Hi Anita, You might use Google translate. https://translate.google.ca/ You just have to copy the French text and paste it in the appropriate box. Regards, Louis 2017-03-27 18:21 GMT-04:00 Anita Roselle <anitaroselle@gmail.com>: > Louis, penstemon and Jim, > > Interesting articlies, but where does one find something that translates > them? Does it do it instantly or what, it looks like a really lovely public > garden. I would like to be able to look at it translated. > > > Where I live we have so much rain that getting the water to penetrate the > mulch is no problem. It tends to break down rather fast here. If I put on > 2-4" of chips in 2 years it is pretty much decomposed. Because of that much > rain the soil on the mountains is actually rather poor, the rain washes > decomposing litter down and it gets deposited in the valley, there is a > market for good rich black river bottom soil here. There is not the lovely > dark layer of decomposing forrest litter that is found in most eastern > forests, the rain washes it down hill. > > I had to be aware of the soil layers when I constructed my rock garden, I > mixed the soil and then incorporated a portion of it into the soil that I > was covering up so that there was not a sharp line where they meet. It has > seemed to work, I have no problems with the plants in the rock garden. > > > > On Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 4:18 PM, Louis Richard <louisrichard11@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > We use about 120 metric cubes a year of Ramial chip wood each year and it > > improved our work and the health of our plants. > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramial_chipped_wood/ > > > > Many people confuse Ramial chip wood with chip wood while it's not the > same > > product. > > > > Here's an interesting link for those of you who can read French (and you > > might also use a translation site!). > > > > http://agriculture-de-conservation.com/Le-bois-/ > > rameal-fragmente-un-outil.html > > > > Regards, > > > > Louis Richard > > > > Matane, Québec, Canada (Zone 4b) > > > > http://www.jardinsdedoris.ca/index.html > > > > https://facebook.com/pages/Les-jardins-de-Doris/… > > > > > > > > 2017-03-27 15:42 GMT-04:00 penstemon <penstemon@q.com>: > > > > > >It takes a lot of water to wet the soil below the chips. > > > > > > Exactly. > > > Here, if it rains in the summer (which it does, occasionally), the rain > > > only penetrates the first few millimeters of clay soil, and the water > > > evaporates rapidly. Mulch on top of this soil does not reach the soil > > > surface. It would have to rain for days on end for water to penetrate > the > > > mulch and then get far enough down to plant roots. > > > Which is why the garden in the back yard here is a series of mounds, or > > > berms, mostly of clay soil, with a lot of gravel mixed in. The only > time > > > the mounds get sufficient water to reach the roots of bulbs, etc., is > > from > > > melting snow in late winter. > > > I also, incidentally, have a couple of “rain gardens”, which are > > > constructed in exactly the opposite way such gardens are usually made: > > > raised beds of sand and gravel, nothing else. Highly-permeable “soil” > > which > > > allows rain from a brief thunderstorm to penetrate down to roots. > > > One of these beds, which has too much sand, has been a spectacular > > > failure, since I overlooked the possibility of a perched water table at > > the > > > interface between a pile of sand and gravel, and clay soil. The sand > also > > > remains wet at a greater depth than anywhere else in the garden; bulbs > > > planted from the middle to lower end of the sand pile tend to rot. > > > Bob Nold > > > Denver, Colorado, USA > > > _______________________________________________ > > > pbs mailing list > > > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > > _______________________________________________ > > pbs mailing list > > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/