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SOIL REPLACEMENT |
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Sometimes when digging holes for roses, trees, or shrubs, even in well-prepared beds, the subsoil comes up in lumps that will not easily crumble. It is better to discard this soil and cover the roots with friable surface loam. If the roots are covered with puddled clay, air will be too strictly excluded-and air is necessary for root-growth. Later, when the puddled clay becomes dry, it will crack away from the roots, often taking delicate rootlets with it.
Virgin topsoil is the best round the roots. It is abundant, of course, in new beds. Otherwise it should be bought or dug from nearby vacant allotments or from under a lawn after lifting turfs, replacing the soil with some that is being discarded, and then replacing the grass sods. This procedure will also help the lawns, for the soil from the rose bed contains a lot of plant food even though it has become more or less "crop-sick" for roses. The new soil can be stored and will be improved by the addition of a little bone-meal. Allow the mixture to stand in a heap for at least two months. During this time it will improve as a result of aeration from disturbance and from impregnation and growth of soil bacteria from the underlying garden soil and the bone-meal. Roses never thrive to the same extent when replaced one by one, year by year, as when a whole bed is replaced at the one time. The use of good virgin topsoil is doubly important when replacing a rose in an already established bed. Then, too, dig out as wide an area as possible. This subject is dealt with more fully in a later chapter. |
