Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness

In message
,
Compo in Caithness writes
Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?


Information as to what?

The red soils are common through south devon, due presumably to the Red
Sandstone
--
Chris French

"chris French" wrote in message
...
In message
, Compo
in Caithness writes
Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?


Information as to what?

The red soils are common through south devon, due presumably to the Red
Sandstone
--
Chris French

In the Brecon Beacon there is a prevalence of red soil which is due to the
beds of Old Red Sandstone.

Bill

On Mar 15, 12:33*pm, Compo in Caithness
wrote:
Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness

Sandy soils are a pain in the bum in drought conditions.Nutrients are
leached out when it rains. Any compost you dig in just disappears with
little apparent benifit.
They are good for most root crops (subject to no drought). You can
forget about brassicas. (Cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts) though.
See what your nieghbours are growing (but not ones too far away.)
Easy to dig.

"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:33:34 -0700 (PDT), Compo in Caithness
wrote:

Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness

Depends what you want to know.

Not surprisingly, the red soils in the Paignton, Teignmouth, Dawlish
and Exmouth areas are derived from the underlying red sandstones,
spectacularly displayed in the cliffs at Dawlish where the railway
runs along the coast. Contrary to what you might think, these are not
the 'Old Red Sandstones' of the Devonian period, but 'New Red
Sandstones' of the later Permo-Triassic period. They were a mixture of
wind-blown sands, rounded stones and even boulders, laid down by
torrential rivers when the local climate was much hotter and drier
that it is now, and comparable to desert conditions. They are
principally quartz sand, cemented together by iron oxide, which gives
them the red colour. They are of a later date than the Old Red
Sandstone represented by the Caithness flagstones, for example, seeing
as how you're from those parts.

The Devonian period ran from about 325 to 285 million years ago,
whereas the Permo-Triassic period ran from 210 to 145 million years
ago, give or take a week or two, so about 75 million years between the
two periods, minimum. In the Devonian period, the chunk of earth's
crust that eventually became the UK as we know it today, was a bit
south of the equator, probably somewhere near where St. Helena or
Ascension Island is today. By the Permo-Triassic period, we'd drifted
north of the equator, probably to somewhere around the Cape Verde
Islands.

Now I expect you'll tell me you actually wanted to know was how things
grow in them! :-)

--

Chris

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

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

Thanks for the historical information, very interesting.

Bill

On Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:33:34 -0000, Compo in Caithness
wrote:

Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness


As others have indicated the local red colour stems from the underlying
red sandstone. The Devon Redlands is a Joint Character Area and as such
there is some information available online. You may want to start at the
Natural England site
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/our..._redlands.aspx
and in particular at the JCA 148 link on the right of the page. The
Redlands JCA does not, in theory, extend as far west as Paignton, but the
characteristics of this part of S Devon are very similar. We live on the
southern edge of the Redlands and our soil is red but has quite a high
clay content.

--
rbel

Sacha wrote:

I thought everyone knew that. When I first moved to Devon, I thought
there were a lot of strawberry roans around my home. Then I realised
they'd been lying on/rolling in red Devon mud!

Even the sand on the beach at Paignton & Goodrington stains towels / clothes
red!
Used to take that train to work from Paignton to Exeter & at sunrise those
cliffs through Dawlish etc. glowed! That and their wonderful shapes even
brightened up a Monday morning!

Les

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 Sacha wrote:

I thought everyone knew that. When I first moved to Devon, I
thought
there were a lot of strawberry roans around my home. Then I realised
they'd been lying on/rolling in red Devon mud!
Even the sand on the beach at Paignton & Goodrington stains towels /
clothes
red!
Used to take that train to work from Paignton to Exeter & at sunrise those
cliffs through Dawlish etc. glowed! That and their wonderful shapes even
brightened up a Monday morning!
Les

That trainline to Dawlish is magical, even if waves do break over the
carriages occasionally.

When I was a boy I knew the red sandstone from the other side of the Exe
estuary. Exmouth was a quaint little fishing town in those days and I
loved wandering around the docks.

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:08:01 -0000, Sacha wrote:

On 2011-03-17 19:03:59 +0000, "Les Hemmings" said:

Sacha wrote:
I thought everyone knew that. When I first moved to Devon, I thought
there were a lot of strawberry roans around my home. Then I realised
they'd been lying on/rolling in red Devon mud!
Even the sand on the beach at Paignton & Goodrington stains towels /
clothes
red!
Used to take that train to work from Paignton to Exeter & at sunrise
those
cliffs through Dawlish etc. glowed! That and their wonderful shapes even
brightened up a Monday morning!
Les

That trainline to Dawlish is magical, even if waves do break over the
carriages occasionally.

Magical, yes very much so, particularly at sunrise, but often
problematic. I used to do the Newton Abbot to Paddington return journey
quite frequently and, after having to change trains at Exeter because the
drivers cab windows were damaged by the waves hurling stones from the what
passes as a beach, being stuck for ages at Teignmouth whilst the powers
that be debated whether or not it was safe to proceed and having to change
to coach travel on a couple of occasions to get around the Dawlish stretch
I eventually started consulting the local weather forecast and the tide
tables before arranging my ticket.
--
rbel

On Mar 15, 12:33*pm, Compo in Caithness
wrote:
Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness

Many thanks for the information, gang. You are of course correct to
pull me up for not being more specific in my request but nonetheless,
you have answered my question well. My sister is moving to Paignton
and the garden has red sandy soil. She was wanting to know as much
about it as possible before attempting to grow in it. With a bit of
luck I should now be able to get her to join the group and read this
information for herself.

Thanks again,
Compo in Caithness

Compo in Caithness wrote:
On Mar 15, 12:33 pm, Compo in Caithness
wrote:
Can anyone give me any information about the red sandy soils found in
Paignton, Devon, gardens please?

Cheers,
Compo in Caithness



Name a road or district and we'd be able to help more! Paignton ranges from
rural to maritime with much in between!

L