Matthew Nistico

Dave Bross wrote:Agreed on the sun factor being important.  I planted citrus up close to my oaks because that supposedly prevents the HLB disease ravaging Florida citrus.  End result was very slow growing citrus and long overdue to fruit...which I think is lack of sun.

Yes, that was my first thought.  I am no expert in this area, but I'd think that the prime competition to watch out for between the OP's oaks and intended apples would be sun exposure.  Certainly on my small property I have observed that this has been my chief limiting factor: some of my plantings just didn't get enough sun.  So long as my new apple trees did get plenty sun, and so long as I had enough room around them for convenient harvest access, I'd not worry overly much about the root zones.

As someone wrote above, roots grow out very far, so to avoid root competition entilrey you'd have to really, really space your trees out.  I think when guilding plants together, you assume that a certain amount of root competition will occur and just decide to be okay with it, confident that you will get adequate growth and productivity out of the guild in the long run, if not necessarily optimum growth and productivity from each individual element in the guild.  Trees in a forest naturally grow at a far denser concentration than any good orchard planner would space them.  Doubtless, each orchard tree grows faster and fruits earlier, but the forest as a whole supports more biomass/area.

Dave Bross wrote:Oaks are surprisingly shallow roots. When we get a lot of rain here even big old oaks can be uprooted and tipped over sideways by the wind, roots and all.  Don't know about apples.

Hmmm, I read that you describe your location as "sand hills," and I suspect that the nature of your soil might have something to do with that.  Just a guess.

Chris Merritt wrote:I’ve been very interested in this topic for a while. I’m located in North Carolina in the US and I’ve always had such bad fortune with pumpkins and squash. The hot, humid summers seem to breed pests that love this crop. Last year I decided to try something different so I choose an open field on my property and I dumped a pile of leaves that was about 1.5 feet deep over an area that was about 2000 square feet. I left that there through the summer and winter. In the spring, I used a rake to pull back the leaves of an area about 300 square feet and planted corn there and added compost to supply more nutrients. I also pulled back the leaves in small circles about 2-3 feet in diameter and made a mound of compost there at each cleared circle and transplanted pumpkins and squash into the mounds. The mounds were spaced about 5 feet apart. As the transplants grew I pulled the leaves back in around the plants and covered the mounded soil.
All of this, along with being more deliberate about the types of pumpkin/squash I’m growing, has made a big difference based on what I’m seeing so far. It could also be a small assist attributable to my guineas roaming and eating some of the pests. The plants are much healthier and the leaf mulch keeping down the grasses and other undesirable plants.

That sounds like a good procedure.  Be sure to update this thread when it comes harvest time!

Lois Green wrote:I have recently learnt that what we here in Australia call a kent pumpkin is called a squash in USA.

I looked up your Kent pumpkin, which you also call a Japanease pumpkin.  Based on the photos, yes, it looks like an exact match for the Japanese cultivar we call a Kabocha squash.

So, in the US we distinguish between "summer squashes," "zucchini," "winter squashes," and "pumpkins."  But as always when dealing with common names for plants, there is a maddening degree of vagary, overlap, and contradiction.  Summer squashes are generally not sweet, and the current fashion is to pick them young for fresh eating while their seeds are still soft and their skins still thin (this has not always been the case).  They don't store well.  Based on their color and shape and perhaps on their region of origin, some summer squash cultivars we instead call by the Italian name zucchini, though they are cooked interchangeably with other summer squash.

Some varieties commonly grown as summer squash are actually just the immature fruits of winter squash.  Winter squash are grown for storage, have thicker skins, hard seeds, denser flesh, and are often sweet tasting.  Whereas summer squash appear raw in some recipes and uses, I'm not aware of anything at all to do with raw winter squash; they are always cooked.  While the seeds of winter squash are too hard to eat along with the squash, they are cooked and eaten separately.

And then some winter squash vareities, for no reason other than their color and/or shape, we traditionally call pumpkins.  Pumpkins are advertised distinctly as such in the marketplace and, while there is no botanical distinction whatsoever between them and other varieties of winter squash, I dont' know how many American consumers recognize this fact.

I'd be curious to know how all this compares to the conventions in Australia or other parts of the anglophone world.

Black locust is my go-to fuel species, for all the reasons listed above: high BTU value, multipurpose tree, fast growing, easy to coppice.  In addition, I am right at the edge of its native range (southern Appilachia, in my case), so I know it will grow reliably for me.  I am just a tiny wee bit down in the foothills compared to its ideal range, so my trees tend to loose leaves at the end of a hot summer, only to resprout them in the autumn.  But they've still proven unstoppable and fast growing.  They provided me with good, quick shade back when my property was largely bare and needed it.  Now, I am generally thinning them out and cutting them back, as I have too much shade.

Unfortunately, the wood-burning devices I planted them to serve aren't online yet.  But in the meantime, black locust makes great biochar for me.

Dave Lotte wrote:Two days ago this was gravel.  Will say it does look nice now....
What happens though in 4 or 5 years when there is a bit of composted nutrients in there and the weeds start getting a permanant hold ?

What would be the worst part of just letting the weeds colonize your roof and calling that done?  It wouldn't look so great, but functionally it would serve the purpose, no?  A weed roof would require some maintenance, too, but you've already prepared yourself for a green roof maintenance routine.

Or perhaps, as I mentioned previously, let the weeds colonize temporarily and then use the most successful of them to guide you towards plant families that might work for you.

Jay Angler wrote:Soooo... you don't have to mow artificial turf, but you do have to weed it - seriously! I met a guy on his hands and knees struggling to get tree sprouts out of his artificial lawn without damaging the lawn part.

Is the issue with plants dying that you have too many extremes? Dry, wet, cold, heat? Can you narrow down which of the extremes did in your early attempts?

I'm not convinced that you can't fix the roof problem other ways. Giving us permies a list of what you've tried, and what you think killed those tries, might give us ideas of how you can fix it naturally.

For example, have considered rocky mulch with succulents?

My first instinct is to agree with Jay.  There must be a way to fix your problem without resorting to artificial turf, which my gut tells me is a temporary solution at best.  It will degrade in time, needing replacement and, I suspect though I couldn't elaborate, giving rise to unforseen problems along the way.

Better in my opinion to have just mulch than to have, essentially, synthetic carpet on your roof.  Perhaps a rock mulch would be a good place to start, as Jay suggested.  Over time, observe what weeds establish in the rock mulch, and that might provide clues how to proceed with a green roof.

But in the meantime, yes, please elucidate: why do you believe your current green roof is dying?