gardening supplies

This should come under gardening but I don't seem to be able to post in that section.  Arriving at Ancona and want to pick up some "sassi decorativi" and horticultural sand on our way down towards Ascoli.  Any suggestions?  The best I've found so far is Leroy Merlin but that's down by Pescara.

Ta


A

No idea, I'm afraid but I'm intrigued as to whether you will find horticultural sand anywhere.  I've tried inquiring at garden centres near us and the concept seems alien to the italians.  I was directed to try a builder's merchants.  Was I asking for the wrong thing?

You'd think with the really claggy clay soil round us it would be easy enough to find something to mix into it

Think the thing to do would be to go to a nursery and ask them or make enquiries about river sand, which would be fine. We also could not find it or perlite, but were told Febo (big garden centre in Abruzzo) sold both... Eventually we used the ash from burnt sansa (olive waste), which unlike wood ash is quite gritty...

My advice is go to a beach near you and take a couple of bags and a small spade....

Oooh naughty!!

Sharp sand is the material generally used in the UK for horticultural sand. As the name suggests, the particles are sharp and angular, rather than builders sand, which is soft and rounded - generally river sand.

Builders use it beneath exterior loose laid paviors - either clay or concrete - for drives and patios.

You should be able to get it from the merchants who supply the paviors.

HTH

Think you will find, if the soil/clay is like ours, it's compost you need not sand. At the moment we have lovely well rotted grass/weed cuttings from mowing a very, very large area. Within 2 years the "clay" has went from solid yellow and grey stuff to almost soil and that's with only a little of the rotten mass from earlier years. We found cutting the grass (read mostly clover/other weeds) in spring when damp it rotted almost within weeks and now looks like cow dung. Later production when warm and dry was a waste of time unless we were prepared to water it every day...

I think one of our neighbours once told me that italians call our soil type "castagnaccio"" by which I assumed he meant that it resembled the flour made from chestnuts.  I'm not clear, though, whether this means it is water retentive or not.  Anyone know? 

I'd have said from looking at it, that the soil was clay-ey. We did add a fair amount of muck and compost a couple of years ago but I'm not really sure if it has changed. 

Instead of worrying about it, I bought a book by Beth Chatto called "The Dry Garden" in which I was delighted to read that she never ever waters plants (once they've got past the bedding in phase).  So we now gardening according to this principle

Thanks all - plenty of good ideas and I'll see if I can find a non-pebbly beach.   I agree re the non-watering, though I think Beth has a sandy soil rather than one that can set like cement in hot weather!