Today's forecast was for the rain to hold off until 4.00pm, so they've been rolling back their expectations since the start of the week. In fact it stayed dry until 3.00pm, when the first heavy drops backed by a rumble of thunder drove me indoors. I've shifted my attentions in the back garden to the island bed. It would be very nice to get one area properly finished and then move on to the next, but the weeds have started growing worryingly quickly in the island bed, and need tackling before they get completely out of hand.
This is a long, triangular bed that sits in full sun between the top lawn and the grass track to the bottom lawn. It was a low-maintenance, largely self-sustaining area for several years. A mixture of Cistus, Stipa gigantea, Lupinus arboreus and Verbena bonariensis seeded themselves around, keeping the centre of the bed pretty full and hiding the creeping sorrel and horsetail. There's a Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum, an Osmanthus delavayi on one corner, which is kept clipped to form a dome, an ochre yellow conifer, Thuja occidentalis 'Rheingold' on the second corner, next to a driftwood sculpture which the cats unaccountably persist in regarding as a scratching post, and a low bulging hedge of Lonicera nitida 'Baggesen's Gold' nips off the apex of the triangle. A glaucous leafed form of Kniphofia and a Yucca do pretty well, as do Crocosmia 'Lucifer', which seeds itself mildly, and Crocosmia 'George Davidson', which doesn't self seed but bulks up at the root. Some of the more drought-tolerant asters are happy, and various odds and bobs like a bright red flowered ancestor of the oriental poppy hybrids that I raised from seed, and a Galtonia, ditto. Robinia hispida sprawls about as a free standing shrub, bits breaking off when there's a gale, and Phlomis russeliana is happy to take more space than it really merits. Penstemon have come and gone over the years, and shrubby Potentilla. Sedum 'Matrona' was good, and now needs rescuing before it is overwhelmed by the Osmanthus. Some pink bearded iris like it there, and Chamaecytisis purpureus, and an Eremurus, though I must remove the Phlomis advancing on its crown. Foxtail lilies need their own space. There are some chrysanthemums for late colour, but it is a bit dry for them. For a long time it was a trouble free area, that looked good throughout the year, with a fair amount of evergreen foliage and some seed heads to look at in the winter.
Trouble started after the first very cold winter, which killed most of the Cistus. I weeded, mulched and replanted, in time to be clobbered by the second cold winter. Second time around I went for some hardier subjects, including Rosa glauca which seems to need full sun, and whose pewter coloured foliage should look good with the Cistus, should any survive. But I'm still looking at great gaps between shrubs that should touch each other when they are full grown, and some of the new planting has died. I'm getting fed up with replacing Coronilla, whose perpetual, scented yellow flowers are purely mythical in my garden as the plants always die. I'm not sure whether to try with Romneya coulteri just one more time, since while I've failed twice already, which is normally my limit, it is notoriously difficult to establish planted out of a pot. There is green beneath the bark on the twigs of the Clerodendron trichotomum, but the leaf buds seem dead, presumably killed by frost, and since that's the second of those to fail I'm wondering whether to go for a nice Euonymus instead.
Into the gaps between the survivors, lovingly mulched with mushroom compost within the past twelve months, goose grass and grass grass are springing up, now we've had some rain, and those need ripping out and a good layer of Strulch applied as soon as possible. Towards the top of the bed, where I never reached last time round with the manure, grass is also growing, but is much harder to weed out since the soil is less friable. The difference in soil texture as well as colour between the areas that were and were not dosed with mushroom compost is notable. Sadly it doesn't go down very far, though if I kept adding compost for another fifty years I dare say it would. The grass springing up between the asters also needs to come out pronto, before the asters get any taller, and that end of the bed needs mulching with compost and then Strulching. And then, if only this year's replacement plants would not mostly die on me, I'd be there, provided I get to the end of the job before some other area becomes even more pressingly urgent.
Addendum I said I'd tell you whether the asters that I moved and split in winter survived, given that the books say you should do it in April. They did. At least, I would not swear that every single root had survived, but where I left the old stalks sticking up, to remind me that there was something there, a healthy crops of basal foliage has appeared. So, irritatingly, have some spears of creeping thistle. One glyphosate treatment was evidently not enough. Remember that I did this on very light soil, albeit dosed with mushroom compost, and on a slope. I wouldn't guarantee the same result if you try it at home on badly drained clay.
Friday, 20 April 2012
Thursday, 19 April 2012
bird of dawning
I woke early, in time to hear the rooster crowing. I love the sound of the rooster. It is a cry of hope, heralding the start of a new day, and of reassurance. The chickens made it through the night. We remembered to lock the hen house, and the fox didn't break in. Sometimes, if I wake at four or so in the morning, I can't go back to sleep until I've heard the rooster, affirming that all is well outside.
It saddens me when I read in the local papers of disputes between neighbours over the noise made by someone's cockerel, especially if they live in the country. Why buy a house in a rural location if you don't like the sound of a rooster? It's like people who move in next to a medieval church, and then complain about the noise made by bell ringing practice or on Sunday mornings. It's a church. It has bells. They have been there for centuries. If you don't like them why did you move there? I think people who find the noise of their neighbour's rooster intolerable must at some deep level find their general proximity to their neighbour upsetting. The crowing of a cockerel inside a hen house is, objectively speaking, no louder than the dawn chorus, heard from a bedroom, even with a window open, and whoever heard of anyone complaining that the noise of the blackbirds and robins was preventing them from sleeping?
Once at work I was asked for advice on sound-deadening shrubs by somebody who had been ordered by an environmental health officer to plant them to shield the noise of their swimming pool pump from the next door neighbours, who had made a complaint about it. Fresh out of horticultural college and eager, I expressed my doubt that the amount of planting they could do in a domestic garden would make any difference at all to the noise, since academic research showed that you needed a buffer of shrubs and trees tens of metres deep to give a measurable improvement. I suggested that a better approach would be to go to an automotive parts supplier or yacht chandler and invest in some sound insulating foam for the pump housing, like that used around engine compartments in boats. With hindsight I think that although this was good technical advice, it may have missed the point, and that what the environmental health officer may chiefly have intended to do was give the neighbour visible reassurance that something was being done. Even though it didn't really cut down the noise, it might have stopped them worrying about it.
I mind the noise from the lettuce farm, when they are particularly busy, running lorry engines in the yard and charging about on their forklifts and tractors, much more than I do the background noise from the local main roads, even though the roads can be quite noisy when the air is damp and the wind is from the right (or rather the wrong) direction. I mind the noise of the roads more than an equivalent amount of noise from passing aircraft. That's because the lettuce farm noise seems to uniquely blight my house, and the other properties on the farm, whereas road noise affects lots of people, so doesn't make me feel so much as though I made an unfortunate choice of residence. And aeroplane noise affects absolutely everybody, no matter how carefully you chose the lie of the land where you live, so I take that even less personally.
The weather forecast was for heavy rain by ten, but since it had stopped raining by the time I'd finished my breakfast I thought I'd go outside and get on with the garden until it started. We'd only had 6mm of rain in the previous 24 hours, but that was enough to have made the centre of the gunnera bed truly swampy. I moved operations to lighter ground further up the slope, although it would have been nice to actually finish a job. Half past ten came, and I ducked from the Radio 3 studio guest (a feature I find peculiarly annoying) to Radio 2 Popmaster, which is conveniently scheduled for the same time. There was still no rain by half past eleven, and at half past twelve the Systems Administrator came out to say that the weather was very peculiar, as the rain radar kept showing huge showers sweeping in our direction, which petered out about ten miles short of us. The SA had not got all the tools out to get on with the deck, on the basis that it had been about to rain all morning, but thought that the rain really would arrive in about forty-five minutes, and would I like to hold off lunch until it did? I agreed that was a splendid plan to make the most of the dry spell, and went on weeding until quarter to two, when it still wasn't raining, but I was extremely hungry.
There were showers in the afternoon, and I went and pricked out seedlings in the greenhouse, but it goes to show how sometimes the extra information we get from technology is counter productive. The SA, mesmerised by the high tech evidence of imminent rain, had missed out on a dry morning, while for me, working on the low tech basis that it wasn't raining until it was, it had been business as usual.
It saddens me when I read in the local papers of disputes between neighbours over the noise made by someone's cockerel, especially if they live in the country. Why buy a house in a rural location if you don't like the sound of a rooster? It's like people who move in next to a medieval church, and then complain about the noise made by bell ringing practice or on Sunday mornings. It's a church. It has bells. They have been there for centuries. If you don't like them why did you move there? I think people who find the noise of their neighbour's rooster intolerable must at some deep level find their general proximity to their neighbour upsetting. The crowing of a cockerel inside a hen house is, objectively speaking, no louder than the dawn chorus, heard from a bedroom, even with a window open, and whoever heard of anyone complaining that the noise of the blackbirds and robins was preventing them from sleeping?
Once at work I was asked for advice on sound-deadening shrubs by somebody who had been ordered by an environmental health officer to plant them to shield the noise of their swimming pool pump from the next door neighbours, who had made a complaint about it. Fresh out of horticultural college and eager, I expressed my doubt that the amount of planting they could do in a domestic garden would make any difference at all to the noise, since academic research showed that you needed a buffer of shrubs and trees tens of metres deep to give a measurable improvement. I suggested that a better approach would be to go to an automotive parts supplier or yacht chandler and invest in some sound insulating foam for the pump housing, like that used around engine compartments in boats. With hindsight I think that although this was good technical advice, it may have missed the point, and that what the environmental health officer may chiefly have intended to do was give the neighbour visible reassurance that something was being done. Even though it didn't really cut down the noise, it might have stopped them worrying about it.
I mind the noise from the lettuce farm, when they are particularly busy, running lorry engines in the yard and charging about on their forklifts and tractors, much more than I do the background noise from the local main roads, even though the roads can be quite noisy when the air is damp and the wind is from the right (or rather the wrong) direction. I mind the noise of the roads more than an equivalent amount of noise from passing aircraft. That's because the lettuce farm noise seems to uniquely blight my house, and the other properties on the farm, whereas road noise affects lots of people, so doesn't make me feel so much as though I made an unfortunate choice of residence. And aeroplane noise affects absolutely everybody, no matter how carefully you chose the lie of the land where you live, so I take that even less personally.
The weather forecast was for heavy rain by ten, but since it had stopped raining by the time I'd finished my breakfast I thought I'd go outside and get on with the garden until it started. We'd only had 6mm of rain in the previous 24 hours, but that was enough to have made the centre of the gunnera bed truly swampy. I moved operations to lighter ground further up the slope, although it would have been nice to actually finish a job. Half past ten came, and I ducked from the Radio 3 studio guest (a feature I find peculiarly annoying) to Radio 2 Popmaster, which is conveniently scheduled for the same time. There was still no rain by half past eleven, and at half past twelve the Systems Administrator came out to say that the weather was very peculiar, as the rain radar kept showing huge showers sweeping in our direction, which petered out about ten miles short of us. The SA had not got all the tools out to get on with the deck, on the basis that it had been about to rain all morning, but thought that the rain really would arrive in about forty-five minutes, and would I like to hold off lunch until it did? I agreed that was a splendid plan to make the most of the dry spell, and went on weeding until quarter to two, when it still wasn't raining, but I was extremely hungry.
There were showers in the afternoon, and I went and pricked out seedlings in the greenhouse, but it goes to show how sometimes the extra information we get from technology is counter productive. The SA, mesmerised by the high tech evidence of imminent rain, had missed out on a dry morning, while for me, working on the low tech basis that it wasn't raining until it was, it had been business as usual.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
the big muddy
Isn't it always the way? I have three days with nothing in my diary. I don't have to scurry around collecting twigs and checking my projector works, or going over to the plant centre to borrow plants, before driving to the other end of the county for a talk. Nobody is coming round, and I don't have to clean the house, or cook. I haven't arranged to meet anybody, or got a ticket for an exhibition in London I'd rather not have to go to this week, except that I've already booked my slot. I am completely and utterly free to get on with the garden for three days, and it's raining, and forecast to rain again tomorrow, and on Friday.
I woke early this morning, and the rain held off until a quarter to eleven, so I was able to pull up more of the nettles from the gunnera bed. Human nature being what it is, I have left the boggiest areas until last, and am now at the stage of pulling nettle roots from thick mud, wearing waterproof nitrile gauntlets, and resting my kneeling mat on a section of board to spread my weight and prevent the mat from sinking into the mud. It is impossible to shake all the soil off the weed roots, and slimy gobbets of mud are going into the bags of debris to be taken to the dump (I believe in home made compost, but I'm not putting nettle roots leavened with horsetail on the compost heap). The nitrile gloves come in one size, which is way too large for my hands, so that my fingers don't nearly reach to the tips of the gloves. This makes getting my hands under sections of root to prise them up more difficult than it need be. A small, sharp border fork inherited from my late father-in-law (though with a new handle since I unwisely attempted to use it to move a hydrangea. The hydrangea won, and is still where it was, and I have adapted my ideas to fit round it) is a more useful tool than a trowel.
