In article , Mike Lyle
writes

Nick is very confident about this; but I'd rather be cautious when
suggesting what to do in somebody else's garden. Leaving a few twigs
about just isn't the same issue as spreading a layer of undecayed wood
chips over your flower-beds. Even if there's no real danger from
fungi, the slugs will probably love it.

How does the spreading of chips from your own tree differ from a
similarly thick and extensive bark chip mulch? Or would you avoid that
too?

You've also raised another interesting point, that in effect anything
one says in urg can be considered as suggesting what to do in someone
else's garden. One could take the safe view, of not suggesting anything
with the slightest risk .. or of suggesting only standard practice as
expounded in reputable text books (or perhaps as expounded by the RHS) -
I'm not sure what would be regarded as 'standard practice'.

Or one could take the view, as with the rest of the net, that anything
published is our personal view, and it is for the reader to decide
themselves what to advice to follow, and their responsibility (not mine)
if it doesn't work for them.

If you take the 'safe' approach, then urg is merely an alternative to
looking up the standard approach in a book - in other words, we are
merely providing a service to those who, for whatever reason, choose to
come to us for advice rather than go to a book or to the RHS or
whatever. Surely people want from urg something they can't get from
other sources? Or am I wrong on this?

I've always regarded urg as a joint learning experience - we all of us
add our own experience, sometimes challenging the accepted approach, and
as a result we all learn something new, that perhaps can't be found from
other sources. Urg gives something that can't be found elsewhere.

I've always assumed that it's a matter of ecological balance. A garden
is a small artificial intensive environment where everything is
encouraged to happen faster, and where a few failures are conspicuous.
Garden plants are also mostly the result of a lot of breeding: like
domestic breeds of dogs, few of them would be able to sustain a
population in the wild.

In the garden we encourage conditions which many pests and diseases
thrive in: lush growth, same species crowded together, high nutrient
levels, that kind of thing.

Ah - your garden differs from mine (1)! Mine has the lush growth, in the
sense that every inch of soil is covered, but I don't have lots of the
same species crowded together and I don't try to push up the nutrient
levels. And I have several species of very beautiful fungi which add
interest at this time of year.

(1) I see from the rest of your post (snipped) that your garden is more
akin to mine .. ie neither is the borders-full-of-bright-bedding-plant
style.


--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm