Ivydene Gardens Home: Page 2 of 2 |
READING THE TEXT IN RED ON THIS PAGE WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO USE EACH PAGE in my educational website.
THE 2 EUREKA EFFECT PAGES FOR UNDERSTANDING SOIL AND HOW PLANTS INTERACT WITH IT OUT OF 10,000:-
Explanation of Structure of this Website with User Guidelines Page for those photo galleries with Photos (of either ones I have taken myself or others which have been loaned only for use on this website from external sources) |
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FURTHER PAGE/INDEX TABLE OF PROBLEMS with each row detailing a problem in light blue background colour The UK Labour or Conservative government has been humiliating, degrading and dehumanizing its population for over 40 years, without its population realising:-
Monitoring of Trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira from September 2019 to February 2020 1, 2
Britain runs out of food during summer of 2024. If a worker is on State Benefits and is only allowed to work up 15 hours 59 minutes a week at minimum wage, then with these extra new border control food charges it will cost that person 12% of their gross wage each week and 12% extra if they are supporting their child; from 30 April 2024.
8 problems caused by building house on clay or
TABLE SOS where the action of humans breathing produces carbon dioxide and the trees/plants/algae cannot process that; because we either cover the roots in concrete/tarmac or kill the algae in the sea from the phosphorus in the human produced sewage. So we are slowly asphixiating ourselves in the UK.
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These remaining items are of no interest to people outside the UK, Medway Proposed New School Comments in September 2019 Neighbour cutting branches off our trees without Conservation Area permission and attempting to sink our house with 1000's of litres of their sewage by blocking the drain to our cesspit. For the following week, they continued to download their sewage after we had written to them stating that the cesspit was full and that the drain was blocked. Gas explosion from incorrectly installed home boiler, with other customers refusing to correct the situation. Problems with electrical re-wire in my home, with the knowledge after the event that the client can do nothing about it, since NAPIT requires you to re-use the same contractor to fix the problems.
Because we had paid part of the cost to Manderson Electrical Services Ltd using a credit card, then after we had contacted them and sent the report, the credit card company re-imbursed us. We then used that money towards a total removal of all wiring and total rewiring by the electrician who had produced the report.
The above was a pointless waste of time - we have now had the house completely rewired again without any recompense from the original contractor's lies, thiefery and extremely dangerous work with the government body Napit being no help at all. The unfortunate consequence of either buying a house or having anything done to it is that you the owner can and will be totally screwed by the majority of the British Workforce. |
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Photo 11 - Large cavity within tree in pavement walking back towards Funchal centre I wonder who put the dead leaves and small branches in this cavity. This will have noted and monitored by this expert between September 2019 and January 2020. |
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Photo 12 - Large cavity within tree in pavement walking back towards Funchal centre The evidence of burning and the rusted away metal mesh will have been noted and monitored by this tree expert between September 2019 and January 2020. |
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Photo 13 - Missing Identity Disc on tree in pavement walking back towards Funchal centre There were other trees in this road that were missing identity discs. Some of the trees have no identity discs, so how are they being removed? |
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Photo 14 - Metal grid round tree in pavement within Funchal centre close to cathedral It would appear that these grids may have changed so that a large area of open ground under them is exposed to the air and so the roots in that area can have gaseous exchange as well as water if theses trees are irrigated.
