Wanted: Ground penetrating radar for gardeners

[Sam Plusnet]

SWMBO had bought six new rose plants (bare rooted) and has been trying to plant them near a large silver birch. She decided where she wanted each one, and started to dig a hole.

Large tree root. She moved to one side and tried again. Another tree root and a girt big rock. Rinse and repeat for some time.

I strongly believe there would be a good market for a hand-held ground penetrating radar which could identify obstacles like roots or large rocks _before_ you expend so much energy and backache digging the hole.

[Colin Bignell]

Amazon do a cheap GPR:

However, in this context 'cheap' means under £20k.

[Rod Speed]

And useful when moving into a new for you place to check that a serial murderer hasnt buried its corpses there.

[Tim+]

Hmm, I’m no expert on roses but I would have thought that planting them in rooty soil beneath a large tree is doomed to failure.

Tim

[Jeff Gaines]

Come on, will keep the wife busy for years pruning and watering :-)

[Sam Plusnet]

Silver Birch don't have a dense canopy, so there's plenty of light, and there are several shrubs already in the area which have done well for a few decades. The other factor is that there are a couple of hanging bird feeders in the area, which provide a steady diet of mulch and feed to the plants below.

[Paul]

The claim is, you can build your own GPR for €600 , which is roughly the price of a new hobby.

Paul

[maus]

agreed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Interesting project for e.g. a PI.

Having just read up on it, however, it may not be very successful at determining tree root positions. Especially in wet soils.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Where else would a climbing rose be planted?

[Tim Streater]

Ours are next to some trellis.

[Owain Lastname]

Next to a pergola?

Owain

[Graham Harrison]

I did wonder about hire but even that is expensive

[Sam Plusnet]

Who mentioned climbing roses? (They aren't.)

Mrs Trellis? Of North Wales?

[The Natural Philosopher]

I did. All my wild roses live next door to trees, and all my 'tame' ones are in hedged and treed borders...

[Brian Gaff]

Or you could just do what the new service providers did on my road and cut a groove down the middle cutting off all the tree roots as they went along.

I'm not sure what is involved in these radars. I would imagine that they must be pretty high powered and the radiation could be dangerous as well. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Would not a simple spike of the depth needed do the same. If it hits something don't dig there. Be wary with roses. I have one under an apple tree, it was supposed to be a standard rose. now its transmogrified into a climber and only flowers at the top of the apple tree. Brian

[Colin Bignell]

Not gadgety enough :-)

When I moved into this house, there was a standard rose bush, which suddenly decided to throw out a long runner. It now adorns an arch over a path and much of the hedge on the other side of the arch.

[Paul]

"GPR uses high-frequency (usually polarized) radio waves, usually in the range 10 MHz to 2.6 GHz."

"However, in moist or clay-laden soils and materials with high electrical conductivity, penetration may be as little as a few centimetres."

It's a radar, so it works with pulses.

Lower frequency gives greater ground penetration but reduced resolution (everything looks like a lump).

Paul

[John Walliker]

Not all radar uses pulses. The low-cost GPR described in the article you linked near the top of this thread uses frequency modulated continuous wave instead of pulses.