Having It Both Ways

I WAS spoilt as a teenager. Our family garden was mostly on Chiltern chalk, but also took in a tract of sand that bracken and woodland had turned into ericaceous compost.

This split allowed me to have it both ways. As well as calcicoles, plants that flourish in alkaline soil—such as ceanothus, lilacs, our local Juniperus communis, lavender, pinks, many clematis, hellebores, geraniums and ornamental members of the family Brassicaceae—I could grow calcifuges, which abhor alkalinity and demand an acid substrate— such as rhododendrons, camellias, leucothoe and fothergilla.

Probably because of this, I’ve never not grown acid-lovers, even though all my adult gardens have been on alkaline soil. Here’s how I succeed with plants that would turn sickly yellow and decline if I put them in the ground as it is.

The simplest solution is containers: our courtyard is adorned with camellias and azaleas in large terracotta pots. Some have flourished for years. Soilless acid compost is no good for long-term planting, whether in containers or in the ground. I use it only as a mulch or as an additive to my medium of choice. This is a loam-based, gritty and sandy, low pH mixture, such as Levington’s excellent John Innes Ericaceous.