If you have a hosepipe ban then sorry for harping on about the mud. The water table comes to the surface at this point. It is unstable, and among the nettles were the dead stumps of a couple of shrubs that I planted there when it was normal soil, albeit on the damp side, and not a bog. I hope that planting my Primula bulleyana, Osmuda regalis and other extreme moisture loving goodies will not be the cue for the water table to drop again. Or come up somewhere else really inconvenient, like the middle of the lawn, or underneath the Daphne bholua (it has already done for an Edgeworthia. An expensive loss).
At least the tickets arrived for the Chelsea Flower Show. I had been starting to get twitchy about those, as we got to within five weeks of the day and nothing came. The ticketing agency was saying 4-6 weeks, down from 6-8 when I ordered the tickets, months ago, but given the difficulties we've had with things not arriving in the post, and things addressed to other houses being delivered here, I've been gently anxious not to have received anything since before the six week point. The Post Office never acknowledged my e-mail telling them I'd received what looked like a financial letter addressed to quite a different house, and I can't imagine they'd be a bit helpful if my tickets hadn't turned up. Now that the RHS is so big, and subcontracts the ticketing to a commercial agency, I wasn't at all confident I'd get any joy out of them either, though I suppose I could have tried to enlist the boss's help, him being an RHS stalwart on the hardy tree and shrub committee, and moderating at Chelsea and everything. Still, it's much easier just to have the tickets. I felt a little warm glow as I tucked them into the letter rack where I keep tickets for things. It is our most extravagant day out in the whole year. Indeed, it is my only really extravagant day out.
The Systems Administrator has taken advantage of a brief later afternoon lull in the rain to go and dig holes for the posts to support the back of the new deck. I could go out and weed the gravel, but I'm not sure I have the willpower. It is still windy, and cold out there. Exchanges of e-mails with my fellow beekeepers concerning our preparations for the Tendring Show are laced with concerns about how it is too cold to open the beehives and see what our bees are doing, and our conviction that as soon as it warms up again they are going to want to swarm.
I woke early this morning, and the rain held off until a quarter to eleven, so I was able to pull up more of the nettles from the gunnera bed. Human nature being what it is, I have left the boggiest areas until last, and am now at the stage of pulling nettle roots from thick mud, wearing waterproof nitrile gauntlets, and resting my kneeling mat on a section of board to spread my weight and prevent the mat from sinking into the mud. It is impossible to shake all the soil off the weed roots, and slimy gobbets of mud are going into the bags of debris to be taken to the dump (I believe in home made compost, but I'm not putting nettle roots leavened with horsetail on the compost heap). The nitrile gloves come in one size, which is way too large for my hands, so that my fingers don't nearly reach to the tips of the gloves. This makes getting my hands under sections of root to prise them up more difficult than it need be. A small, sharp border fork inherited from my late father-in-law (though with a new handle since I unwisely attempted to use it to move a hydrangea. The hydrangea won, and is still where it was, and I have adapted my ideas to fit round it) is a more useful tool than a trowel.
If you have a hosepipe ban then sorry for harping on about the mud. The water table comes to the surface at this point. It is unstable, and among the nettles were the dead stumps of a couple of shrubs that I planted there when it was normal soil, albeit on the damp side, and not a bog. I hope that planting my Primula bulleyana, Osmuda regalis and other extreme moisture loving goodies will not be the cue for the water table to drop again. Or come up somewhere else really inconvenient, like the middle of the lawn, or underneath the Daphne bholua (it has already done for an Edgeworthia. An expensive loss).
At least the tickets arrived for the Chelsea Flower Show. I had been starting to get twitchy about those, as we got to within five weeks of the day and nothing came. The ticketing agency was saying 4-6 weeks, down from 6-8 when I ordered the tickets, months ago, but given the difficulties we've had with things not arriving in the post, and things addressed to other houses being delivered here, I've been gently anxious not to have received anything since before the six week point. The Post Office never acknowledged my e-mail telling them I'd received what looked like a financial letter addressed to quite a different house, and I can't imagine they'd be a bit helpful if my tickets hadn't turned up. Now that the RHS is so big, and subcontracts the ticketing to a commercial agency, I wasn't at all confident I'd get any joy out of them either, though I suppose I could have tried to enlist the boss's help, him being an RHS stalwart on the hardy tree and shrub committee, and moderating at Chelsea and everything. Still, it's much easier just to have the tickets. I felt a little warm glow as I tucked them into the letter rack where I keep tickets for things. It is our most extravagant day out in the whole year. Indeed, it is my only really extravagant day out.
The Systems Administrator has taken advantage of a brief later afternoon lull in the rain to go and dig holes for the posts to support the back of the new deck. I could go out and weed the gravel, but I'm not sure I have the willpower. It is still windy, and cold out there. Exchanges of e-mails with my fellow beekeepers concerning our preparations for the Tendring Show are laced with concerns about how it is too cold to open the beehives and see what our bees are doing, and our conviction that as soon as it warms up again they are going to want to swarm.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
trips to the Chatto gardens
I've been shopping a couple of times recently at the Beth Chatto nursery. They are one of the few UK suppliers of a charming little drought resistant plant called Alyssum spinosum 'Roseum'. It is a nice thing, with little grey leaves and pink flowers, and I had it in the garden years ago, grown from seed, but put it too close to one of the ivy hedges, and it was overwhelmed. Since then I haven't seen seed offered again. I saw a couple of plants growing at Rosemoor, the RHS garden in Devon, but they didn't have any seed, and anyway it would have been rather cheeky to take it, in case the RHS intended to harvest it themselves. Instead I finally remembered to go and see whether the Chatto gardens actually had any for sale, and they had. I bought three, which have now been planted out in the gravel, well away from anything large that could smother them. I also picked up three Arenaria for the same spot, and some more large leafed saxifrages.
I am becoming intrigued by the possibilities of these shade tolerant plants. I started with three London Pride tucked in next to the bole of the tree that isn't a swamp cypress, and was impressed by the inexorable spread of their evergreen, weed suppressing carpet in a dry and difficult corner. When we were having our tea at Boxted Mill I heard the two ladies at the next table talking about gardening, and one was dismissive of London Pride, which she apparently had in the front garden and didn't like. I don't know what her front garden was like, but do know that faced with a rooty, shaded spot under a tree, Saxifraga x urbium is a very useful plant, and I quite like its scalloped leaves and little clouds of flowers. My original patch has spread as far as I want it to in some directions, and I have started experimenting taking off rooted pieces and starting them off around the bases of other shrubs.
Encouraged by the initial success of the London Pride, I bought three pots last year from Beth Chatto of something labelled Saxifraga 'Dentata', with longer, shinier, brighter green and more deeply toothed leaves. I tried that in even deeper shade, and although it is only increasing slowly, it looks very healthy and is gradually spreading. I have just seen that the RHS counts this as part of the London Pride Group. It's a pleasant thing for a shady spot under shrubs where not a lot else will go, except for half hearted goose grass and elder seedlings, and worth trying, though there are only five suppliers listed in the country (but four of them do mail order). I got a dark leafed evergreen variety called 'Hime' from the plant centre, where we were selling them as part of a bedding range for winter containers (they were singularly unpopular) and those have finally been planted at the base of the plinth for the head of the muse, where they should tone nicely with the dark grey terrazzo plinth (AKA inverted cylindrical flower pot), and make useful ground cover, if they take. A couple more obscure varieties from Beth Chatto are now sitting in a box in the porch awaiting planting. I visualise a whole saxifrage corner developing, and why not.
I went back today to have lunch with my parents (we were originally planning to go to the Henry Moore Foundation near Little Hadham, but the forecast was for rain) and before lunch picked up a white flowered skunk cabbage, Lysichiton camtschatcensis, to go in the damp seep by the new deck at the bottom of the garden. I held off buying one last time, because there is a species with a yellow spathe from western North America, and one with a white spathe from northeastern Asia, and I knew that one was generally considered fragrant (in a good way) while the other justified the common name of skunk cabbage, and wasn't entirely sure which was which. As you can guess (given that the Systems Administrator and I are not masochists and this thing is going by a seating area) the white is the sweet smelling one. I noticed this morning, when I was checking something else, that Lysichiton is on the Plantlife list of invasive exotic species they don't want us to plant in our gardens, but since they say that most plants in the wild come from people dumping roots, and I am not planning to dump roots, and the RHS encyclopedia of perennials says that plants rarely set seed in this country, I'm not going to worry about that, even though Plantlife is an excellent charity, and I am a member. I got an Osmunda regalis at the same time, a tall growing, deciduous fern that is happy sitting in boggy ground.
After lunch, and a walk round the gardens as by then it had almost stopped raining, I remembered that I'd meant to get some Glaucium flavum or horned poppy for the beach themed garden in the turning circle. I've tried to germinate seed of this twice now, and never got even a single plant, so thought it was time to buy some plants, and maybe they'll seed themselves. The Norfolk Wildlife Trust says that it has the largest seed pods of any British plant. Its Wikipedia entry says that all parts of the plant are toxic and can produce a range of symptoms up to and including respiratory failure and death, although its main alkaloid component can also produce hallucinogenic visual effects. I didn't know any of that when I bought it, but I wasn't planning to eat it anyway. Then as I was there I added some Armeria juniperifolia for the gravel, a short leaved and short stemmed species of thrift I'd admired as we walked around the gardens, and have also tried to raise from bought seed in the past, with zero success.
Finally I added a peony Molly the Witch, for no good reason except that I once accidentally caught the incredibly brief flowering period of one at Wisley and was enchanted by it, and since I'm doing quite a lot of clearance in the back garden I'll manage to slot it in somewhere. That is a bad basis on which to buy plants, and nowadays I do mostly start from the space I need to fill, and work backwards to find something that should work there. One of the long-time staff was confused to see me going round the till for a second time, and I left before I could buy any more plants.
I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding the gravel in the turning circle. It is a truth not universally acknowledged that Genista aetnensis, the Mount Etna Broom, drops an enormous quantity of thin twigs or leaves each winter (I'm not sure which they are, botanically speaking) and that if you have your broom growing in gravel you will spend a long time at some point in the year raking them up with your fingertips. It should have been done earlier for tidiness sake, but I didn't have time. Doing it now I can pull up the latest crop of creeping sorrel at the same time. The Beth Chatto gravel garden has very little visible creeping sorrel, but I'm pretty sure that's because she has a supply of eager, supple young horticultural students to crawl about and pull it up for her. If you ever read an article that says that gravel is weed suppressing and that gravel gardens are low maintenance then just skip the rest of it, once you get to that bit. It isn't and they're not.
I am becoming intrigued by the possibilities of these shade tolerant plants. I started with three London Pride tucked in next to the bole of the tree that isn't a swamp cypress, and was impressed by the inexorable spread of their evergreen, weed suppressing carpet in a dry and difficult corner. When we were having our tea at Boxted Mill I heard the two ladies at the next table talking about gardening, and one was dismissive of London Pride, which she apparently had in the front garden and didn't like. I don't know what her front garden was like, but do know that faced with a rooty, shaded spot under a tree, Saxifraga x urbium is a very useful plant, and I quite like its scalloped leaves and little clouds of flowers. My original patch has spread as far as I want it to in some directions, and I have started experimenting taking off rooted pieces and starting them off around the bases of other shrubs.
Encouraged by the initial success of the London Pride, I bought three pots last year from Beth Chatto of something labelled Saxifraga 'Dentata', with longer, shinier, brighter green and more deeply toothed leaves. I tried that in even deeper shade, and although it is only increasing slowly, it looks very healthy and is gradually spreading. I have just seen that the RHS counts this as part of the London Pride Group. It's a pleasant thing for a shady spot under shrubs where not a lot else will go, except for half hearted goose grass and elder seedlings, and worth trying, though there are only five suppliers listed in the country (but four of them do mail order). I got a dark leafed evergreen variety called 'Hime' from the plant centre, where we were selling them as part of a bedding range for winter containers (they were singularly unpopular) and those have finally been planted at the base of the plinth for the head of the muse, where they should tone nicely with the dark grey terrazzo plinth (AKA inverted cylindrical flower pot), and make useful ground cover, if they take. A couple more obscure varieties from Beth Chatto are now sitting in a box in the porch awaiting planting. I visualise a whole saxifrage corner developing, and why not.
I went back today to have lunch with my parents (we were originally planning to go to the Henry Moore Foundation near Little Hadham, but the forecast was for rain) and before lunch picked up a white flowered skunk cabbage, Lysichiton camtschatcensis, to go in the damp seep by the new deck at the bottom of the garden. I held off buying one last time, because there is a species with a yellow spathe from western North America, and one with a white spathe from northeastern Asia, and I knew that one was generally considered fragrant (in a good way) while the other justified the common name of skunk cabbage, and wasn't entirely sure which was which. As you can guess (given that the Systems Administrator and I are not masochists and this thing is going by a seating area) the white is the sweet smelling one. I noticed this morning, when I was checking something else, that Lysichiton is on the Plantlife list of invasive exotic species they don't want us to plant in our gardens, but since they say that most plants in the wild come from people dumping roots, and I am not planning to dump roots, and the RHS encyclopedia of perennials says that plants rarely set seed in this country, I'm not going to worry about that, even though Plantlife is an excellent charity, and I am a member. I got an Osmunda regalis at the same time, a tall growing, deciduous fern that is happy sitting in boggy ground.
