"Kate Brown" wrote in message
...
Here we are in London and the ground is getting drier, actually the pots
are getting really dry. We have a mains water irrigation system, some
drippers, some sprayers, and use it if there has been no rain for a few
days. But I do notice that the leaves afterwards show how hard the water
is - the lime is left as a whitish bloom where the droplets evaporated.
Is this generally OK or should we try and counterbalance the lime with an
acid drench now and then? We don't irrigate the camellias which are in a
relatively shady area, but a potted azalea would suffer without the drips
when we were away. Otherwise we have all sorts of stuff - roses, lilies,
delphiniums blue and geraniums red - I'll put up some photos soon on
Flickr.

As a rule, though, is a lot of hard water bad or indifferent for most
plants?

--
Kate B

PS 'elvira' is spamtrapped - please reply to 'elviraspam' at cockaigne dot
org dot uk if you
want to reply personally


Hi Kate,

I would be inclined to give the potted azalea an acid feed; without it,
other nutrients in the compost will not be available to it. I give my roses
one acid feed a year to help with blackspot, but you don't have to if your
roses are happy without. Some lilies like an acid soil, but by no means all
of them. You may need to look up the requirements of your variety(ies).
Delphiniums and geraniums are happy with alkaline soil, as are pelargoniums,
in case that's what you meant :~).

Personally, I would find the hard water staining on the leaves undesirable.
However, whilst you might be able to adjust the drippers so that they only
wet the soil, I don't see how you can avoid wetting the leaves with the
sprayers. Still, it is just a niggle compared with watching your plants
wilt during a drought.

Spider