Some of your thoughts please

Paul,

Is there any way you could punch a hole in the concrete like holes in a pot to allow the water to drain into the soil? somewhere in the midle migh be two small holes?

Last Christmas time We faced a very similar dilemma you have had. Your seems to be sunken raised bed level to the ground you step on and ours is 1 metre above the ground we step on.

Elina is tall and leggy rose by nature I believe. Mine is 35 years old and always above 6 foot 6inches tall. I planted curry  and other dwarf HT roses around it to cover the legginess..

Alya the concrete is solid down to the base of the wall and would be impossible to drill.

Paul,

I can only imagine that if you do such thing you will have to dig out the soil etc.  Just a thought is that ours is a 6.5 meter long and 160cm wide and 20cm thick solid enforced concrete base with added steel enforcement in the base to stop 4 to 6 conifer roots from penetrating the concrete and come to the foundations of the house.  The water drainage was a very big issue and we modelled the structure at the end of the 6 meters away from the foundations of the house to have a hole  - we stopped the concrete after 6 meters and sealed the ends to prevent the roots from curling towards thehouse - to allow the water  and the roots to find their way into the soil outside the box.

Paul, just thinking out loud here. I guess you can't really drill through the limestone wall out the back and install pipes that would drain onto the footpath, right? Council would love that, haha.

But would it be worth building the bed up an extra 40-50cms in height and add some drainage pipe at ground level, draining out onto your grass? That would create a sort of 'wicking bed' where the bottom section of soil might become waterlogged, but your overflow drainage would mean that the top part of the soil never got too drenched. In drier times the root s and capillary action would be able to draw water up from the bottom, but in wetter times the bed wouldn't become completely waterlogged.

muscovyduckling wrote:Paul, just thinking out loud here. I guess you can't really drill through the limestone wall out the back and install pipes that would drain onto the footpath, right? Council would love that, haha.

But would it be worth building the bed up an extra 40-50cms in height and add some drainage pipe at ground level, draining out onto your grass? That would create a sort of 'wicking bed' where the bottom section of soil might become waterlogged, but your overflow drainage would mean that the top part of the soil never got too drenched. In drier times the root s and capillary action would be able to draw water up from the bottom, but in wetter times the bed wouldn't become completely waterlogged.

Thanks muscovy for your advice, I have actually raised the bed probably not 50cm, more like 30cm, also some time ago I actually dug up the roses, and dug the whole bed out. Where the concrete at the bottom of the bed ended I dug a deeper trench to which I added coarse blue metal. I use a heavy gauge of cor flute plastic over the concrete on an angle to get excess water to drain down onto the blue metal. that is about the best I have done.

muscovyduckling wrote:Paul, just thinking out loud here. I guess you can't really drill through the limestone wall out the back and install pipes that would drain onto the footpath, right? Council would love that, haha.

But would it be worth building the bed up an extra 40-50cms in height and add some drainage pipe at ground level, draining out onto your grass? That would create a sort of 'wicking bed' where the bottom section of soil might become waterlogged, but your overflow drainage would mean that the top part of the soil never got too drenched. In drier times the root s and capillary action would be able to draw water up from the bottom, but in wetter times the bed wouldn't become completely waterlogged.

Your "loud thinking" sounds very sensible.  See what Paul will decide...

We were not so clever at the beginning...we were forced to be clever because we bought the problem with the house about 14 years ago..we did not know the problem existed then..Over the years in that area all the plants would grow leggy in a funny shape and miserable looking. After 11 years of moss algae growth outside including the patio slabs - it was impossible to walk on the slabs because of the moss - and the mould inside the house because of  non existent drainage and no place for the  water to go we had to rip off the existing slabs dig out the plants and the good soil..then hire a mini digger remove the garage door to the back garden to let the digger through  -having the concrete floors broken in the process..the digger was too heavy to to drive on the garage's concrete floor .. then dig away abaut 80 cm deep trenches into the ground  - totalling to 130 meters long and 80cm deep trenches - then dig and build a 4 cubic meters capacity of soakaway then divert pipes to carry the water to this new soak way then build the raised bed with enforced concrete bottom and sides taking care of the drainage ... and do the same thing at the front garden.. in total we laid about 160 meteres of pipes and built 7cubic meters capacity of 2 soak aways... after that.. redesign and replant the front and the back gardens.....it was a hell of a job.. very tiring and messy.. and it is still going on...I can comfortably say I know what Paul is going through.

