Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:48:47 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:

Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

There are lots of different types of heather. Some need an acid soil
whilst others will tolerate more alkaline ones. There are heathers
that will flower at different times of the year and so it is possible
to get all year flowering using a mix of types. However this will
depend on the soil in the area you want to plant. Just because there
are acid loving heathers thriving in the next street doesn't mean you
necessarily have acid soil. In my garden, I have very acid soil at one
point and about 75 feet away the soil is alkaline. I blame the
chickens that used to live here.

Heather flowers aren't massive - they're little rugby balls massed
along a stem. But they're food for bees and fairly easy to maintain -
you just trim the flowering branches back once a plant has stopped
flowering - if you don't do this they will quickly get leggy and look
bad.

So I suggest your first step is to find out what the pH of your soil
is. 6.9 or under is acid, 7 is neutral and 7.1 upwards is alkaline.
You can buy testing kits in garden centres and DIY places.

Once you know the pH you know what types of heather you can buy. It's
then a simple case of visiting your local garden centre or finding a
nursery online to select a selection of varieties that flower at
different times. You can go for a single colour (pink/purple/white are
the main ones) and achieve what looks like a single plant type
flowering all year or you can choose a mix of colours. Avoid erica
arborea though - this is the "tree heather" and will grow to a metre
or more high.

Hint - heathers in the right conditions will take off quite quickly.
You can often buy 6-packs of 3" pots for the same price as 1 x 6" pot.
Choose decent 3" pots and you'll get more for your money and within a
year or so they'll have caught up with, and probably got bigger than,
the 6" ones.

After planting, mulch with bark (which gives a lovely effect behind
the flowers) and give a periodic feed with ericaceous plant food.

Incidentally, however well you look after them and trim them after
flowering each year, the plants will eventually get a bit leggy. At
this point, I just lift them, make the hole they came out of a bit
bigger and bury them again a bit deeper.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.

On Mar 18, 8:58*pm, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:48:47 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:
Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

There are lots of different types of heather. Some need an acid soil
whilst others will tolerate more alkaline ones. There are heathers
that will flower at different times of the year and so it is possible
to get all year flowering using a mix of types. However this will
depend on the soil in the area you want to plant. Just because there
are acid loving heathers thriving in the next street doesn't mean you
necessarily have acid soil. In my garden, I have very acid soil at one
point and about 75 feet away the soil is alkaline. I blame the
chickens that used to live here.

Heather flowers aren't massive - they're little rugby balls massed
along a stem. But they're food for bees and fairly easy to maintain -
you just trim the flowering branches back once a plant has stopped
flowering - if you don't do this they will quickly get leggy and look
bad.

So I suggest your first step is to find out what the pH of your soil
is. 6.9 or under is acid, 7 is neutral and 7.1 upwards is alkaline.
You can buy testing kits in garden centres and DIY places.

Once you know the pH you know what types of heather you can buy. It's
then a simple case of visiting your local garden centre or finding a
nursery online to select a selection of varieties that flower at
different times. You can go for a single colour (pink/purple/white are
the main ones) and achieve what looks like a single plant type
flowering all year or you can choose a mix of colours. Avoid erica
arborea though - this is the "tree heather" and will grow to a metre
or more high.

Hint - heathers in the right conditions will take off quite quickly.
You can often buy 6-packs of 3" pots for the same price as 1 x 6" pot.
Choose decent 3" pots and you'll get more for your money and within a
year or so they'll have caught up with, and probably got bigger than,
the 6" ones.

After planting, mulch with bark (which gives a lovely effect behind
the flowers) and give a periodic feed with ericaceous plant food.

Incidentally, however well you look after them and trim them after
flowering each year, the plants will eventually get a bit leggy. At
this point, I just lift them, make the hole they came out of a bit
bigger and bury them again a bit deeper.

Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You don't say which side of the house, Is it N. S. E. or W. does it
get any rain?

On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:26:52 -0700 (PDT), Dave Hill
wrote:

On Mar 18, 8:58*pm, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:48:47 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:
Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

There are lots of different types of heather. Some need an acid soil
whilst others will tolerate more alkaline ones. There are heathers
that will flower at different times of the year and so it is possible
to get all year flowering using a mix of types. However this will
depend on the soil in the area you want to plant. Just because there
are acid loving heathers thriving in the next street doesn't mean you
necessarily have acid soil. In my garden, I have very acid soil at one
point and about 75 feet away the soil is alkaline. I blame the
chickens that used to live here.
Heather flowers aren't massive - they're little rugby balls massed
along a stem. But they're food for bees and fairly easy to maintain -
you just trim the flowering branches back once a plant has stopped
flowering - if you don't do this they will quickly get leggy and look
bad.

