In article ,
"Joanne" writes:
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| The problem is with the soil in the borders. You can't get a garden fork or
| a spade into the soil at all. It's absolutely impossible to plant bulbs or
| even the smallest perennial. The soil is rock hard and full of shallow (but
| thin) roots, which I presume are from the trees or shrubs. The soil is so
| bad that several spades and forks have been broken trying to dig into it.
|
| My friend wants flowering perennials and bulbs in the borders, but when she
| does manage to hack a hole and plant something, it soon dies.
|
| I suggested adding more soil on top, but the borders are already built up
| about a foot or so, so that's not a practical solution.
|
| So the question is -- if it's impossible to dig into the soil to improve it,
| then what's the solution?

A pickaxe. Well, a grubaxe or pick-mattock. Perhaps even a
pneumatic drill.

Seriously. The manual method is good enough for anything that
can honestly be called soil, but the latter is better for actual
concrete. If you don't break up the soil to the depth of a foot
or two, nothing much will grow.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.