It is a pity that smokers tend to use these areas round trees to leave their still lit stub ends in. The tree roots do not appreciate being burnt and this is a case of biting the hand that feeds you, since these trees provide you with oxygen to breathe. |
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Photo 15 - Resin-coated pea-shingle round tree in pavement within Funchal centre close to Golden Gate Many of these trees in this road have had their resin-coated shingle replaced where it has worn away. You note the white flimsy material is in fact a weed control fabric of the thinner kind to stop the resin-coated material mixing with the stones surrounding the tree roots underneath. This perpetuates the same sandpaper excercise as before and damages the tree roots. I suggest you remove it, put down 2 inch (5cm) thick of black sand that has been washed with unsalted water. Then, plant legumes as a green manure in it. Cover with a lattice-shaped metal seat so that nobody walks on the green manure and put a notice on each tree that a fine of 1000 euros will be imposed on each person who uses the green manure as an ashtray or drops litter on it. You have the electrics on the trees to set up cameras to record the offences. Then, irrigate these trees each night so that each tree gets a total of 2 inches (5 cms) of water spread throughout the week on the green manure. |
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Photo 16 - Shredded tree branches round tree within public lawned area close to Pestana Mirimar Hotel Very useful to have replaced the lawn round this tree with a mulch of shredded branches. Unfortunately for these shreddings to be composted requires nitrogen which they take from the soil. They will leave the irrigation water or rainwater to get onto the soil and get to the roots. Green manure seeds planted under this mulch could sprout and then when the whole lot is is turned over by light forking, then the nitrogen in roots of the legumes will help to compost the shreddings and thus provide nutrients to the tree. This type of mulch has also been spread round the base of other trees in the pavements. Being dry wood and smokers dropping still lit cigarette stubs onto it could cause a fire. I did have an American Chipper/Shredder, which I found if I loaded the entry hopper with 1 load of soft fibre herbaceous perennials, weeds, wet leaves, grass cuttings, or vegetable roots that I would end up with a thick green vegetation soup blocking the exit holes. I found that if I put 2 loads of bare branches in, then theses would clear the holes and get rid of the soup. The water and nitrogen in the vegetation soup would help to compost the resulting mulch. I used to put the shreddings through again to make them smaller and more uniform. If that is used as a mulch, it might reduce the fire risk. The following comes from Lawsmith Lawn Care Experts on watering a lawn:-
THOMAS OUTERBRIDGE New York, April 3, 2002 The writer is president of City Green, an environmental consulting firm.". |
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Photo 17 - Small shrubs within irrigation troughs in a public flower area close to Pestana Mirimar Hotel Although these plants have had irrigation valleys made between them, they are not as happy as the ones suitable for dry conditions in the next photo. Also the area of ground between these plants is exposed to the sun and wind. Being a sandy volcanic soil, it tends to be quite free-draining and it would be kinder to cover the ground between these shrubs with green manure to prevent so much evaporation. |
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Photo 18 - Succulent plants in a public flower area close to Pestana Mirimar Hotel The succulent plants in this bed are growing well, so why not choose those type of plants for these public beds to make life a bit easier? |
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Photo 19 - Overwatering plants by Royal Savoy Hotel Madeira Unfortunately the irrigation system had been left on. Which floor bed was overflowing I was not sure, but I did inform the reception staff that they were drowing their plants. Later I informed them about the tall cactus having its top interfered with by one of the trees in the pavement. I did request that they did not cut the cactus but either cut a small section off the tree or pull that branch away using a brace. They told me that the cactus belonged to them, but that the tree belonged to Funchal and therefore they could not touch it. I did not like to inform them of the 3 ways that they were killing the tree in the next 2 photos:- |
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Photo 20 - Underwatering a tree and allowing the base of the tree to rot away by Royal Savoy Hotel Madeira Elsewhere in this website, I have american research indication how much water grass can absorb on a regular basis. To get any water to these tree roots would require more than at least a 1 inch (2.5cm) depth every day. You see the black holes in the trunk. That is where this tree is rotting away in the trunk and at the root/trunk junction. When this tree was removed from its ground, then at least 90% of its roots were cut off - that is why this tree has been pollarded, but even so the lack of water reaching those roots together with the lack of nutrients since the grass would steal those as well if supplied in the irrigation water, which seems to be the prevalent method in Hotels as evidenced with the Pestana Grand. |
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Photo 20 - The metal support ring is cutting through the bark and the cambium layer of this tree by Royal Savoy Hotel Madeira If the rot within this trunk does not kill the tree first or the lack of water does not do it for the second, then this will kill the tree above the ring as the metal cuts through the bark and the cambium. There are 178 photos taken in January 2020 and 228 photos taken in February 2020. Perhaps there is little point in showing you the rest, since as a municipality or the main government you cannot afford the materials, the manpower or the time to rectify these problems in the public spaces. |
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This website is being created by Chris Garnons-Williams of Ivydene Horticultural Services from it's start in 2005. I am requesting free colour photographs of any plants grown in or sold in the United Kingdom to add to the plants in the Plant Photographic Galleries and Butterfly photographs for the Butterfly on Plant Photographic Galleries. |
Site design and content copyright ©April 2007. Page structure amended October 2012. Page structure changed February 2019 for pages concerning Trees in pavements alongside roads in Madeira. Chris Garnons-Williams. DISCLAIMER: Links to external sites are provided as a courtesy to visitors. Ivydene Horticultural Services are not responsible for the content and/or quality of external web sites linked from this site. |
