"Peter Jason" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:41:26 +1100, "Farm1"
wrote:

"Peter Jason" wrote in message
. ..
In very dry areas, is it possible to bore a
2-meter hole and plant a tree at the bottom?

Well in opal mining parts of Australaia where it is bothe extremely drya
and
extremely hot, some of the miners live underground in houses called 'dug
outs' I know that some tress have been planted and grown in 'underground'
gardens. I've sen pics of them but can't find any online reference to
them.
What they look like at ground (or more correctly, at ndnerground level
which
is how it's seen from the house) is a normal tree with trunk. At the
abobve
groudn level it looks like a tree canopy. Effectivley, the tree is
growing
in a hole with it's canopy showing at 'real' ground level.

The roots are nearer water this way and the hole
will collect any scarce rainwater.

The tree will etiolate upwards into the light
where normal growth will continue.

What do you think?

It can be done and really the pics of the trees I've seen of the treed
growing in these hot dry deep holes are not at all etiolated - just
growing
well in a place where they should not be able to grow at all because the
conditions are just too darned harsh.


This is very interesting. What sort of trees are
these, and do they need special treatment to keep
alive?

I remember that one was a lemon but I can't recall what the others were.
The lemon was grown in a smaller hole than the others. No special treatment
was given except the fact that they were grown in the hole (by which I mean
a HUGE hole because it becomes part of the courtyard area of the underground
house). Hole growing givves the house shade once the canopy gets up and
allows the tree to be cared for.

It's hard to convery why this could work or how it's done unless you have
some idea of the harshness of the opal mining areas of Australia. Do a
google on 'opal mining towns Australia' in google images and you'll see what
the landscape is like.

i worte here a few weeks ago aobut a man I know who grows grapes in what he
calls "sun pits". He grows his grapes liek that because its' too cold where
he lives to grown them in the open. In his case, he just dug 2 huge trenchs
into the ground on north facign slopes (north to get sun orientation because
this is the sthn hemisphere). these trenchs were aobt 6 ft deep and he
topped that with Laserlite type corrugated roofing sheets which sometimes
collapsed when kangaroos jumped on them. His 'sun pits' give similar
protection to the grapes as would be gained for anyone growing trees in huge
holes.

I still haven't been able to find any specific pics, but the first one
(which isn't from Australia but will give you and indication of the size of
the hole I have seen pics of). If you think about a tree canpopy appearing
from holes of this size you may understand I'm writing about:
For this one scroll down to the pic with the sentence starting 'about 150
kms away...'
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/boar...p?f=41&t=14872
Here's a cite that talks about general living conditions in opal mining
areas. I fyou take note of the above ground te,mps and those in a dugout,
you should see why a tree would prefer to grow in a hole in such a place:
http://www.grumpytraveller.com/2012/...rs-show-homes/