After lunch, and a walk round the gardens as by then it had almost stopped raining, I remembered that I'd meant to get some Glaucium flavum or horned poppy for the beach themed garden in the turning circle. I've tried to germinate seed of this twice now, and never got even a single plant, so thought it was time to buy some plants, and maybe they'll seed themselves. The Norfolk Wildlife Trust says that it has the largest seed pods of any British plant. Its Wikipedia entry says that all parts of the plant are toxic and can produce a range of symptoms up to and including respiratory failure and death, although its main alkaloid component can also produce hallucinogenic visual effects. I didn't know any of that when I bought it, but I wasn't planning to eat it anyway. Then as I was there I added some Armeria juniperifolia for the gravel, a short leaved and short stemmed species of thrift I'd admired as we walked around the gardens, and have also tried to raise from bought seed in the past, with zero success.
Finally I added a peony Molly the Witch, for no good reason except that I once accidentally caught the incredibly brief flowering period of one at Wisley and was enchanted by it, and since I'm doing quite a lot of clearance in the back garden I'll manage to slot it in somewhere. That is a bad basis on which to buy plants, and nowadays I do mostly start from the space I need to fill, and work backwards to find something that should work there. One of the long-time staff was confused to see me going round the till for a second time, and I left before I could buy any more plants.
I spent the rest of the afternoon weeding the gravel in the turning circle. It is a truth not universally acknowledged that Genista aetnensis, the Mount Etna Broom, drops an enormous quantity of thin twigs or leaves each winter (I'm not sure which they are, botanically speaking) and that if you have your broom growing in gravel you will spend a long time at some point in the year raking them up with your fingertips. It should have been done earlier for tidiness sake, but I didn't have time. Doing it now I can pull up the latest crop of creeping sorrel at the same time. The Beth Chatto gravel garden has very little visible creeping sorrel, but I'm pretty sure that's because she has a supply of eager, supple young horticultural students to crawl about and pull it up for her. If you ever read an article that says that gravel is weed suppressing and that gravel gardens are low maintenance then just skip the rest of it, once you get to that bit. It isn't and they're not.
Monday, 16 April 2012
cold and slow
There was a frost this morning. It was forecast, and I had shut the conservatory and greenhouse up last night, but was still surprised at the amount of ice on my windscreen. Fortunately the hebe I borrowed from work last week, that was still sitting on the gravel with the other unsold plants, was protected by the house and my car and hadn't gone brown at all. I remembered to put the unsold plants in the car before setting off to work, which was fortunate, as trying to remember to do anything outside normal routine before half past seven in the morning can be rather hit and miss.
The boss revealed that the dog is expecting puppies, her first litter. As she is a sweet little thing the puppies will presumably be almost unbearably cute. The boss praised her nice nature, saying that she had never growled at anybody, not even the children. It is true, she is an amiable dog, and didn't try to bite me the time I plucked her away from her hedgehog hunt. It's just a pity that she has such a tendency to abscond, though that is improving with age. It turns out that the old dog fell in the pond last week, and couldn't get out, and the gardener had to wade in and rescue her. I think the pond is about three feet deep, so it's fortunate that he is a gardener and not a fire fighter, and so wasn't inhibited by his lack of training for entering water deeper than knee height.
The children were pressed into service to run the tea room, as they are back from school for the holidays. The young boy took to this with enthusiasm. I think he's quite a keen cook, and he looked in his element wiping tables and making pots of coffee. His sister seemed less enamoured of the tea room. Still, there's nothing wrong with a bit of child labour in a family business. There were two pieces of left over chocolate cake in the staff room, the first I've seen there, but by the time I got in for my tea break somebody else had eaten them.
Trade was sluggish. It's not just us. The driver from one of our suppliers, who brought us 50 trays of one litre herbaceous plants, said that we were his first delivery of the week, and that last week they hadn't had any. It's hard to say whether that'd down to the cold weather making people not feel like shopping for plants, or the hosepipe ban make them not feel like planting them, or just the state of the economy. Given that things were booming when it was warm, a couple of weeks back, weather must have something to do with it. Today was cold, another when I kept having to grope among my various pockets searching for a hankie as my nose wouldn't stop running. When I came back out into the plant centre after my (rather late) lunch, I had to go and get my coat from the car because I was cold, and I was already wearing a fleece, a shirt and two t-shirts, plus thermal leggings under my trousers and a fleece hat.
The door company has not fixed the doors. The boss says they are crooks. It is a reminder how, when buying anything mechanical, the quality and availability of after-sales service is really important. The Systems Administrator and I learnt this the hard way with our Stanley range, a fuel-inefficient and unreliable monster that no local firm was prepared to service, except for the one that sold us the horror in the first place, who charged royally for the privilege.
I bought myself some Primula bulleyana to go in the gunnera bed. They are a candelabra type with apricot flowers that are supposed to like really wet, even boggy, soil, and I am going to try them in the wet seep that runs across the bed. If the site suits them they should self sow. As I walked around the plant centre on various errands, and putting plants out for sale, quite a large part of my mind was occupied, in the absence of customers, with noting what we had available and trying it against gaps in the garden. As I took them out to my car I met the manager in the car park, and explained that I had a damp patch. He said I should keep quiet about that.
The boss revealed that the dog is expecting puppies, her first litter. As she is a sweet little thing the puppies will presumably be almost unbearably cute. The boss praised her nice nature, saying that she had never growled at anybody, not even the children. It is true, she is an amiable dog, and didn't try to bite me the time I plucked her away from her hedgehog hunt. It's just a pity that she has such a tendency to abscond, though that is improving with age. It turns out that the old dog fell in the pond last week, and couldn't get out, and the gardener had to wade in and rescue her. I think the pond is about three feet deep, so it's fortunate that he is a gardener and not a fire fighter, and so wasn't inhibited by his lack of training for entering water deeper than knee height.
The children were pressed into service to run the tea room, as they are back from school for the holidays. The young boy took to this with enthusiasm. I think he's quite a keen cook, and he looked in his element wiping tables and making pots of coffee. His sister seemed less enamoured of the tea room. Still, there's nothing wrong with a bit of child labour in a family business. There were two pieces of left over chocolate cake in the staff room, the first I've seen there, but by the time I got in for my tea break somebody else had eaten them.
Trade was sluggish. It's not just us. The driver from one of our suppliers, who brought us 50 trays of one litre herbaceous plants, said that we were his first delivery of the week, and that last week they hadn't had any. It's hard to say whether that'd down to the cold weather making people not feel like shopping for plants, or the hosepipe ban make them not feel like planting them, or just the state of the economy. Given that things were booming when it was warm, a couple of weeks back, weather must have something to do with it. Today was cold, another when I kept having to grope among my various pockets searching for a hankie as my nose wouldn't stop running. When I came back out into the plant centre after my (rather late) lunch, I had to go and get my coat from the car because I was cold, and I was already wearing a fleece, a shirt and two t-shirts, plus thermal leggings under my trousers and a fleece hat.
The door company has not fixed the doors. The boss says they are crooks. It is a reminder how, when buying anything mechanical, the quality and availability of after-sales service is really important. The Systems Administrator and I learnt this the hard way with our Stanley range, a fuel-inefficient and unreliable monster that no local firm was prepared to service, except for the one that sold us the horror in the first place, who charged royally for the privilege.
I bought myself some Primula bulleyana to go in the gunnera bed. They are a candelabra type with apricot flowers that are supposed to like really wet, even boggy, soil, and I am going to try them in the wet seep that runs across the bed. If the site suits them they should self sow. As I walked around the plant centre on various errands, and putting plants out for sale, quite a large part of my mind was occupied, in the absence of customers, with noting what we had available and trying it against gaps in the garden. As I took them out to my car I met the manager in the car park, and explained that I had a damp patch. He said I should keep quiet about that.
Sunday, 15 April 2012
a garden visit
We went to see the garden at Boxted Mill, which was open in aid of the National Art Fund. The flier promised a riverside walk with daffodils, plus tea and cake, in the beautiful setting of the Dedham vale, which all sounded jolly nice. We had a little difficulty navigating the last stretch along tiny lanes, as my car doesn't have a Sat Nav, and the Systems Administrator's hand held Garmin kept changing its mind about the route it wanted us to take, but we got there, guessed correctly that the collection of cars parked in a field were something to do with the open garden, and sat in the car for five minutes to let the hailstorm pass.
The SA's researches on Google before we set out had led to a discussion forum about the porterage rights of canooists at Boxted Mill. There seemed to have been some difficulties and disagreements with the landowners in the past. My search had come up with a page on the website of the Dedham Vale Society complaining about an electricity pole at Boxted Mill which apparently dominated (and ruined) the appearance of the landscape. Boxted Mill was clearly a contentious place. As we walked back over the bridge from the car park (or field) to the mill we got a fine view of the electricity pole, which is spectacularly ugly, but only visible from limited vantage points. (The road bridge was built in 1900, and before that there wasn't one, just a foot bridge. Tow horses had to cross the Stour twice in the course of passing the mill. Those are my two bits of local history).
The garden walk did indeed take us along the banks of the Stour, and there were lots of daffodils, growing in lush grass. Some clumps were labelled, and few of them were names I recognised. I'm not a daffodil buff, but my guess is that quite a few of them aren't currently available for sale, or not easily. Some had gone over already, but many hadn't, and it was a good display. Apart from the daffodils there were flowering trees, cherries, crab apples and Amelanchier, many labelled which is always a bonus, a couple of nice Acer griseum, and some recently planted Magnolia and other shrubs, all carefully mulched and fenced to protect against rabbits and other marauders. All were set among grass, which was left to grow long and already richly mixed with nettles and cow parsley. Many of the trees showed evidence of past careful pruning and shaping, and some had rambling roses trained up them which were actually going up them, unlike my 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' which always wants to go equally in all directions. I should say that a high level of horticultural skill and effort had gone into producing such an insouciant air of naturalness.
There was evidence of the strained relationship with the canooing fraternity in the form of notices indicating where they were supposed to enter and leave the river above and below the mill race, and instructing them that they must travel straight on through, and not stop to picnic, or wander about the garden. These were supplemented by several notices reiterating that it was a private garden and requesting visitors not to use it as a public lavatory. When we bought our house, one of the things we liked about the position was that it didn't lie on or even near any public right of way. It must be very nice to paddle the length of the Stour, and lots of people do, and should be allowed to, but it must be a pain to have them tramping through your garden, let alone relieving themselves in it.
The mill race itself was rather alarming, I thought, with the water rushing over the sill. We presumed that the house owners must have a close working relationship with the environment agency, and the mill race is all very carefully designed, but there is something frightening about the power and force of water. The mill itself has gone (there is a very spraunchy house with Gothick windows and a lovely conservatory, and a couple of the kind of curved bow window that builders dread having to repair), but the Tate has a painting of a mill building by John Nash dating from 1962.
The view up the river and across the valley, grazed by white and brown cattle, was pure Constable, and the field next to the garden was occupied by some Jacob sheep, which alternated between grazing and marching about as if they had a secret purpose. They had dark brown fleeces and white faces, and little white legs twinkling rather comically under the great round mass of brown wool. Some had horns, but some didn't. There were two white sheep, one white faced and one black, which held themselves slightly apart from the Jacobs.
The big architectural treat of the day was the waterworks just up the road. We glimpsed this through a hedge on the way there, but I had another car on my tail, and we gawped as much as we could on the way home, but it was mostly surrounded by a very solid fence. The waterworks was a piece of unabashed Modernism, presumably interwar, with peeling white paint blowing in the wind. It was an image straight out of the RA's Building the Revolution. The smaller buildings scattered around the site (pump houses? chemical stores?) were in the same style. It would have made the perfect set for a scene in a spy thriller. When I got home I spent some time trying to find out more about it, but without success. The whole site must surely be listed, as it's an extraordinary set of industrial architecture to have survived anywhere, let alone in the rural Dedham Vale (I originally said Suffolk, but thinking about it the waterworks must be on the Essex side of the border). I wish they had an open day. I'd love to go and have a proper look.
The SA's researches on Google before we set out had led to a discussion forum about the porterage rights of canooists at Boxted Mill. There seemed to have been some difficulties and disagreements with the landowners in the past. My search had come up with a page on the website of the Dedham Vale Society complaining about an electricity pole at Boxted Mill which apparently dominated (and ruined) the appearance of the landscape. Boxted Mill was clearly a contentious place. As we walked back over the bridge from the car park (or field) to the mill we got a fine view of the electricity pole, which is spectacularly ugly, but only visible from limited vantage points. (The road bridge was built in 1900, and before that there wasn't one, just a foot bridge. Tow horses had to cross the Stour twice in the course of passing the mill. Those are my two bits of local history).
