In article ,
says...
wrote:
"john westmore_______" wrote:
Some small azaleas we have, have not done well in their garden
pots, presumably because we didn't use ericaceous compost.
To save them we now want to put them directly in the garden soil. *
Is there anything we can add to our garden soil to make it more
acidic where we are planting them to make them happy? *
Thanks for advice.

First you must determine your garden soil ph before you put your
azaleas in it. If you don't have a soil tester, you can determine the
soil ph by the plants growing there already, especially the weeds.
Cinquefoil, dandelions, buttercups, centaurea show signs of an acidic
soil. Shrubs like acer and amelanchier, rhodos and camelias, skimmias
and magnolia all grow on acid soil. You can change the soil ph by
adding lime or sulphur - but this is only temporary as it leaches out.
You also need a well drained soil. I grow blueberries in a raised bed
in pots of ericaeous compost sunk in the ground. I couldn't change the
ph of the whole bed. To encourage the acidity on that part of my bed,
I mulch every year with cuttings from our xmas tree up to spring. In
the autumn I apply a mix of leaf mould and sand.

If I had your address, I would send the clippings from the damned
Leylandii hedge (next door) that my neighbour managed to cover
my garden with, when he clipped it yesterday... Do you think that
would help?

Although ther hill above the village where I was brought up was
covered in a peat bog, and villagers were allowed to cut as much
peat as they wanted, for fuel, our garden had very alkaline soil.
My father created some raised beds, using slabs of peat as 'walls'.
It was a great success. The azaleas and ericas flourished.


The Key to success being the word raised
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea