On Nov 17, 8:27*am, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:58:41 +0000, Sacha wrote:
I used to have several large beds planted with them at our previous
house. Over the years the plants became tired and woody, despite
annual clipping to keep them bushy. But replacement plants didn't
thrive, and I concluded at least one bed had got 'heather sickness'
akin to 'rose sickness'.

Without any actual evidence, as to soil testing etc., *I'm inclined to
agree with you.

There was an article on 'heather sickness' in the Heather Society's
Yearbook/Journal/whatever, at about the time I tried re-planting,
1998/9 or thereabouts, which is why I put my lack of success down to
it. But heathers in the wild don't seem to suffer from it, AFAIK.

--

Chris

Gardening in West Cornwall overlooking the sea.
Mild, but very exposed to salt gales

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Hmm? A lot we don't understand. There are probably a lot of subtle
differences between the garden situation and the moor or heath
situation. In the garden plants are usually bought in and are
frequently infected with Phyophthora cinnamomi and the like. Then the
garden heather bed is almost a pure monocrop and that won't help. I
suspect that in the wild any patches where heathers don't thrive are
simply replaced by other species like bilberries, grasses, gorse etc
but I'm sure there's very much more to it than that. The clipping we
do in the garden is probably no substitute for the grazing by rabbits
and sheep and the burning, though on our local hills where they are
trying to manage for Black Grouse they're mowing patches rather than
burning. Try leaving bunnies to do the trimming in your own garden
though and you won't have much left.

Rod

This is drifting a long way off the OP's topic so maybe we should go
elsewhere if we want to continue.