The garden walk did indeed take us along the banks of the Stour, and there were lots of daffodils, growing in lush grass. Some clumps were labelled, and few of them were names I recognised. I'm not a daffodil buff, but my guess is that quite a few of them aren't currently available for sale, or not easily. Some had gone over already, but many hadn't, and it was a good display. Apart from the daffodils there were flowering trees, cherries, crab apples and Amelanchier, many labelled which is always a bonus, a couple of nice Acer griseum, and some recently planted Magnolia and other shrubs, all carefully mulched and fenced to protect against rabbits and other marauders. All were set among grass, which was left to grow long and already richly mixed with nettles and cow parsley. Many of the trees showed evidence of past careful pruning and shaping, and some had rambling roses trained up them which were actually going up them, unlike my 'Paul's Himalayan Musk' which always wants to go equally in all directions. I should say that a high level of horticultural skill and effort had gone into producing such an insouciant air of naturalness.
There was evidence of the strained relationship with the canooing fraternity in the form of notices indicating where they were supposed to enter and leave the river above and below the mill race, and instructing them that they must travel straight on through, and not stop to picnic, or wander about the garden. These were supplemented by several notices reiterating that it was a private garden and requesting visitors not to use it as a public lavatory. When we bought our house, one of the things we liked about the position was that it didn't lie on or even near any public right of way. It must be very nice to paddle the length of the Stour, and lots of people do, and should be allowed to, but it must be a pain to have them tramping through your garden, let alone relieving themselves in it.
The mill race itself was rather alarming, I thought, with the water rushing over the sill. We presumed that the house owners must have a close working relationship with the environment agency, and the mill race is all very carefully designed, but there is something frightening about the power and force of water. The mill itself has gone (there is a very spraunchy house with Gothick windows and a lovely conservatory, and a couple of the kind of curved bow window that builders dread having to repair), but the Tate has a painting of a mill building by John Nash dating from 1962.
The view up the river and across the valley, grazed by white and brown cattle, was pure Constable, and the field next to the garden was occupied by some Jacob sheep, which alternated between grazing and marching about as if they had a secret purpose. They had dark brown fleeces and white faces, and little white legs twinkling rather comically under the great round mass of brown wool. Some had horns, but some didn't. There were two white sheep, one white faced and one black, which held themselves slightly apart from the Jacobs.
The big architectural treat of the day was the waterworks just up the road. We glimpsed this through a hedge on the way there, but I had another car on my tail, and we gawped as much as we could on the way home, but it was mostly surrounded by a very solid fence. The waterworks was a piece of unabashed Modernism, presumably interwar, with peeling white paint blowing in the wind. It was an image straight out of the RA's Building the Revolution. The smaller buildings scattered around the site (pump houses? chemical stores?) were in the same style. It would have made the perfect set for a scene in a spy thriller. When I got home I spent some time trying to find out more about it, but without success. The whole site must surely be listed, as it's an extraordinary set of industrial architecture to have survived anywhere, let alone in the rural Dedham Vale (I originally said Suffolk, but thinking about it the waterworks must be on the Essex side of the border). I wish they had an open day. I'd love to go and have a proper look.
Saturday, 14 April 2012
it's charity, Jim, but not as we know it
There's been a lot of talk about capping tax relief on charitable donations on the radio and in the papers in the past few days. When the Systems Administrator and I were discussing it over lunch the SA proved unexpectedly firm on the subject, saying that there were a lot of dodgy overseas charities. The SA's time in the City providing administrative services to hedge fund managers gave something of an inside view into their finances, and the verdict was not favourable. I asked what sort of dodgy charities, and the answer was charities that didn't seem to do much you or I would regard as charitable, like digging wells to provide clean drinking water, or providing schools that taught children to read and write, or hospitals that reduced maternal death and injury during childbirth, or vaccinating people against lethal diseases. Dodgy charities, whose main role seemed to be to buy political influence in overseas countries. I said surely that wasn't so common, and the SA said that it was more common than I thought.
A woman speaking in some capacity for the charitable sector complained on Radio 4 that all charitable donors were being unfairly labelled as only giving as a tax dodge, and that it was a slur that would deter charitable giving. No they're not. I haven't heard any Coalition spokesman say that all, or most, charitable giving is merely a ruse to escape tax. I did hear David Cameron say that there were some dubious overseas charities, which is what the SA said.
Lots and lots of people have complained that arts funding will be adversely affected. It may be, but if I were speaking for the arts, if anyone could hold a mandate to do so for the whole of the arts, I would think carefully about what I said. The SA was rather pithy about the arts as well, on the basis that while rich people supporting the arts bring benefits to the rest of us, they are buying into a social circle and benefit directly themselves. That's true. If I were very rich I would love to be a patron of the arts. It would be great fun to endow the new Cardunculus exhibition space at the British Museum, and be invited to very exclusive receptions where I could mix with Grayson Perry and Nigella Lawson AKA Mrs Charles Saatchi. It would certainly be more fun than paying boring old income tax, to fund hospitals, and schools, and the social security budget, and the national debt, getting no thanks or recognition at all except for a computer generated printout from the Inland Revenue. But since I am not rich, and not likely to be, I'll have to go on making do with the odd invitation to previews for Friends of the Royal Academy, and mixing with other Friends and their guests, or fellow holders of National Art Passes.
I'm sure that the rich people who fund the UK's museums, galleries and concert halls genuinely care about the arts and do it for bona fide philanthropic reasons. I'm glad that they do, and that I get to enjoy the fruits of their generosity. But I don't see it as entirely outrageous for there to be a limit on the amount of their donations that can enjoy tax relief, and for philanthropic urges above a certain level to be met out of post tax income, in the same way that the rest of us have to fund our pleasures from what is left of our earnings after we've paid our bit towards public expenditure.
I think arts organisations should keep a little quiet for another reason. The Coalition already has so many fights on their hands that I wouldn't see them picking another one at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of these years the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commissioners began to look more carefully at what is and isn't a charity. Already public schools have come under the spotlight, and are required to provide bursaries, share their facilities with other schools in their area, and generally demonstrate that they provide a benefit to the wider community and not just the children of the better-off parents who can afford to pay the fees. There are a lot of organisations in the UK registered as charities, run by good-hearted, hard-working people, giving pleasure to their members and providing employment,but whose charitable credentials using a strict sense of that word are questionable. My music society, for example, is a registered charity. I think it is a very fine society, bringing good quality chamber music to people outside London, and providing income and concert experience to young musicians at the start of their careers, as well as established artists. I don't really do much, just wash teacups and make party food, but the bookings secretary and chairman work incredibly hard. But if I were, say, a fan of stadium rock with no interest in classical music at all, I might ask why performances of chamber music by dead classical composers to a predominantly middle class audience got more favourable tax treatment than my kind of music. The music society has started funding workshops in schools, but worthy as that is it doesn't account for a very big part of the budget.
Charities dealing with cultural interests, like art, or music, or gardening, will have to walk a tightrope if they are to become more charitable in the strict sense that giving to cancer research is charitable. In making themselves appeal to a wider section of society they risk alienating the people who are currently funding them. The RHS in recent years has made much of its charitable goals, promoting community vegetable gardening, school gardens and such like. That's very admirable, but may not interest their current members. I recently heard a very keen Suffolk gardener, somebody who has been on plant hunting expeditions in Nepal, say that he was going to give up his RHS membership, since he never went to the Chelsea Flower Show, and the magazine was rubbish nowadays. Harsh words, but he felt that the society in trying to broaden its appeal was no longer providing enough of interest to really serious gardeners. It's going to be a juggling act.
A woman speaking in some capacity for the charitable sector complained on Radio 4 that all charitable donors were being unfairly labelled as only giving as a tax dodge, and that it was a slur that would deter charitable giving. No they're not. I haven't heard any Coalition spokesman say that all, or most, charitable giving is merely a ruse to escape tax. I did hear David Cameron say that there were some dubious overseas charities, which is what the SA said.
Lots and lots of people have complained that arts funding will be adversely affected. It may be, but if I were speaking for the arts, if anyone could hold a mandate to do so for the whole of the arts, I would think carefully about what I said. The SA was rather pithy about the arts as well, on the basis that while rich people supporting the arts bring benefits to the rest of us, they are buying into a social circle and benefit directly themselves. That's true. If I were very rich I would love to be a patron of the arts. It would be great fun to endow the new Cardunculus exhibition space at the British Museum, and be invited to very exclusive receptions where I could mix with Grayson Perry and Nigella Lawson AKA Mrs Charles Saatchi. It would certainly be more fun than paying boring old income tax, to fund hospitals, and schools, and the social security budget, and the national debt, getting no thanks or recognition at all except for a computer generated printout from the Inland Revenue. But since I am not rich, and not likely to be, I'll have to go on making do with the odd invitation to previews for Friends of the Royal Academy, and mixing with other Friends and their guests, or fellow holders of National Art Passes.
I'm sure that the rich people who fund the UK's museums, galleries and concert halls genuinely care about the arts and do it for bona fide philanthropic reasons. I'm glad that they do, and that I get to enjoy the fruits of their generosity. But I don't see it as entirely outrageous for there to be a limit on the amount of their donations that can enjoy tax relief, and for philanthropic urges above a certain level to be met out of post tax income, in the same way that the rest of us have to fund our pleasures from what is left of our earnings after we've paid our bit towards public expenditure.
I think arts organisations should keep a little quiet for another reason. The Coalition already has so many fights on their hands that I wouldn't see them picking another one at the moment, but it wouldn't surprise me if one of these years the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commissioners began to look more carefully at what is and isn't a charity. Already public schools have come under the spotlight, and are required to provide bursaries, share their facilities with other schools in their area, and generally demonstrate that they provide a benefit to the wider community and not just the children of the better-off parents who can afford to pay the fees. There are a lot of organisations in the UK registered as charities, run by good-hearted, hard-working people, giving pleasure to their members and providing employment,but whose charitable credentials using a strict sense of that word are questionable. My music society, for example, is a registered charity. I think it is a very fine society, bringing good quality chamber music to people outside London, and providing income and concert experience to young musicians at the start of their careers, as well as established artists. I don't really do much, just wash teacups and make party food, but the bookings secretary and chairman work incredibly hard. But if I were, say, a fan of stadium rock with no interest in classical music at all, I might ask why performances of chamber music by dead classical composers to a predominantly middle class audience got more favourable tax treatment than my kind of music. The music society has started funding workshops in schools, but worthy as that is it doesn't account for a very big part of the budget.
Charities dealing with cultural interests, like art, or music, or gardening, will have to walk a tightrope if they are to become more charitable in the strict sense that giving to cancer research is charitable. In making themselves appeal to a wider section of society they risk alienating the people who are currently funding them. The RHS in recent years has made much of its charitable goals, promoting community vegetable gardening, school gardens and such like. That's very admirable, but may not interest their current members. I recently heard a very keen Suffolk gardener, somebody who has been on plant hunting expeditions in Nepal, say that he was going to give up his RHS membership, since he never went to the Chelsea Flower Show, and the magazine was rubbish nowadays. Harsh words, but he felt that the society in trying to broaden its appeal was no longer providing enough of interest to really serious gardeners. It's going to be a juggling act.
Friday, 13 April 2012
making it up as you go along
I found the village hall where I was doing last night's talk easily enough, and there were no traffic jams, so I arrived with loads of time to spare. I'd rather do it that way round, and go through my talk again in my head sitting in the car, than be sitting in stationary traffic or hunting for an apparently non-existent venue as the minutes tick by. It was a nice village. There was a sign outside the pub on the way up to the village hall that read 'Beer runs out soon. Please panic buy'. As I sat in the car I saw a small bird with a very dark patch on top of its head, and no other obvious markings, flit about in a tree and then suddenly swing upside down below the branchit was perching on to pick some morsel out of the top of the hedge below, so I wondered if it was a blackcap, given there is such a thing. I looked them up on the RSPB site this morning and it could have been. Apparently the song is very distinctive, but I didn't hear it singing, and the RSPB didn't say whether it was likely to hang upside down from branches. The talk went fine, though the hall had dreadful acoustics and I had to wear a clip on microphone, which meant I had to be careful how much I moved my head.
Today I returned to working on the back garden, and kept away from the new deck, since it turned out that the reason the Systems Administrator hadn't pressed on with construction the other day was that it was impossible to move beams around with my face centimetres from the work. Which is fair enough. It is going to have a boardwalk path to it, design to be finalised after the rest of the deck has been built and we can see what it looks like. I fancy a Japanese style one, with two lengths parallel to each other but offset, overlapping in the middle. Apparently witches can only run in straight lines and so can't manage the corner and can't get across. I'm sure it would be a useful precaution to keep witches off. Alternatively you could say that by forcing people to pause and take a sideways step as they approach the deck, you slow them down and make them focus on the moment. The SA is not too fussed about witches, and is not sure about doing a sideways step while carrying a deckchair and a gin and tonic, so we'll see. The SA's idea is that the boardwalk could be curved. The deck is going to have a back, to give protection from the south-westerlies, and to stop the hedge growing out across it, and to make it feel slightly enclosed and more of a place. The design of the back also has to be decided once the deck is in place. I don't know if it should have an umbrella of some vaguely oriental design. We are not really designers, making each bit up as we go along when we can see the effect of what we have done already.
