planting in pipes
totototo@telus.net (Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:08:41 PDT)
On 7 Jun 2009, at 10:15, Jane McGary wrote:
Diane's new project reminds me of a very effective feature the late Molly
Grothaus had in her garden, made entirely of flue tiles stacked up in tiers
against a slight slope.
I once heard Molly Grothaus talk about her flue-tile garden. One of the more
subtle features was a flowering tree of some sort at one end of it. This gave
summer shade, the amount of shade varying from lots close to the tree and not
very much at all at the other end of the array of tiles.
Molly was very fond of fritillarias, and grew many species. By her own account,
when she lifted the frit bulbs in the summer, if they were looking a bit on the
shrivelled side, she'd move them a tile or two closer to the shade tree where
the soil would be slightly cooler.
In this way, she was able to adjust conditions quite delicately to suit each
species.
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate
on beautiful Vancouver Island