beccabunga wrote:
Gopher;851842 Wrote:

IIRC the best place to see a field of SHF in England is in Oxfordshire
and I believe it is a heavy clay soil. Regardless - don't give up.
They're beautiful plants to grow.

They like clay, they like slight shade [ie not full sun all day], they
like their feet damp but not wet. They can tolerate winter floods. The
main Oxfordshire groups are both in river meadows.

While generally Oxford is clay, next to the rivers it tends to be
thin and fairly infertile - perhaps Magdalen Meadow/etc are
different, but it was facinating to see the massive hole dug
recently for water storage tanks in the University Parks expose
just how little top soil there is covering the river gravel
underneath. The best photo I could find online showing this was
http://www.flickr.com/photos/browniebear/3418852833/

I have not found that they appreciate pots at all!

Mrs S has some that have done very well for at least the last 5
years in a pot, but she's naturally green-fingered (oh, and while I
mention her, she found her secateurs in a box of rubbish sacks!)

--
Selah