I finally found a home for three glass ornaments I bought at least year's Chelsea Flower Show. They are solid glass, quite thick and roughly egg shaped in outline, in blue and green, and they come with metal loops at the top for hanging them up. They were from a brother and sister team trading as Hayhoe Designs, and I'd been eyeing up their stand for several years before settling on a trio of what they call glass leaves (I think they look more like fruit myself) for starters. Then I couldn't immediately see exactly where to put them. The back garden is starting to get quite full of ornaments, to the point where in the not too distant future there won't be room for any more, except small details that you only see when you're right on top of them. Some people, famously Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto, loathe sculptures, ornaments or eyecatchers in the garden. I love them, but it's essential to avoid becoming cluttered. Each needs its own space and frame, and they mustn't be allowed to obtrude on each other.
The glass leaves, or fruit, needed to hang from a tree, which reduced the list of possible locations, and I wanted to put them somewhere so that, if they fell, they wouldn't either break or get lost. I finally settled on a crab apple in the front garden, near where I already have a Whichford bespoke egg shaped obilesk with an inscription on it. They're suspended using fishing line, which is almost invisible but difficult to tie in a tight knot, so if they do come undone they'll just fall on earth, or ground covering plants, and I should find them again. I like them enough that I might buy some more, if the people are at Chelsea again this year. The news on their website is still for 2011, but they're probably still in business and just haven't updated the site. I really liked their glass panels, but they were quite expensive, and the SA was bullish about how it would be possible to make them at home. Whether we'd have time is another question.
The 'Taihaku' survived the hail storm, by the way, though the lawn is becoming littered with fallen petals, and its days of glory for this year are numbered. At least it came out. A good friend of the SA lost all of the flowers on his magnolia, hit by one cold night at critically the wrong moment.
Today I returned to working on the back garden, and kept away from the new deck, since it turned out that the reason the Systems Administrator hadn't pressed on with construction the other day was that it was impossible to move beams around with my face centimetres from the work. Which is fair enough. It is going to have a boardwalk path to it, design to be finalised after the rest of the deck has been built and we can see what it looks like. I fancy a Japanese style one, with two lengths parallel to each other but offset, overlapping in the middle. Apparently witches can only run in straight lines and so can't manage the corner and can't get across. I'm sure it would be a useful precaution to keep witches off. Alternatively you could say that by forcing people to pause and take a sideways step as they approach the deck, you slow them down and make them focus on the moment. The SA is not too fussed about witches, and is not sure about doing a sideways step while carrying a deckchair and a gin and tonic, so we'll see. The SA's idea is that the boardwalk could be curved. The deck is going to have a back, to give protection from the south-westerlies, and to stop the hedge growing out across it, and to make it feel slightly enclosed and more of a place. The design of the back also has to be decided once the deck is in place. I don't know if it should have an umbrella of some vaguely oriental design. We are not really designers, making each bit up as we go along when we can see the effect of what we have done already.
I finally found a home for three glass ornaments I bought at least year's Chelsea Flower Show. They are solid glass, quite thick and roughly egg shaped in outline, in blue and green, and they come with metal loops at the top for hanging them up. They were from a brother and sister team trading as Hayhoe Designs, and I'd been eyeing up their stand for several years before settling on a trio of what they call glass leaves (I think they look more like fruit myself) for starters. Then I couldn't immediately see exactly where to put them. The back garden is starting to get quite full of ornaments, to the point where in the not too distant future there won't be room for any more, except small details that you only see when you're right on top of them. Some people, famously Christopher Lloyd and Beth Chatto, loathe sculptures, ornaments or eyecatchers in the garden. I love them, but it's essential to avoid becoming cluttered. Each needs its own space and frame, and they mustn't be allowed to obtrude on each other.
The glass leaves, or fruit, needed to hang from a tree, which reduced the list of possible locations, and I wanted to put them somewhere so that, if they fell, they wouldn't either break or get lost. I finally settled on a crab apple in the front garden, near where I already have a Whichford bespoke egg shaped obilesk with an inscription on it. They're suspended using fishing line, which is almost invisible but difficult to tie in a tight knot, so if they do come undone they'll just fall on earth, or ground covering plants, and I should find them again. I like them enough that I might buy some more, if the people are at Chelsea again this year. The news on their website is still for 2011, but they're probably still in business and just haven't updated the site. I really liked their glass panels, but they were quite expensive, and the SA was bullish about how it would be possible to make them at home. Whether we'd have time is another question.
The 'Taihaku' survived the hail storm, by the way, though the lawn is becoming littered with fallen petals, and its days of glory for this year are numbered. At least it came out. A good friend of the SA lost all of the flowers on his magnolia, hit by one cold night at critically the wrong moment.
Thursday, 12 April 2012
another talk
I'm doing another talk tonight, this time on bee friendly gardening to a garden club. I talk using plants as props, not slides, which many audiences seem to like. You don't have to put the lights out, for a start, and the speaker can make eye contact with the audience, and it seems altogether more like a live experience than sitting in the dark while somebody lectures (one hopes not droning on) about a set of slides. Also they can buy any plants they like the sound of to take home. The downside is that I can't always get hold of some plant I really want to talk about, and they aren't always prime examples, like the Fuchsia 'Hawkshead' I'm taking along, which along with all the other fuchsias at the plant centre has been lightly but perceptibly touched by frost. Plus, of course, I have to drive over to the plant centre to borrow the plants. All in all it amounts to a day's work, but at least half of it is done in the evening, leaving me with some daylight hours free for gardening.
It's a funny thing going to your place of work on a day when you're not working. I'd checked as a courtesy with the manager that it would be OK for me to borrow the plants (it always has been in the past, but it never does to take things for granted), but he had the day off today. My colleagues were surprised to see me, and I explained that I was borrowing plants for a talk, and that the manager knew about it, and introduced myself to a woman who does tea shop duty during the week, whom I'd never met, though I'd seen her time sheets. My keen new young colleague hovered around the trolley of plants as I finished picking out packets of seeds in the shop, chattering socially and incessantly, which was slightly distracting in that I was trying to make sure I hadn't forgotten to pick up anything on my list, then asked me with a faintly defensive and proprietorial air what the drill was, then. Did 'we' keep a list of what I'd taken. I said that no, they didn't, I just brought the plants back and paid the money for any I'd sold.
I could see where he was coming from. He previously worked for a large garden chain, where I think they did have measures in place against staff theft. Somebody else who worked there once mentioned bag and car searches. We don't. If I'm buying plants for my own use, on days when I'm at work, I put them through the till myself, and am trusted to do so. You could have a system whereby everybody had to pay via a colleague, or the manager, and where the manager or owner reserved the right to do spot checks of cars at the end of the day, but we don't. In the end the owners have to decide whether or not they trust us. So if I were to want to steal from my employers, which I don't, I could think of far easier and more subtle ways of doing it than marching in on a day when the manager wasn't there and 'borrowing' a trolley load of plants, and if I thought my employers believed I might steal from them, I wouldn't want to work for them.
My colleague's (probably unwitting) air of suspicion highlighted how odd it is to go to your place of work on one of your days off. Suddenly you aren't part of the team. If the phone rings you don't answer it (I do find myself pointing customers in the right direction if they ask where things are, because so many of them recognise me by now). If I'm taking plants back on a non-working day I don't touch the till, but ask somebody else to ring things through for me. On non-working days at work you are neither fish nor fowl. You know how things work, but aren't expected to do anything about them.
Back in the garden at home I sat for a while under the 'Taihaku', listening to the sound of the bees working the blossom, then went on with digging around the yellow bamboo, until driven in by a hailstorm. I haven't been out to look yet, but I hope it hasn't done too much damage to the cherry flowers.
It's a funny thing going to your place of work on a day when you're not working. I'd checked as a courtesy with the manager that it would be OK for me to borrow the plants (it always has been in the past, but it never does to take things for granted), but he had the day off today. My colleagues were surprised to see me, and I explained that I was borrowing plants for a talk, and that the manager knew about it, and introduced myself to a woman who does tea shop duty during the week, whom I'd never met, though I'd seen her time sheets. My keen new young colleague hovered around the trolley of plants as I finished picking out packets of seeds in the shop, chattering socially and incessantly, which was slightly distracting in that I was trying to make sure I hadn't forgotten to pick up anything on my list, then asked me with a faintly defensive and proprietorial air what the drill was, then. Did 'we' keep a list of what I'd taken. I said that no, they didn't, I just brought the plants back and paid the money for any I'd sold.
I could see where he was coming from. He previously worked for a large garden chain, where I think they did have measures in place against staff theft. Somebody else who worked there once mentioned bag and car searches. We don't. If I'm buying plants for my own use, on days when I'm at work, I put them through the till myself, and am trusted to do so. You could have a system whereby everybody had to pay via a colleague, or the manager, and where the manager or owner reserved the right to do spot checks of cars at the end of the day, but we don't. In the end the owners have to decide whether or not they trust us. So if I were to want to steal from my employers, which I don't, I could think of far easier and more subtle ways of doing it than marching in on a day when the manager wasn't there and 'borrowing' a trolley load of plants, and if I thought my employers believed I might steal from them, I wouldn't want to work for them.
My colleague's (probably unwitting) air of suspicion highlighted how odd it is to go to your place of work on one of your days off. Suddenly you aren't part of the team. If the phone rings you don't answer it (I do find myself pointing customers in the right direction if they ask where things are, because so many of them recognise me by now). If I'm taking plants back on a non-working day I don't touch the till, but ask somebody else to ring things through for me. On non-working days at work you are neither fish nor fowl. You know how things work, but aren't expected to do anything about them.
Back in the garden at home I sat for a while under the 'Taihaku', listening to the sound of the bees working the blossom, then went on with digging around the yellow bamboo, until driven in by a hailstorm. I haven't been out to look yet, but I hope it hasn't done too much damage to the cherry flowers.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
a local gig
I have just (10.00pm) got in from a woodland charity talk. It was a very local gig, at the WI in the neighbouring village, so it took me six minutes to drive back, which helps average out last time, when I went to Thundersley. I can't see myself getting a more local booking than that unless the neighbours decide they'd like to host a woodland charity talk in their front room.
The woman who books the speakers rang this morning in a state of suppressed panic to check that I was going, which was cutting it fine, supposing I'd forgotten, or double booked myself. I was fairly relaxed about not hearing from her earlier, since I knew that they were expecting me because they'd said so in the write-up of their previous meeting in the parish magazine. Actually, according to the article they were not expecting me, but somebody with a different name. We were discussing this at my brother in law's at the weekend. When you have a name that almost nobody knows how to pronounce, many people fail to hear it, and transpose it into a vaguely similar but more familiar name.
The local WI turned out to be a feisty lot. The Chairwoman started the meeting by ringing a medium sized cow bell on a ribbon, which produced cries of Moo Moo from the front row. There followed a spirited and quite lengthy discussion about whether the national annual convention should be at a larger and grander venue than the usual Albert Hall (as featured in Calendar Girls), either Wembley Stadium (which would cost more) or the O2 (which would cost more still). This provoked howls of protest from the local ladies, who thought either a waste of money which the WI did not even have, and more hoots of derision at the idea that they might like to pay extra for entertainment following the usual proceedings. Then they got on to a national meeting involving second hand hat sales (or swaps, I didn't gather). The Chairwoman demanded to know who on earth wanted to wear a hat that had been on an unknown person's head, and a lively discussion of nits and the evils of children's dressing up boxes containing hats ensued. I felt rather nervous by the time I took the stage.
They were well behaved after that, and all looked interested in hearing about trees and woodland, except for one who yawned throughout, but there's usually one, and nobody went to sleep (a particular hazard with pensioners' friendship groups in the afternoons). They didn't have many questions, seeming more interested in getting on to the tea and cakes, and gossip. They were very good cakes, and I had a small second supper which I didn't need, but enjoyed. I had to judge the competition for an arrangement of spring flowers, which I did more or less at random, since I have no idea how you judge flower arrangements. (The boss once had to judge them at an RHS show, and was given a crash course in judging at the last minute by somebody high up in the national floristry association. I just make it up).
I didn't get caught by the railway crossing gates going either way, otherwise it would have taken more than six minutes.
Addendum I should be glad I am not judging next month's competition, which is for An Edible Necklace. The mind boggles.
The woman who books the speakers rang this morning in a state of suppressed panic to check that I was going, which was cutting it fine, supposing I'd forgotten, or double booked myself. I was fairly relaxed about not hearing from her earlier, since I knew that they were expecting me because they'd said so in the write-up of their previous meeting in the parish magazine. Actually, according to the article they were not expecting me, but somebody with a different name. We were discussing this at my brother in law's at the weekend. When you have a name that almost nobody knows how to pronounce, many people fail to hear it, and transpose it into a vaguely similar but more familiar name.
The local WI turned out to be a feisty lot. The Chairwoman started the meeting by ringing a medium sized cow bell on a ribbon, which produced cries of Moo Moo from the front row. There followed a spirited and quite lengthy discussion about whether the national annual convention should be at a larger and grander venue than the usual Albert Hall (as featured in Calendar Girls), either Wembley Stadium (which would cost more) or the O2 (which would cost more still). This provoked howls of protest from the local ladies, who thought either a waste of money which the WI did not even have, and more hoots of derision at the idea that they might like to pay extra for entertainment following the usual proceedings. Then they got on to a national meeting involving second hand hat sales (or swaps, I didn't gather). The Chairwoman demanded to know who on earth wanted to wear a hat that had been on an unknown person's head, and a lively discussion of nits and the evils of children's dressing up boxes containing hats ensued. I felt rather nervous by the time I took the stage.
