Janet Tweedy wrote:
I know this is a bit off topic as it concerns a villa my dentist is
building in Cyprus.
He wants to know if he can dig a hoe in the solid chalk and grow
trees
or large shrubs in the holes or will they just become sumps? Is
there
a way of planting into something like solid chalk and keeping the
plants alive?

How deep, wide etc does it have to be, with what materials should
he
fill the hole. There is now shade as yet and the weather is very
warm
and dry.

Janet
p.s I got him the two Beth chatto books for some ideas.

Gosh! Should I have been getting presents for my dentist?

I've never done it, but I'd say chalk would be pretty well drained:
it's a very porous rock, and soluble, so that centuries of weather
will presumably have opened up lots of channels. I do suspect,
though, that he will have been sold a plot which wasn't much use to
the previous owner. He should study carefully what the locals do, of
course: they were growing things when we were trying to terrorise
mammoths.

Mike.