It should be remembered that nothing is sold from this educational site, it simply tries to give you the best advice on what to use and where to get it (About Chris Garnons-Williams page details that no payment or commision to or from any donor of photos or adverts I place on the site in the Useful Data or other sections is made to Chris Garnons-Williams or Ivydene Horticultural Services). This website is a hobby and not for direct commercial gain for Ivydene Horticultural Services. There is no Google Adscenes or Search Facility in this website. The information on this site is usually Verdana 14pt text (from December 2023, this is being changed from 14pt to 10pt) and all is in tabular form. This can be downloaded and sorted using WORD or other word-processing software into the order that you personally require, especially for soil subsidence, the Companion Planting Tables and the pages in the Plants section. This would be suitable for use in education as well. I put jokes in at various places to give you a smile. |
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The following is from "Some time around 600 million years ago, green algae began to move out of shallow fresh waters and onto the land. They were the ancestors of all land plants... Today, plants make up to 80% of the mass of all life on Earth and are the base of the food chains that support nearly all terrestrial organisms.... But the algal ancestors of land plants had no roots, no way to store or transport water, and no experience in extracting nutrients from solid ground. How did they manage the fraught passage onto dry land? ... It was only by striking up new relationships with fungi that algae were able to make it onto land. These early alliances evolved into what we now call mycorrhizal relationships. Today, more than 90% of all plant species depend on mycorrhizal fungi. Mycorrhizal associations are the rule not the exception: a more fundamental part of planthood than fruit, flowers, leaves, wood or even roots.... For the relationship to thrive, both plant and fungus must make a good metabolic match. In photosynthesis, plants harvest carbon from the atmosphere and forge the energy-rich carbon compounds - sugars and lipids - on which much of the rest of life depends. By growing within plant roots, mycorrhizal fungi acquire privileged access to these sources of energy: they get fed. However, photosynthesis is not enough to support life. Plants and fungi need more than a source of energy. Water and minerals must be scavenged from the ground - full of textures and micropores, electrically charged cavities and labyrinthine rot-scapes. Fungi are deft rangers in this wilderness and can forage in a way that plants can not. By hosting fungi within their roots, plants gain hugely improved access to these sources of nutrients. They, too, get fed. By partnering, plants gain a prosthetic fungus, and fungi gain a prosthetic plant. Both use the other to extend their reach.... By the time the first roots evolved, the mycorrhizal association was already some 50 million years old. Mycorrhizal fungi are the roots of all subsequent life on land. Today, hundreds of millions of years later, plants have evolved, faster-growing, opportunistic roots that behave more like fungi. But even these roots cannot out-manoeuvre fungi when it comes to exploring the soil. Mycorrhizal hyphae are 50 times finer than the finest roots and can exceeed the length of a plant's roots by as much as a 100 times. Their mycelium makes up between a third and a half of the living mass of soils. The numbers are astronomical. Globally, the total length of mycorrhizal hyphae in the top 10 centimetres (4 inches) of soil is around half the width of our galaxy (4.5 x 10 to the power 17 kilometres versus 9.5 x 10 to the power 17 kilometres). If these hyphae were ironed into a flat sheet, their combined surface area would cover every inch of dry land on Earth 2.5 times over.... In their relationship, plants and mycorrhizal fungi enact a polarity: plant shoots engage with the light and air, while the fungi and plant roots engage with the solid ground. Plants pack up light and carbon dioxide into sugars and lipids. Mycorrhizal fungi unpack nutrients bound up in rock and decomposing material. These are fungi with a dual niche: part of their life happens within the plant, part in the soil. They are stationed at the entry point of carbon into terrestrial life cycles and stitch the atmosphere into relation with the ground. To this day, mycorrhizal fungi help plants cope with drought, heat and many other stresses life on land has presented from the very beginning, as do the symbiotic fungi that crowd into plant leaves and stems. What we call 'plants' are in fact fungi that have evolved to farm algae, and algae that have evolved to farm fungi.... Mycorrhizal fungi can provide up to 80% of a plant's nitrogen, and as much as 100% of its phosphorus. Fungi supply other crucial nutrients to plants, such as zinc and copper. They also supply plants with water, and help them to survive drought as they have done since the earliest days of life on land. In return, plants allocate up to 30% of the carbon they harvest to their mycorrhizal partners.... And yet mycorrhizal fungi do more than feed plants. Some describe them as keystone organisms; others prefer the term 'ecosystem engineers'. Mycorrhizal mycelium is a sticky living seam that holds soil together; remove the fungi, and the ground washes away. Mycorrhizal fungi increase the volume of water that the soil can absorb, reducing the quantity of nutrients leached out of the soil by rainfall by as much as 50%. Of the carbon that is found in soils - which, remarkably, amounts to twice the amount of carbon found in plants and the atmosphere combined - a substantial proportion is bound up in tough organic compounds produced by mycorrhizal fungi. The carbon that floods into the soil through mycorrhizal channels supports intricate food webs. Besides the hundreds or thousands of metres of fungal mycelium in a teaspoon of healthy soil, there are more bacteria, protists, insects and arthropods than the number of humans who have ever lived on Earth. Mycorrhizal fungi can increase the quality of a harvest. They can also increase the ability of crops to compete with weeds and enhance their resistance to diseases by priming plant's immune systems. They can make crops less susceptible to drought and heat, and more resistant to salinity and heavy metals. They even boost the ability of plants to fight off attacks from insect pests by stimulating the production of defensive chemicals... But over the course of the twentieth century, our neglect has led us into trouble. In viewing soils as more or less lifeless places, industrial agricultural practices have ravaged the undergound communities that sustain the life we eat.... A large study published in 2018 suggested that the 'alarming deterioration' of the health of trees across Europe was caused by a disruption of their mycorrhizal relationships, brought about by nitrogen pollution." from Before Roots chapter by Merlin Sheldrake.