They were well behaved after that, and all looked interested in hearing about trees and woodland, except for one who yawned throughout, but there's usually one, and nobody went to sleep (a particular hazard with pensioners' friendship groups in the afternoons). They didn't have many questions, seeming more interested in getting on to the tea and cakes, and gossip. They were very good cakes, and I had a small second supper which I didn't need, but enjoyed. I had to judge the competition for an arrangement of spring flowers, which I did more or less at random, since I have no idea how you judge flower arrangements. (The boss once had to judge them at an RHS show, and was given a crash course in judging at the last minute by somebody high up in the national floristry association. I just make it up).
I didn't get caught by the railway crossing gates going either way, otherwise it would have taken more than six minutes.
Addendum I should be glad I am not judging next month's competition, which is for An Edible Necklace. The mind boggles.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
back in the gunnera bed
I had been thinking of going up to London today, to catch
the polar expedition photos at the Royal Gallery before they end, and the
Zoffany exhibition at the RA, and maybe finish up with the RHS show in Vincent
Square, which didn’t shut until 7pm and would have seen me through until after
the watershed for the cheap trains.
Yesterday when it was so grey and cold that seemed like a good
plan. This morning, with the sun
shining enticingly on the garden and ‘Taihaku’ glowing in all its snowy glory,
it seemed a less attractive way to spend the day. When I discovered I’d lost the stamped ticket from my previous
trip to the Royal Gallery, that would have let me in free today, I gave up on the
whole plan, and decided to push on with clearing the gunnera bed instead. (There is no gunnera in the gunnera bed at the moment. It died. I have a rather sorry looking little replacement in a pot in the greenhouse that needs planting out).
'Taihaku' turned out to be absolutely humming with bees working the flowers, and as I admired it against a blue sky I was glad I'd taken the time to look at it. By lunchtime I’d almost cleared the nettles from the area
where the new deck is supposed to go, so I told the Systems Administrator that
it was virtually ready, and that soon after lunch I’d be ready to hand the site
over, suggesting hopefully that work could start tomorrow, or even this
afternoon. So far the position of the
deck is marked by four alder posts out of the wood banged into the ground. Alder is supposed to be resistant to rot
when in contact with wet soil, and we are going to test this empirically by
using it for the deck uprights. The SA
came and measured the distance apart of the posts, remarked that they were not
square but it didn’t matter, and disappeared into the workshop. I heard the sound of a circular saw, but no
further progress materialised on the ground.
I advanced up the bed, digging out nettle roots and
chiselling away at more of the yellow bamboo.
Parts of the bed have water lying on the surface despite the drought,
other parts are stickily damp, and patches are quite dry. I think the original clump of Phyllostachys
nigra died of excessive water at the root, since while bamboo likes
reliable moisture, it is not a bog plant.
It managed to spread before dying, so there is some black bamboo growing
on drier ground, though not nearly so much as there is of the yellow sort. I got the two rolls of galvanised lawn
edging back out of the garage, as I am determined to keep going this time until
I’ve got the yellow monster contained.
The nettle roots have unfortunately worked in between the
roots of the tree that isn’t a swamp cypress in places, which has meant I have
caused some damage to the tree in the course of extracting the nettles. They have run into the bamboo a little, but
haven’t yet had time to delve deep, and I think I’m managing to pull most of
them out. I discovered the red leaves
of an ornamental rhubarb emerging from one especially prominent lump of nettle
roots, so it’s a stroke of luck I didn’t get round to removing them earlier in the
season, when the rhubarb was dormant and I might not have realised what it was.
The tree that isn’t a swamp cypress was bought and planted
under the impression that it was one, and referred to as The swamp cypress for
years. However, as I looked at it, and
at trees in public gardens that had labels on them, and young trees for sale at
work, I became more and more convinced that it was not a swamp cypress, Taxodium
distichum, at all, but a Metasequoia glyptostroboides, or dawn
redwood. I haven’t found telling the
two apart as cut and dried as the tree books make it sound it ought to be. The arrangement of the leaves is supposed to
be the clincher, opposite pairs in the case of the redwood, alternate for the
swamp cypress, but labelled trees I looked at in public gardens, and our tree,
seemed to exhibit both, and the length of the leaves also seemed intermediate
between the two descriptions. Our tree
developed a marked flare at the base of the trunk, said to be characteristic of
Metasequoia, but Taxodium sometimes does that too. Deciding whether the bark was spongier and
redder than that of a different species without being able to compare the two
side by side was tricky. Every time we
visited a garden that had either, or both, I rushed up to them, checked whether
they were labelled, and examined for diagnostic clues, but there seemed to be a
wide range of different forms across both species. However, our tree does look more and more like a Metasequoia,
and so has come to be called The tree that isn’t a swamp cypress. I don’t especially mind it being a dawn
redwood, since it is a good looking tree, and the story of how they came into
cultivation in the west is quite romantic.
They were known from fossil records, and thought to be extinct, until a
small colony was found growing in China in 1943, and identified as the extinct
tree in 1948. The Arnold Arboretum of
Harvard University collected seed, and the species entered western
cultivation. It is critically endangered
in the wild, so it’s just as well there are specimens scattered over the
gardens of the western world. According
to my Collins Tree Guide it roots very easily from cuttings, though I haven’t
tried. One giant conifer is enough for
the garden.
At twenty to six there was a clap of thunder, and it began
to rain, suddenly and quite hard. I put
my tools back in the garage, and asked the SA through the front door whether
the rain had driven the chickens in, or whether the SA was stuck in the
porch. The letterbox flap opened, and
the SA looked at me through the slot.
‘They haven’t gone to bed. I
think they’re in your greenhouse’.
The next thunderclap was almost instantaneous with the lightning, and
tripped the switch on the fusebox. From
the porch the SA could smell the ozone off the strike. Then the storm passed, and the chickens went
to bed.
Monday, 9 April 2012
the long cold Monday
We were later than we meant to be getting to my in-laws yesterday. We didn't get up as early as we should have done, and when I came downstairs I found that one of the cats had been copiously sick in the hall, so we ended up leaving home a quarter an hour later than we said we would, and then it turned out that driving to Northampton honestly takes more like two and a half hours than the two hours we'd optimistically assumed. It's the last bit that takes forever, when the Sat Nav says you are 20 miles from your destination, and you drive and drive and it is still 20 miles. We took a wrong turning in Northampton itself, and found ourselves heading south to join the motorway, and our destination, which had been down to only 8 miles away, suddenly leapt back to 13. Anyway, we got there, and had a very nice day.
This morning I came downstairs to find that the door of the dishwasher had stuck shut, and I couldn't open it to unload it, so I had to leave the Systems Administrator a note that said Can't open dishwasher, and set off to work. It was very cold at work. And damp. Raw, I should call it, or perhaps dank, or maybe dank and raw. Some think tank has calculated that each bank holiday costs the economy two and a half billion quid (or something) in lost output and suggested that they should be more evenly spread through the year (actually, their other suggestion was that we should scrap them altogether and each work 500 hours a year more, like the South Koreans). Bank holidays are good for the plant retail trade, so they don't cost us, but they would be more use to us if the weather could be nicer. There is no logical reason why the April bank holiday Monday has to be tied to the moving religious festival that is Easter, given that by Monday the religious bit is all over, so maybe it should be shifted to July, say, when the weather might be warmer. Although there have been years recently when April has been one long heatwave and by July summer has been a total washout.
The shops doors are getting more and more erratic. The boss is completely exasperated with the door company, who charge a fortune to service the doors without actually fixing them. I suggested that he should look and see if he could identify the parts numbers and buy the bits on the internet, and get our friendly local electrician to fit them. The SA, who is not any sort of qualified engineer, has so far mended a shower (replacement cartridge, basically a valve and washer), a loo (ballcock assembly), the lawn tractor (replacement starter motor mesh gear) and Kitchenaid mixer (new gasket and lubricant) by dint of finding instructions and buying parts on the internet, and his brother services his own oil-fired Aga. You can get detailed diagrams and specifications of practically anything nowadays on the net, and buy parts, so the days of niche service companies charging mark-ups of five million percent to source and fit obscure replacement parts from Europe or the States ought to be limited.
I was the unexpected recipient of an Easter egg, which was nice, since it was my only one. A supplier sends us nests of eggs packed in straw in 2 litre flowerpots, very jolly, as an Easter present for the staff, and the manager had kept eggs for those of us who weren't there when the delivery with the eggs arrived, after previous years when they were scoffed instantly by those who happened to be at work at the time. Unfortunately the manager discovered the egg in the course of rummaging through his bag looking for some money he thought he'd left there, and as he didn't find the cash he became more and more anxious while I had more and more of a sinking feeling of here we go again. Several years ago we went through a bad patch when the tills kept being down in cash terms, and never discovered the culprit, but it created an appalling atmosphere, so the thought that there might be a pilferer in our midst was terribly depressing. The manager rang his wife in case he'd left the cash at home, and she couldn't find it either, so the gloom lasted until mid afternoon when she told him she'd found it in his other bag. Panic over. I leave my cash, credit cards and phone out of sight in my locked car, and keep the car key hung round my neck so I can't drop it somewhere in the plant centre. It's not that I distrust my colleagues, but since the key to the staff room is kept on a hook on the door frame, it amounts to leaving it unlocked, and no sane person leaves their valuables all day in an unattended, unlocked room in a public place.
The last customers had gone by five, and I spent the last hour putting plants out for sale, working conscientiously to get quite a lot done, but I was mightily relieved when it got to six o'clock and I could go home. When I got back I found a piece of dishwasher on the doorstep, and the SA explained that it really wasn't worth trying to mend this one, regardless of internet diagrams and parts. Something to do with the automatic door locking has failed, and the SA had to jemmy it open in the end to rescue the plates and cutlery from inside. It was a very old dishwasher.
This morning I came downstairs to find that the door of the dishwasher had stuck shut, and I couldn't open it to unload it, so I had to leave the Systems Administrator a note that said Can't open dishwasher, and set off to work. It was very cold at work. And damp. Raw, I should call it, or perhaps dank, or maybe dank and raw. Some think tank has calculated that each bank holiday costs the economy two and a half billion quid (or something) in lost output and suggested that they should be more evenly spread through the year (actually, their other suggestion was that we should scrap them altogether and each work 500 hours a year more, like the South Koreans). Bank holidays are good for the plant retail trade, so they don't cost us, but they would be more use to us if the weather could be nicer. There is no logical reason why the April bank holiday Monday has to be tied to the moving religious festival that is Easter, given that by Monday the religious bit is all over, so maybe it should be shifted to July, say, when the weather might be warmer. Although there have been years recently when April has been one long heatwave and by July summer has been a total washout.
The shops doors are getting more and more erratic. The boss is completely exasperated with the door company, who charge a fortune to service the doors without actually fixing them. I suggested that he should look and see if he could identify the parts numbers and buy the bits on the internet, and get our friendly local electrician to fit them. The SA, who is not any sort of qualified engineer, has so far mended a shower (replacement cartridge, basically a valve and washer), a loo (ballcock assembly), the lawn tractor (replacement starter motor mesh gear) and Kitchenaid mixer (new gasket and lubricant) by dint of finding instructions and buying parts on the internet, and his brother services his own oil-fired Aga. You can get detailed diagrams and specifications of practically anything nowadays on the net, and buy parts, so the days of niche service companies charging mark-ups of five million percent to source and fit obscure replacement parts from Europe or the States ought to be limited.
I was the unexpected recipient of an Easter egg, which was nice, since it was my only one. A supplier sends us nests of eggs packed in straw in 2 litre flowerpots, very jolly, as an Easter present for the staff, and the manager had kept eggs for those of us who weren't there when the delivery with the eggs arrived, after previous years when they were scoffed instantly by those who happened to be at work at the time. Unfortunately the manager discovered the egg in the course of rummaging through his bag looking for some money he thought he'd left there, and as he didn't find the cash he became more and more anxious while I had more and more of a sinking feeling of here we go again. Several years ago we went through a bad patch when the tills kept being down in cash terms, and never discovered the culprit, but it created an appalling atmosphere, so the thought that there might be a pilferer in our midst was terribly depressing. The manager rang his wife in case he'd left the cash at home, and she couldn't find it either, so the gloom lasted until mid afternoon when she told him she'd found it in his other bag. Panic over. I leave my cash, credit cards and phone out of sight in my locked car, and keep the car key hung round my neck so I can't drop it somewhere in the plant centre. It's not that I distrust my colleagues, but since the key to the staff room is kept on a hook on the door frame, it amounts to leaving it unlocked, and no sane person leaves their valuables all day in an unattended, unlocked room in a public place.
The last customers had gone by five, and I spent the last hour putting plants out for sale, working conscientiously to get quite a lot done, but I was mightily relieved when it got to six o'clock and I could go home. When I got back I found a piece of dishwasher on the doorstep, and the SA explained that it really wasn't worth trying to mend this one, regardless of internet diagrams and parts. Something to do with the automatic door locking has failed, and the SA had to jemmy it open in the end to rescue the plates and cutlery from inside. It was a very old dishwasher.