Thanks muscovy for your advice, I have actually raised the bed probably not 50cm, more like 30cm, also some time ago I actually dug up the roses, and dug the whole bed out. Where the concrete at the bottom of the bed ended I dug a deeper trench to which I added coarse blue metal. I use a heavy gauge of cor flute plastic over the concrete on an angle to get excess water to drain down onto the blue metal. that is about the best I have done.

muscovyduckling wrote:.... Are those purple poppies? I've never seen anything like those before.

I don't know what your soil is like over there or if nematodes are a problem for you. Do you know what rootstocks your roses are commonly grafted onto? They generally use Fortuniana in Perth as it's the most resistant apparently. 

........

Hello everyone I was trying to reply with some pics. As it happened before I cannot see my reply at all. So trying again..and I think I know what is going ont when there is another person writing to the same posting and somehow when they get to click the send button or something like that one of the posts does not show and disappears an issue of rewriting or refresh... Neptune will be able to say something about it he is the computer whizz.... And perhaps there is a limit to what you can post i don't know..


Muscovy, first of all I have printed out and put your advice in the instructions folder. Thank you very much for your advice.

At the moment touch wood we do not have any problem with nematodes in our clay soil. it is better be informed than do something to inroduce the problem.

The poppies are purple ones indeed. I bought 1000 poppy seeds from ebay for £1  to cover the bare soil in the front garden after we ripped off the lawn and put the new soak away and replaced the old tarmac driveway with gravel one to help the drainage   and so on.. I could not afford to spend my time with picking weeds off the ground.. some pics of the poppies:


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some intersting ones..


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I have been dying to show these pics to everyone...I would love to see others pictures to get inspired ... If there is a restriction as to how much we can post I have got to find out.... surf on the site read and learn.. but i have got to make time for it... no excuse...  Ahhaa I know there is a thread asking people to send pics...  shall make use of that thread....

Alya, go to your profile and check your drafts......also if your photos are of too high MB's, then the system has a hard time handling them, in which case photos need to be resized to 600 x 800

Neptune how do I check the drafts? i go to my profile and I see only few statistics and I can't get to the area where I would be able to change the settings. I am sure I am doing something wrong it is better to learn

I agree with you that when I choose the size of the photos as 600 x 800 or by 320 all is much more comfortable. But I do this when I select the insert a picture menu option where it gives me the option to choose.

go to top of page....
hit profile next to messages.....
go to top right of bar line and you will see drafts....click on drafts and see if anything is there......

if there is not.....you might have accidently gone back to the forum without hitting send(I've done that before today)....... I will check your posts again...

Neptune I found it!

hahhaahaaaaa ayya yaay ayyy thank youuu

Those poppies are the best! I will have to see if I can find some over here. I'd love to have a sea of purple and magenta poppies.

Paul, sounds like you have had a good crack at improving the drainage already. If your roses are still drowning the only other thing I could suggest is to plant them in very large pots with the bottoms cut off over the top of that garden bed, and plant annual or less fussy companion plants in the actual bed around the pots. That's what I would do if it were me, and if I could afford to buy lots of big pretty pots!

Thanks, Muscovy, the drainage isn't really a problem these days. The problem is having the so close to the fence, and the thought of digging them up & moving them forward.

paulh wrote:Thanks, Muscovy, the drainage isn't really a problem these days. The problem is having the so close to the fence, and the thought of digging them up & moving them forward.

Paul you don't need to dig them right out.......

get the spade and dig out the forward area that the rose is going to sit....

then dig around the rose at wide point, all the way  around(make a thin channel all way around) and you should have space to slip the shovel under the rose to cut all the roots......

make yourself a wide sling that will fit around the rose ball, using maybe a hessian bag and rope....then drag the root ball forward into place....kids come handy here.....this saves upsetting the majority of the root ball root system and allows for quick recovery.......hard work...BUT......

Thanks John. So what you are suggesting is, to dig out where they are to be moved, dig are narrow channel all around each plant to the bottom to the concrete, then slice the shovel underneath and drag forward. Sounds like a plan.

that's a goer , Paul, but remember don't cut the root ball too short... ie: in surface diameter....

also good water the day before hand and seasol it in , once it has been moved and packed into place.....also this is a good time to raise the rose bush if you so desire by making a small ramp of soil to the height you want....

Thanks John