Forum home› Plants
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Which plants for chalky clay/loam soil?

isy315isy315 Posts: 11
edited December 2021 in Plants
Hi everyone, 
We just moved into a new house and part of the garden has a terraced area, south west facing. However as I started to dig my fruit bush bed, the soil is blocks of chalk and flint in a kind of clay/loam mix. It's above a swimming pool and the height is higher than the neighbour's so we are guessing this is rubble from the pool. We are north hampshire which is chalk bedrock. I'm not sure which plants will work here, since it's alkaline but probably not as free draining as natural chalk. Maybe it's a case of give it a go and move plants that start to look sad (obviously thefruit bushes now have a home in a different part of the garden) but I wanted to ask advice first. Thanks! 

Posts

  • micearguersmicearguers Posts: 646
    I found 'A Chalk Garden' by F.C. Stern in a charity shop once, it's a nice book that you may still find online cheaply.
    There is also https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/for-places/chalky-soils
    and https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/for-places/clay-soils . In general the list of plants that are suitable is quite enormous and it should be easy to put in some searches and peruse the results. I garden on clay soil that's slightly chalky and have grown hundreds of species. I'd gladly help but it's hard to know where to start! Sometimes people think that ferns are not suitable on this type of soil, but there are several species that do well on chalky soil. Another bit of common and useful advice is to look around in your neighbourhood, as it stands to reason the soil will be similar.
  • cmarkrcmarkr Posts: 142
    In terms of fruit you'll probably be ok with anything that isn't specifically requiring ericaceous soil (e.g. blueberries). My garden is on shallow chalk and I find it's not as limited as you might expect, you just can't have the obvious lime haters.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    I don’t have chalk, but raspberries and redcurrants grow fine in my very alkaline clay soil. They are in raised beds with tonnes of ericaceous compost and some leaf mould dug in. I also mulch annually with ericaceous (composted pine bark), none of which changes the PH of the soil permanently but I find it does help to buffer the alkalinity a little. Blackcurrants are unhappy in those conditions though, but it could be it’s too warm in summer for them, despite being in a dappled, edge of woodland location and getting sufficient winter chill.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
Sign In or Register to comment.