OK

So I suggest your first step is to find out what the pH of your soil
is. 6.9 or under is acid, 7 is neutral and 7.1 upwards is alkaline.
You can buy testing kits in garden centres and DIY places.

OK I shall order a soil test kit.

Once you know the pH you know what types of heather you can buy.

How?

It's
then a simple case of visiting your local garden centre or finding a
nursery online to select a selection of varieties that flower at
different times. You can go for a single colour (pink/purple/white are
the main ones) and achieve what looks like a single plant type
flowering all year or you can choose a mix of colours. Avoid erica
arborea though - this is the "tree heather" and will grow to a metre
or more high.

Hint - heathers in the right conditions will take off quite quickly.
You can often buy 6-packs of 3" pots for the same price as 1 x 6" pot.
Choose decent 3" pots and you'll get more for your money and within a
year or so they'll have caught up with, and probably got bigger than,
the 6" ones.

That's handy tip

After planting, mulch with bark (which gives a lovely effect behind
the flowers) and give a periodic feed with ericaceous plant food.

Do I have to ...I will forget...is there nothing that will tolerate
gross incompetence and still look half decent?

Incidentally, however well you look after them and trim them after
flowering each year, the plants will eventually get a bit leggy. At
this point, I just lift them, make the hole they came out of a bit
bigger and bury them again a bit deeper.

Cheers, Jake

Thank you Jake.

=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You don't say which side of the house, Is it N. S. E. or W. does it
get any rain?

SE to SW and a bit of shaded west.

On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:59:11 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:

On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 15:26:52 -0700 (PDT), Dave Hill
wrote:

On Mar 18, 8:58*pm, Jake wrote:
On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:48:47 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:
Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

There are lots of different types of heather. Some need an acid soil
whilst others will tolerate more alkaline ones. There are heathers
that will flower at different times of the year and so it is possible
to get all year flowering using a mix of types. However this will
depend on the soil in the area you want to plant. Just because there
are acid loving heathers thriving in the next street doesn't mean you
necessarily have acid soil. In my garden, I have very acid soil at one
point and about 75 feet away the soil is alkaline. I blame the
chickens that used to live here.
Heather flowers aren't massive - they're little rugby balls massed
along a stem. But they're food for bees and fairly easy to maintain -
you just trim the flowering branches back once a plant has stopped
flowering - if you don't do this they will quickly get leggy and look
bad.

OK

So I suggest your first step is to find out what the pH of your soil
is. 6.9 or under is acid, 7 is neutral and 7.1 upwards is alkaline.
You can buy testing kits in garden centres and DIY places.

OK I shall order a soil test kit.

Is this thing any good? Might be handy for my indoor plants knowing
when to water them cos I tend to over water at times

http://tinyurl.com/8xvrkfd

Cost is an issue if I only use it once in a blue moon.

In message , Pendrag0n
writes
snip

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.
If you're anywhere near the Wash (as we are) the Fens are a drained
flood plain, so it's mainly silt. Although there's still a lot of
variation in quality of soil field by field - my farmer neighbour
pointed out two adjacent fields and commented there were three gears
difference in ploughing them.
--
Nick (=----)

On Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:48:47 UTC, Pendrag0n wrote:
Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.

If they're in flower now they are mostly tolerant of some lime in the soil so if you see them on sale in flower in local garden centres it's safe to buy and plant them without too much worry, though you'd do well to add plenty of peat and grit to open up and improve the drainage of the soil - very few heathers (Erica tetralix) tolerate perpetual wet and none like heavy soil. All like to be out in the open with the wind in their hair.

if you want a bed with almost continuous colour and interest spend some time and money, make a deep very peaty bed and plant a range of erica and calluna varieties - if you can go to a specialist nursery and see the staggering range of habits, colours and flowering times - there are also several that are grown for spectacular foliage colour. Try to make a loose patchy arrangement of winter/spring and summer/autumn types rather than mixing them salt and pepper fashion.
If I get time I'll try to come back with a link to photos of our little heather bed here. It's roughly kidney shaped about 5m max length and 2.5m wide, now starting it's 3rd growing season the winter/spring flowering plants and spring foliage plants are at their best and the clipped over summer/autumn ones are starting into fresh new growth.
My secret's out - I quite like heathers.

