Growing in sand

Peter Korn at the Beth Chatto Symposium, quarries, Chatto Wood and creating an experimental raised sand bed

I have long been interested in sand and aggregates as a planting medium. In fact, this interest goes back to my research days when I was working in quarry restoration and growing climbing plants in sand and waste quarry materials.

Listening to Peter Korn’s talk at the recent Beth Chatto Symposium got me digging out my thesis to remind myself of what I was trialling in the 1980s. The aim was to use climbing plants to kick start colonisation in quarries, their trailing stems and fallen leaves would help create microhabitats, which could trap organic matter, moisture etc and enable other plants to colonise. I have included a few photos of my research site, an abandoned quarry in Shropshire and the sand that I was using as a planting medium to grow old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba), ivy (Hedera helix) and Russian vine (Fallopia baldschuanicum). It was surprising just how well they could cope with aggregates as a rooting medium.

I also found that some plants were immensely tolerant of quite…