All,
It's been awhile since I posted here. I've been living away from the Pinelands for almost 5 years now. I do get back every once in awhile as family is still there. But now I'm up in Boston (been here for a year) and I have the luxury of having a fairly big garden space that currently has flowers, ivy, and some vegetable plants. So, in order to remind myself of home, I wanted to create an NJ Pinelands style garden. I've already acquired two Jersey Blueberry bushes from a propagation nursery up in NH (they have small sections of Pine Barrens as well). I also plan on getting some other native plants from some nurseries in Southern NJ when I go back to visit at the end of October for ground cover, ornamental grass, etc. I'm still deciding on what to use from this list from the PPA:
http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/downloads/pinelandsalliance_102.pdf
So while I have my plant selection pretty well picked out, there's one question that remains: soil construction. I want to replace the current soil with sand so as to keep the Pinelands plants happy with an acidic, low-nutrient, and well draining medium. I was searching around to find out information because I'm thinking that just buying bags of white sand and dumping them in there wouldn't be the best idea. There has to be some other mediums besides straight sand. I know portions of the barrens can have clay shortly below the surface. And I've seen the word "peat" tossed around.
So besides a sandy top layer, can anyone suggest what I should use below or some material to mix in with the sand? I could be wrong and maybe it's best to just use all sand.
I also plan on constructing a mock cranberry bog. It may or may not work out, but it will be fun to try.
Justin
It's been awhile since I posted here. I've been living away from the Pinelands for almost 5 years now. I do get back every once in awhile as family is still there. But now I'm up in Boston (been here for a year) and I have the luxury of having a fairly big garden space that currently has flowers, ivy, and some vegetable plants. So, in order to remind myself of home, I wanted to create an NJ Pinelands style garden. I've already acquired two Jersey Blueberry bushes from a propagation nursery up in NH (they have small sections of Pine Barrens as well). I also plan on getting some other native plants from some nurseries in Southern NJ when I go back to visit at the end of October for ground cover, ornamental grass, etc. I'm still deciding on what to use from this list from the PPA:
http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/downloads/pinelandsalliance_102.pdf
So while I have my plant selection pretty well picked out, there's one question that remains: soil construction. I want to replace the current soil with sand so as to keep the Pinelands plants happy with an acidic, low-nutrient, and well draining medium. I was searching around to find out information because I'm thinking that just buying bags of white sand and dumping them in there wouldn't be the best idea. There has to be some other mediums besides straight sand. I know portions of the barrens can have clay shortly below the surface. And I've seen the word "peat" tossed around.
So besides a sandy top layer, can anyone suggest what I should use below or some material to mix in with the sand? I could be wrong and maybe it's best to just use all sand.
I also plan on constructing a mock cranberry bog. It may or may not work out, but it will be fun to try.
Justin