Rod

On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:50:41 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:

Is this thing any good? Might be handy for my indoor plants knowing
when to water them cos I tend to over water at times

http://tinyurl.com/8xvrkfd

Cost is an issue if I only use it once in a blue moon.

Sorry for not replying sooner - had a problem with my newsreader which
deleted everything and I've only just got the historic stuff
downloaded again.

I haven't seen this particular device before but for a pip over £3 I'd
be very tempted to try it out. Stick in devices like this are
generally easier to use than the kits where you put some soil in a
little tube, add a tablet and then some water and match the colour to
a chart.

Going back to your earlier message, I think Rod's answered your
question about choosing plants for the pH you've got. The Spring
flowerers will tolerate alkaline soil but later flowering ones tend to
want acid. If your soil is neutral (pH 7) then you'll probably get do
ok with the acid lovers if you mix some ericaceous compost into the
planting holes.

If you mulch with bark, this will tend to increase the acidity as it
naturally rots down - you'll need to remulch every couple of years.

You'll need to water regularly for this year as the plants won't have
developed advanced root systems. Also, if you're planting close to a
building/wall, the ground will be sheltered and may not get as much
rain on it as more open ground. Once a month until September add some
of this:

http://www.gardenhealth.com/products...t-food-liquid/

or a similar product to the watering can. If you get into the habit
of, say, 1st Saturday each month you should manage to remember


Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.

On Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:03:06 +0000, Jake
wrote:

On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 08:50:41 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:

Is this thing any good? Might be handy for my indoor plants knowing
when to water them cos I tend to over water at times

http://tinyurl.com/8xvrkfd

Cost is an issue if I only use it once in a blue moon.

Sorry for not replying sooner - had a problem with my newsreader which
deleted everything and I've only just got the historic stuff
downloaded again.

I haven't seen this particular device before but for a pip over £3 I'd
be very tempted to try it out. Stick in devices like this are
generally easier to use than the kits where you put some soil in a
little tube, add a tablet and then some water and match the colour to
a chart.

Going back to your earlier message, I think Rod's answered your
question about choosing plants for the pH you've got. The Spring
flowerers will tolerate alkaline soil but later flowering ones tend to
want acid. If your soil is neutral (pH 7) then you'll probably get do
ok with the acid lovers if you mix some ericaceous compost into the
planting holes.

If you mulch with bark, this will tend to increase the acidity as it
naturally rots down - you'll need to remulch every couple of years.

You'll need to water regularly for this year as the plants won't have
developed advanced root systems. Also, if you're planting close to a
building/wall, the ground will be sheltered and may not get as much
rain on it as more open ground. Once a month until September add some
of this:

http://www.gardenhealth.com/products...t-food-liquid/

or a similar product to the watering can. If you get into the habit
of, say, 1st Saturday each month you should manage to remember


Cheers, Jake
=======================================
Urgling happily from the dryer end of Swansea Bay.

Thank you and you guys from earlier with the excellent answers. I
shall order this thing post haste and see what I am working with in
the soils.

On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 18:48:47 +0000, Pendrag0n wrote:

Hello all,

I have seen a few local gardens with decent heathers that seem to
flower all year, if you can call them flowers, sort of mauve, purple,
white etc. Probably up to about 50cm. Any ideas on what I should get
to plant and forget, hopefully quick growing. Along the side of the
house etc.

Not much of a gardener as is quite apparent

TIA

PS: The soil round here seem to retain the water for ages. I pinched
some of the farmers field for a couple of pot plants and they never
seem to dry!! Whereas the composty stuff I had before needed watering
every few days. It's not clay.


Hello All, thank you for previous replies.

I now have the tester from Hong Kong and it seems to work well,
certainly on moist content of plant pots. Of four indoor pots I have,
two were bone dry, one was too moist and the other just about OK, yet
they are the same plant and all watered a few days ago (money plant)

However the ph thing doesn't seem to move much, and my soil appears to
be 7+ for sure, which you said was alkaline. (how can you test the ph
meter is working?) in which case what heathers do you think again, now
we have the ph?

TIA