Sunday, 8 April 2012
here's one I made before the programme
Today we are going over to Northamptonshire for a family get-together, setting out at half past eight or as near as we can manage. I'm sure I'm not going to have time to post anything before we go out, and probably won't feel inclined to post anything by the time we get back, so the draft of Sunday's post is being written on Saturday evening. I try not to do that, but there you go.
It has been a bad year for daffodils in our garden, many clumps coming up blind, and those that flowered not lasting long. We have debated whether the blindness is because the bulbs have been too dry for the past couple of years, or have got congested over time, or have been attacked by narcissus root fly or other pests, without coming to any conclusion. I suppose if I were to dig some bulbs up I could check for disease, and even see if the clumps looked congested. The drought hypothesis is untestable, since we can't run the last two years again but with more rain, and see how the daffodils turn out. The ones in the car park at work look very nice and extremely prolific, so it doesn't seem to be a bad year for daffodils generally. I put the short season down to the unseasonably hot weather. We have got tickets for a garden that's opening next weekend in aid of the Art Fund, and one of the attractions was the daffodil collection, but I suspect they may be largely over.
By way of consolation, the tulips that I planted last year in the dahlia bed, after they had done their first flowering in pots, are making quite a good display. Tulips tend not to last for many years in the ground, or at least not the tall ones. Some of the species and low growing miniatures are more durable. I buy new bulbs for the pots, since they are so much larger and fatter when they come from the bulb merchant, but it seems a shame to throw them away afterwards, unless they have fragmented to tiny bulblets, so for the past two years I've shoved them into any gaps in the dahlia bed, trying not to dig up the dahlias, and planting them as deep as I can manage.
The pasque flowers, Pulsatilla vulgaris, are having a great year in the long bed in the front garden. Books talk about how it is a flower of chalk grassland, but it is very happy in an acid flowerbed, with pin-sharp drainage. They seed themselves around mildly, and I thought that this year I should collect some seed and see if I can raise some seedlings in modules, as well as trusting to nature. It is difficult not to smother the smaller seedlings with mulch in the flowerbed.
I have bought some violas for my sister in law, a pale yellow called 'Dawn', a mauve and creamy yellow called 'Rebecca', and a grey and veined yellow called 'Green Goddess'. Giving other people plants is a tricky business, but she probably has enough chocolate at Easter already and doesn't drink. Violas don't take up too much space, and are ephemeral enough that you aren't demanding your host finds a permanent slot in their garden for your gift, so they seem a fairly safe bet. And they are so pretty. Who could look at them and not love them?
Have a nice Easter.
It has been a bad year for daffodils in our garden, many clumps coming up blind, and those that flowered not lasting long. We have debated whether the blindness is because the bulbs have been too dry for the past couple of years, or have got congested over time, or have been attacked by narcissus root fly or other pests, without coming to any conclusion. I suppose if I were to dig some bulbs up I could check for disease, and even see if the clumps looked congested. The drought hypothesis is untestable, since we can't run the last two years again but with more rain, and see how the daffodils turn out. The ones in the car park at work look very nice and extremely prolific, so it doesn't seem to be a bad year for daffodils generally. I put the short season down to the unseasonably hot weather. We have got tickets for a garden that's opening next weekend in aid of the Art Fund, and one of the attractions was the daffodil collection, but I suspect they may be largely over.
By way of consolation, the tulips that I planted last year in the dahlia bed, after they had done their first flowering in pots, are making quite a good display. Tulips tend not to last for many years in the ground, or at least not the tall ones. Some of the species and low growing miniatures are more durable. I buy new bulbs for the pots, since they are so much larger and fatter when they come from the bulb merchant, but it seems a shame to throw them away afterwards, unless they have fragmented to tiny bulblets, so for the past two years I've shoved them into any gaps in the dahlia bed, trying not to dig up the dahlias, and planting them as deep as I can manage.
The pasque flowers, Pulsatilla vulgaris, are having a great year in the long bed in the front garden. Books talk about how it is a flower of chalk grassland, but it is very happy in an acid flowerbed, with pin-sharp drainage. They seed themselves around mildly, and I thought that this year I should collect some seed and see if I can raise some seedlings in modules, as well as trusting to nature. It is difficult not to smother the smaller seedlings with mulch in the flowerbed.
I have bought some violas for my sister in law, a pale yellow called 'Dawn', a mauve and creamy yellow called 'Rebecca', and a grey and veined yellow called 'Green Goddess'. Giving other people plants is a tricky business, but she probably has enough chocolate at Easter already and doesn't drink. Violas don't take up too much space, and are ephemeral enough that you aren't demanding your host finds a permanent slot in their garden for your gift, so they seem a fairly safe bet. And they are so pretty. Who could look at them and not love them?
Have a nice Easter.
Saturday, 7 April 2012
cold Easter
Speaking as a non-Christian, it seems a waste to have the bank holiday weekend so early in the year. Today was raw cold at work, the sort of dank, chill air that grips the back of your throat and makes you think you must be going down with another cold. My nose dripped all day as if it had a faulty washer, until I had to substitute a paper hand towel for my original hanky. Customers, shrouded in layers of clothing, fumbled with numb fingers for their credit cards and money. Oh, the joys of an English spring.
The cold weather disagreed with the back door in the shop, which failed to open half the time even when somebody was standing inside it. We had to scuttle over from the till to let people out, and the sparky girl who looks after the tea room did sterling service nipping to the end of the kitchen and pressing the door open button. A few customers managed to find the button for themselves, so perhaps they had been watching the people ahead of them in the queue, but most stood baffled, waiting to be let out. We tried leaving the door permanently open some of the time, but that made it jolly cold for whoever was standing at the till, not to mention those sitting down in the tea room. When all of the people in your cafe are still wearing their coats I think you have an issue. The boss is going to have to fix the door.
My job for the day was to ring people to let them know that plants they had been waiting for had arrived. It always feels rather awkward calling someone to try and interest them in buying a plant they asked for this time last year, and a secret relief if for the most long-standing queries you just get an answer machine, but amazingly some people did still want their plants. It takes a certain consistency of purpose to ask for Alstroemeria 'Rhubarb and Custard' in May 2011, and not have found something else to fill the space before April 2012. Some people had found the plants elsewhere in the meantime, or been in recently and bought them without getting their names crossed off the list, but that's only to be expected. Some sounded pleased and grateful to be rung, as well as thoroughly surprised, and none were hostile.
I came home via the house of the beekeepers' Membership Secretary, and so got one of the required signatures for my bank mandate change form. She raised the question of whether she and the Chairman could jointly sign a cheque, both being signatories and two signatures being required, or whether one of the signatures had to be that of the Treasurer. If that's the case then I need to track down the Chairman as a matter of urgency, since until we've got the mandate changed we can't pay anybody for anything, and we have a hefty bill outstanding for wax for the recent candle making day. Another question for the outgoing Treasurer.
I got home to find the Systems Administrator sitting in a deckchair in the front garden, wearing a thermal hat and looking cold, staring at the chickens who were eating grass. I asked whether it wasn't rather cold to let them out, and was told it had been warmer when the sun was out. The trouble is that the chickens know exactly how to play on the SA's heart strings, rushing up to the door of the run squawking and looking eager and anticipatory when the SA goes near them from mid-afternoon onwards.
The cold weather disagreed with the back door in the shop, which failed to open half the time even when somebody was standing inside it. We had to scuttle over from the till to let people out, and the sparky girl who looks after the tea room did sterling service nipping to the end of the kitchen and pressing the door open button. A few customers managed to find the button for themselves, so perhaps they had been watching the people ahead of them in the queue, but most stood baffled, waiting to be let out. We tried leaving the door permanently open some of the time, but that made it jolly cold for whoever was standing at the till, not to mention those sitting down in the tea room. When all of the people in your cafe are still wearing their coats I think you have an issue. The boss is going to have to fix the door.
My job for the day was to ring people to let them know that plants they had been waiting for had arrived. It always feels rather awkward calling someone to try and interest them in buying a plant they asked for this time last year, and a secret relief if for the most long-standing queries you just get an answer machine, but amazingly some people did still want their plants. It takes a certain consistency of purpose to ask for Alstroemeria 'Rhubarb and Custard' in May 2011, and not have found something else to fill the space before April 2012. Some people had found the plants elsewhere in the meantime, or been in recently and bought them without getting their names crossed off the list, but that's only to be expected. Some sounded pleased and grateful to be rung, as well as thoroughly surprised, and none were hostile.
I came home via the house of the beekeepers' Membership Secretary, and so got one of the required signatures for my bank mandate change form. She raised the question of whether she and the Chairman could jointly sign a cheque, both being signatories and two signatures being required, or whether one of the signatures had to be that of the Treasurer. If that's the case then I need to track down the Chairman as a matter of urgency, since until we've got the mandate changed we can't pay anybody for anything, and we have a hefty bill outstanding for wax for the recent candle making day. Another question for the outgoing Treasurer.
I got home to find the Systems Administrator sitting in a deckchair in the front garden, wearing a thermal hat and looking cold, staring at the chickens who were eating grass. I asked whether it wasn't rather cold to let them out, and was told it had been warmer when the sun was out. The trouble is that the chickens know exactly how to play on the SA's heart strings, rushing up to the door of the run squawking and looking eager and anticipatory when the SA goes near them from mid-afternoon onwards.
Friday, 6 April 2012
musings from the back garden
Maybe it was over-optimistic to get the metal table and chairs out of the garage and put them back in the Italian garden, since the day got greyer and colder as it went on. Still, it was pleasant to be outside. I shoe-horned a second Magnolia stellata into the ditch bed, a variety called 'Chrysanthemiflora' with beautiful double pink flowers that do resemble a chrysanthemum slightly, if you use your imagination. The label says it is slow growing, and I hope it can find itself a little airspace without overwhelming the Sarcococca confusa next to it. I also planted an Erythronium bought from Avon bulbs, called E. dens canis 'Old Aberdeen', which sounded a treasure in their catalogue, and is a very small and meek looking little thing seen in the flesh. Perhaps it will bulk up and make more of an impact given time, but as it emerged in its pot in the greenhouse where I started it off, it did give me a rather Is that all there is? moment.
Goose grass is coming up, though not as much as some years, for which I presume I can thank the drought, and I pulled out half a bucket full of weeds. Weed the ditch bed is not a task that is ever finished for the moment so that it can be ticked off the list, more of an ongoing project. Aiming to remove half a tub of weeds each time I go near it is probably the best approach. Looking at the soil, I realised that I always start applying leaf mould from the same end, and have always run out before getting to the other end, so next winter I must remember to start the process in reverse. The Anemone blanda are looking pretty, stemmier than the ones brought on in pots that we sell at work, and all the better for it. A dainty pink flowered anemone relative, called Anemonella thalictroides, that I bought on impulse once at Beth Chatto has come up once again, and is gently spreading. When I first got it, it looked so delicate I wasn't sure that wasn't £3.60 straight down the drain, but it is proving a durable little thing. Primula 'Wanda' seems to have disappeared completely, which is a shame, and a tomato red flowered version.
The long-established clump of Dicentra spectabilis was drooping alarmingly. I poured a can of water on it, while feeling slightly doubtful that the cause could really be drought, given we had that heavy rain only a couple of days ago. I wonder whether some wretched rodent has taken up residence underneath and undermined the roots. Or perhaps they are not infinitely long lived, and it is getting old. It has given me a seedling. It isn't a prolific spreader, but given how large it grows that's not a bad thing.
I have declared a truce for now in the mouse trapping campaign by the hellebores. I felt bad each time I removed a small body from the trap, but what really put me off was that one of the traps disappeared from inside the drainpipe. That means that some wretched animal has crawled off with the trap on its leg or tail, to die unpleasantly later. Killing pests cleanly is one thing, torturing them another. Of course I don't suppose that dying of rodenticide is a good death either, and I would still use that if we had rats under the shed. Such is the inconsistency of human nature, but one does one's best.
I swept and tidied the conservatory, which is looking nice, but now it's too cold to sit down there. The Systems Administrator has lured the chickens back into their run, and I have four minutes left to post this and clean my fingernails before the News Quiz at half past six. Have a nice Easter weekend, everybody.
Goose grass is coming up, though not as much as some years, for which I presume I can thank the drought, and I pulled out half a bucket full of weeds. Weed the ditch bed is not a task that is ever finished for the moment so that it can be ticked off the list, more of an ongoing project. Aiming to remove half a tub of weeds each time I go near it is probably the best approach. Looking at the soil, I realised that I always start applying leaf mould from the same end, and have always run out before getting to the other end, so next winter I must remember to start the process in reverse. The Anemone blanda are looking pretty, stemmier than the ones brought on in pots that we sell at work, and all the better for it. A dainty pink flowered anemone relative, called Anemonella thalictroides, that I bought on impulse once at Beth Chatto has come up once again, and is gently spreading. When I first got it, it looked so delicate I wasn't sure that wasn't £3.60 straight down the drain, but it is proving a durable little thing. Primula 'Wanda' seems to have disappeared completely, which is a shame, and a tomato red flowered version.
