Wednesday, 3 October 2018

waterside planting challenges

At Gosport, we ended up going to a marina cafe. Just outside, the sloped seabreak of stacked rocks was showing a graduated tint of waterfront greenery, from bladderwrack at the base to sea cabbage at the top:

Portsmouth harbour Portsmouth harbour

Note the interval of bare rocks between the sections showing plant growth. This is self-planted, I'm assuming, and that section in the middle will not have much for plants to snag on. You could pack those gaps with gravel or soil, but this will act as a lubricant and made the downwards movement of the rock-pile over time more likely; and roots in that section will loosen the balance connections between the boulders. Better probably to work with the bare space and treat it just as another texture.

Here's a very different body of water, the Thames at Oxford:

ivy peelaway ivy peelaway

Ivy grows very freely along the retaining wall, and has to be cut back regularly. Here a hard cut back from the path edge has left a mat of ivy with no support from above, and it has peeled away under the force of its own weight.

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