"We do know, that this fragile, generative world has been damaged by intensive farming, pollution, deforestation and global heating. A third of the planet's land has been severely degraded and 24 billion tons of fertile soil are destroyed every year through intensive farming, according to the Global Land Outlook. Topsoil is where 95% of the planet's food is grown and is very delicate. It takes more than 100 years to build 5mm of soil, and it can be destroyed shockingly easily. This destruction and degradation of the soil is created by intensive farming practices such as heavy mechanised soil tilling, which loosens and rips away any plant cover, leaving the soil bare. It is also caused by the overgrazing of animals, as well as forest fires and heavy construction work. These factors disturb the soil and leave it exposed to erosion from wind and water, damaging the complicated systems underneath its top layer... We are losing good soil at an estimated 100 times faster rate than we can remake and heal it. The world's soils are thought to store approximately 15 thousand million tonnes of carbon - 3 times as much as all of our planet's terrestrial vegetation combined. Soils hold twice as much carbon as the atmosphere, and when soil disintegrates, the carbon is released. In the last 40 years the soil in the UK's croplands lost 10% of the carbon it could store. In a time of climate crisis, soil's quiet potency, its ability to store carbon safely, is utterly essential to our future survival.... We know that soils are being destroyed, and that with that comes a higher risk of floods, and a more unpredictable and unreliable food and water system. An Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecostem Services report in 2018 told us clearly that land degradationis already putting the welfare of two-fifths of humanity at risk, and that urgent action is needed to avoid further danger. There are many things we can do to protect soils, and the organisms, plants and connections that thrive within them. Actions that can support and heal soil structure include
Such regimes allow soil structure to remain intact, and protect the soil by allowing crop residues to stay on the surface. " from Strange Soil chapter by Rebecca Tamas. |
Due to intensive farming techniques and chemical fertilisers this has occurred:- The BBC has produced an article as to why modern food as lost its nutrients. |
The following about trees in pavements show why when the roots are denied access to air, water and nutrients even the fungi cannot work to support the trees. Pavements of Funchal, Madeira |
The following addition of this mulch improved the clay soil, so that A 150mm deep mulch of mixed peat, sharp washed sand and horticultural grit was applied on top of a heavy clay soil to improve its structure, and stop the plants therein from drowning, at £10 a square metre. The mix was:
The following was then sent to me:-
and the following was sent to me in October 2004:- An unsuccessful planting scheme had left bare areas of garden as plants failed to survive winter in the waterlogged clay soil. The loss of numerous plants and the cost of replacing them had left us disheartened. It was evident that remedial action was need in the form of a mixture of gravel, sand and peat to create an organic loam. Approximately six inches was added in April and left to settle and do its job. By July there was a noticeable difference in the quality of the soil and the plants. Shrubs with sparse, mottled leaves were looking glossy and robust, overall growth had increased (including the weeds!) and the soil was holding its moisture well. But the biggest difference came in the confidence it gave us to transform the garden. The borders used to be a no-go area between May and September as the clay baked and cracked, but the new soil was easy to handle and weeds could be successfully removed. We realised that there are no quick fixes - the key to a healthy garden is rich, nutritous soil. Once our plants began to thrive we were optimistic that, with good advice, we could create a garden to be proud of. |
