In article , Mike Lyle
writes

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

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


Good heavens I meant I'd bought the books for him, he paid me the money
Though to be fair I've known him for years as we used to be in the
same weightraining and step classes. I think my teeth bills are actually
building the villa



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.

Well he says that it's open to the sun and looks out over the coast but
gets little rainfall in the area.
Is there a magical formula for deciding how big a hole to dig for a tree
or shrub?
--
Janet Tweedy
Dalmatian Telegraph
http://www.lancedal.demon.co.uk