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07-05-2006, 12:52 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

The message
from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
|
| Some trees and shrubs do manufacture and disperse (through fallen
| leaves) chemicals which are toxic to other plant species and prevent
| their seed germinating in the affected soil beneath. Rhododendron
| ponticum, walnut and some eucalypts are in that category and I believe
| horsechestnut are too. It's just one of the means that makes Rp such a
| successful coloniser. Even if dense colonies of it are felled and
| removed, it will be many years before the toxins fade sufficiently for
| other species to seed into the bare soil left behind. (Rp seed is not
| affected, of course).

That wasn't my experience with R. ponticum, where many plants were put
in immediately it was removed, without replacing the soil, and thrived.
Mainly camellias, other rhododendrons (azaleas) and magnolias.

I mentioned natural regeneration by seed, which rp chemically inhibits.
see P 5 of http://www.cebc.bham.ac.uk/Documents/CEBC%20SR6.pdf

Janet