad thing.
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cab
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It'll be acidic, it may be a bit compacted, but actually I think it'll be quite fertile. Had a rather odd occurrence when Cambridge City Council mistook the mature laurel bushes that dominated my front garden for their own, ripped them out (the entire garden!), and then under threat of legal action replanted the garden to my own specifications. Turns out that nearly everything we put in (hawthorn, amelanchier, different species of ribes and rubus, fuchsia... lots of other stuff, all shade loving or shade tolerant at least) has done okay.
Our front garden is very shaded, and its a classic example of Cambridge boulder clay (you get it in some spots in this city, its thick clay with a tendency to dry out more than you'd imagine, and its very alkaline). Turns out that all it really needed after laurel was to be well broken up.
Is it a shady site? Is it compacted? Whats the soil like? I'd me tempted to dig it over, add a thick mulch of something organic, and go from there.
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