"Martin Pentreath" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi,

I posted on uk.diy about the diy aspects of this, but I thought maybe
I should ask here about the horticultural points.

I've got a patio which goes up to a wall which I want to grow climbers
up. I could just put the climbers in pots. But probably the neatest
and most easily-maintained option would be to put them in the ground
by cutting through the slabs and excavating the base a bit until I hit
soil, and then filling the resulting hole with compost.

From uk.diy discussions it looks like the best way to do this will be
by using a core cutter and a drill to make a 4" (or maybe 6"?) hole
straight through the paving and base to the soil.

Does anyone here have any experience of this or thoughts about it? I
don't know that the condition of the soil is under the paving, and I
won't have much chance of digging in loads of horse manure through a
4" hole. Clearly the plants will be close to the wall, and its
foundations. Will it be too difficult to get the climbers established?
I'm planning on using an automatic watering system with a drip-feed to
keep them well-watered. Should I go back to plan A and use pots?




Cheers!

Martin


Hi Martin

We have this as well and what I have done is to lift the complete paving
slab, cut it in half using a Lump Hammer and Cold Chisel, then replacing the
half slab. This leaves open ground to the tune of half a slab for planting
and watering.

If you have two places to do, then one slab cut in half will serve both
places and you have a slab spare :-))

Cutting a slab in two is not as frightening as it sounds and I am more than
willing to give advice as it's a case of 'been there, done that .... etc etc
etc '

Mike

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