The long-established clump of Dicentra spectabilis was drooping alarmingly. I poured a can of water on it, while feeling slightly doubtful that the cause could really be drought, given we had that heavy rain only a couple of days ago. I wonder whether some wretched rodent has taken up residence underneath and undermined the roots. Or perhaps they are not infinitely long lived, and it is getting old. It has given me a seedling. It isn't a prolific spreader, but given how large it grows that's not a bad thing.
I have declared a truce for now in the mouse trapping campaign by the hellebores. I felt bad each time I removed a small body from the trap, but what really put me off was that one of the traps disappeared from inside the drainpipe. That means that some wretched animal has crawled off with the trap on its leg or tail, to die unpleasantly later. Killing pests cleanly is one thing, torturing them another. Of course I don't suppose that dying of rodenticide is a good death either, and I would still use that if we had rats under the shed. Such is the inconsistency of human nature, but one does one's best.
I swept and tidied the conservatory, which is looking nice, but now it's too cold to sit down there. The Systems Administrator has lured the chickens back into their run, and I have four minutes left to post this and clean my fingernails before the News Quiz at half past six. Have a nice Easter weekend, everybody.
Thursday, 5 April 2012
getting to grips
The prospective house sitters seemed nice, and sensible, and to genuinely like the house. You could say that it doesn't matter whether they like it or not. We're the ones going on holiday, while they're professionals hired to do a job. It's better all round, though, if they do like it. I don't want two people spending a miserable week of their lives on my account, and it will be nicer for the cats to spend the week living with somebody sympathetic, and in a weird way better for the house. As a scientifically trained, non-superstitious rationalist I can see that last claim is absurd, but every house has an atmosphere, which is not improved by having people who hate it live in it, even for a week. Psychologists have demonstrated, scientifically, that there is such a thing as a lucky person, in the sense that lucky people put a more positive interpretation on events, or react to them in such a way that the outcome is better than it might otherwise have been. So maybe it is entirely scientific to expect house sitters who appreciate the whole set-up, house, pets, plants, and garden, to look after them with more competence and flair than people who feel uneasy at being here. Alternatively put it down to my sentimental good nature. Anyway, I would rather have happy house sitters, even though I'm not going to be here to share their pleasures or suffering.
Fired up by having a clean house, and the question of sitters sorted, I turned my attentions to the beekeepers' treasurer's duties. Having read everything in the two carrier bags I was given I think I know roughly what I'm supposed to be doing. I had to go to the bank to get myself certified for security purposes, as I'm not an existing customer on my own account. The form you have to complete so that they can check you out for money laundering contains some questions that seem entirely reasonable, such as name, address, length of time at address, nationality, date of birth, and some that seem quite irrelevant for that purpose, though the answers would be handy were Barclays, hypothetically speaking, to be using the information at a later date to try and sell me financial products. Number of dependents and whether I have a mortgage or own my property outright? What, exactly, does that have to do with whether or not I am a money launderer? They might have well have gone whole hog and asked for my annual income bracket, and when my buildings and contents insurance expire. Anyway, I now possess stamped and signed photocopies of my passport and a recent bank statement, to be sent off with the form and a second form to change the bank mandate, which has to be signed by the chairman and secretary. The secretary volunteered so recently, I'm not sure if she's official either.
Then I worked my way through the spreadsheet of subscriptions paid, and think I am now in a position to fill in the form for Bee Disease Insurance. One of the benefits of belonging to a part of the British Beekeepers Association is that you get insurance, including for the loss of bees and equipment if your bees are found to have a disease so serious that the bee inspector has to burn the hive. Beehives are not cheap, and this is worth having. The standard membership covers three hives, or double that for joint members, and then you can opt to pay extra if you think you might have more than three hives at any stage in the year. Three is not very many, since if you start with one, split it in two for swarm control purposes, and collect just one swarm, you are up at three already. I'm quite surprised that so many members reckon they won't have more than three, since running just one hive is more difficult than running at least two, and if you start with two hives and split them for swarm control you are immediately above the insurance limit of three. Anyway, it's their business. I just process the fees.
I have probably overcooked my own estimate for the maximum number of colonies, since one of my overwintered colonies is not building up well and doesn't look a likely candidate for splitting or swarming. I need to work out why that's the case. I shall put an empty hive out, when the swarming season starts, since I fancy some free bees, and empty boxes that smell of bees do attract swarms.
As treasurer I have been invited to the meeting to make plans for our stand at the Tendring Show, and as we take quite a lot of money at the show, including for sales of members' honey and candles which we then pass on to them, minus a commission, I think I'd better go. When I originally checked the show date in my diary it was for a weekend when I'm due to be working, assuming I counted forward the weekends correctly, so I had better break the news to my employers that I'd like to take a Saturday off. By mid July things are generally winding down in the plant centre, and with the hosepipe ban this year they almost certainly will be, so that shouldn't be a problem, except to me since I stand to lose a day's wages.
Fired up by having a clean house, and the question of sitters sorted, I turned my attentions to the beekeepers' treasurer's duties. Having read everything in the two carrier bags I was given I think I know roughly what I'm supposed to be doing. I had to go to the bank to get myself certified for security purposes, as I'm not an existing customer on my own account. The form you have to complete so that they can check you out for money laundering contains some questions that seem entirely reasonable, such as name, address, length of time at address, nationality, date of birth, and some that seem quite irrelevant for that purpose, though the answers would be handy were Barclays, hypothetically speaking, to be using the information at a later date to try and sell me financial products. Number of dependents and whether I have a mortgage or own my property outright? What, exactly, does that have to do with whether or not I am a money launderer? They might have well have gone whole hog and asked for my annual income bracket, and when my buildings and contents insurance expire. Anyway, I now possess stamped and signed photocopies of my passport and a recent bank statement, to be sent off with the form and a second form to change the bank mandate, which has to be signed by the chairman and secretary. The secretary volunteered so recently, I'm not sure if she's official either.
Then I worked my way through the spreadsheet of subscriptions paid, and think I am now in a position to fill in the form for Bee Disease Insurance. One of the benefits of belonging to a part of the British Beekeepers Association is that you get insurance, including for the loss of bees and equipment if your bees are found to have a disease so serious that the bee inspector has to burn the hive. Beehives are not cheap, and this is worth having. The standard membership covers three hives, or double that for joint members, and then you can opt to pay extra if you think you might have more than three hives at any stage in the year. Three is not very many, since if you start with one, split it in two for swarm control purposes, and collect just one swarm, you are up at three already. I'm quite surprised that so many members reckon they won't have more than three, since running just one hive is more difficult than running at least two, and if you start with two hives and split them for swarm control you are immediately above the insurance limit of three. Anyway, it's their business. I just process the fees.
I have probably overcooked my own estimate for the maximum number of colonies, since one of my overwintered colonies is not building up well and doesn't look a likely candidate for splitting or swarming. I need to work out why that's the case. I shall put an empty hive out, when the swarming season starts, since I fancy some free bees, and empty boxes that smell of bees do attract swarms.
As treasurer I have been invited to the meeting to make plans for our stand at the Tendring Show, and as we take quite a lot of money at the show, including for sales of members' honey and candles which we then pass on to them, minus a commission, I think I'd better go. When I originally checked the show date in my diary it was for a weekend when I'm due to be working, assuming I counted forward the weekends correctly, so I had better break the news to my employers that I'd like to take a Saturday off. By mid July things are generally winding down in the plant centre, and with the hosepipe ban this year they almost certainly will be, so that shouldn't be a problem, except to me since I stand to lose a day's wages.
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
you just can't get the staff
We had 13mm rain overnight, which is half an inch in old money. That's useful, and means I needn't worry about recently planted primroses and suchlike for a few days, but won't have penetrated deep enough to be much help with trees, and is utterly irrelevant in the wider context of the drought. The bad news is that it will encourage more weeds to germinate. The dry spell held them in check, and I was making rapid net progress applying mulch to the borders.
The cleaning took a good part of the day. The Systems Administrator vacuumed and applied industrial quantities of limescale remover to the bathroom, and I wiped the kitchen down and washed floors in the kitchen and the hall. I tidied up assorted heaps of letters and magazines, partly by dint of consolidating them into piles on my desk in the study, and the SA consented to sort through the litter of old Love Film wrappers that have been accumulating by the TV for months. There are still cobwebs and patches of fluff that we've missed, but I'm too knackered to do anything about them now. We have until 11.00 or thereabouts tomorrow to make ourselves look presentable.
The object of all this domestic effort is not friends or relatives, but prospective housesitters. We have booked a holiday for this autumn, and are going to lash out and call the professionals in while we're away. What with the economic downturn and collapse in savers' rates, and the cat busting his leg last year, I have spent precisely two nights away from home since October 2010, and I'm looking forward to a holiday a lot. Really a lot. When we were City slickers we used to use an agency, which was painfully expensive but meant that cover was guaranteed. More recently when we have been away we've relied on private arrangements, which have worked, but there is always that niggling awareness in the back of the mind that if anything goes wrong in one's obliging friend's own life, such as illness, or a family crisis, or their car breaking down, that they might be unable to spend the week looking after our cats and chickens and pots.
Realising how few people we had to call upon made me feel quite socially inadequate, but there it is. My parents live a quarter of an hour's drive away, so that would be an hour's driving each day. My father is in his eighties and has been ill, and my mother doesn't drive, and they are already looking after their grandchildren before and after the school day. The Systems Administrator's brothers live in Northamptonshire and Kent. Our nearest neighbours are in their seventies at least, and the people next door to them are usually in London half the week. Our next neighbour is in his eighties, and the people down the lane look fit and energetic but we don't know them well enough to ask that big a favour. It is a lot of work, including watering the pots if the weather's warm. A close friend offered to step into the breach one time when it looked as though we might have a last minute problem, and I was deeply and eternally grateful, but she lives a good ten minute drive away and works in London four days a week, so how she'd cope I don't know. Other close friends live at least half an hour's drive away (in the SA's case in Hitchin and the Lake District), or have enough on their plates looking after their own families and homes, without being lumbered with mine for a week.
So the agency it is going to be. Even if the booked sitters have some crisis of their own, the agency will find somebody else. The cost is eye-watering, but peace of mind is assured. Or at least, it is as long as the sitters do what they're told. We once had a dreadful man who took it upon himself to cut back various shrubs wherever they overhung hard landscaped areas, and faced up the Chaenomeles under the kitchen window with an electric hedgecutter. I was younger in those days, and more inhibited about employing staff. Since then I have learned to be very explicit about the fact that all forms of gardening are off-limits, except for watering.
Part of the routine (and the expense) is that prospective sitters who haven't stayed in the property before come for an initial meeting when the sit is booked. This gives them a chance to back out if they can't stand the place or don't think they could cope (we did have one elderly couple who jibbed at the steps and the watering) and us a chance to reject anyone we think unsuitable. We haven't, yet, though I said I would never have the hedge cutter man again. If you reject the proposed sitters you still have to pay their travelling expenses and go through the whole process a second time with a fresh candidate, and we never have turned one down, though with hindsight I should have acted on my initial bad vibes about the hedge cutter vandal. As well as the pruning incidents his wife managed to tread chicken shit into the house as soon as she arrived, and when the main electricity switch tripped while we were away, they couldn't find it (it was right next to the fuse box) and they ran us up a bill calling out the electricity board, and when they went home they forgot a rice steamer they'd brought, which I had to post to them. Really they were not fit to be left in charge of someone else's house.
The form the agency sends you to fill in is rather daunting, since it asks about alarms, and swimming pools, and all sorts of things that our house doesn't have, and I used to feel that we weren't really grand enough to be using an agency. After the hedge cutting episode I had a long talk with them about what the house was actually like, and what we really needed, and since then they have been much better at sending us bookish people who aren't worried by a bit of mess, don't expect antiques or a swimming pool, and genuinely like animals. So tomorrow's candidates will probably be fine. But we still felt the need to make a good, or at least vaguely sanitary, first impression, hence the cleaning blitz. Now we are about to have a Chinese takeaway for supper, because the SA said it seemed a pity to cook on the clean Aga.
The cleaning took a good part of the day. The Systems Administrator vacuumed and applied industrial quantities of limescale remover to the bathroom, and I wiped the kitchen down and washed floors in the kitchen and the hall. I tidied up assorted heaps of letters and magazines, partly by dint of consolidating them into piles on my desk in the study, and the SA consented to sort through the litter of old Love Film wrappers that have been accumulating by the TV for months. There are still cobwebs and patches of fluff that we've missed, but I'm too knackered to do anything about them now. We have until 11.00 or thereabouts tomorrow to make ourselves look presentable.
The object of all this domestic effort is not friends or relatives, but prospective housesitters. We have booked a holiday for this autumn, and are going to lash out and call the professionals in while we're away. What with the economic downturn and collapse in savers' rates, and the cat busting his leg last year, I have spent precisely two nights away from home since October 2010, and I'm looking forward to a holiday a lot. Really a lot. When we were City slickers we used to use an agency, which was painfully expensive but meant that cover was guaranteed. More recently when we have been away we've relied on private arrangements, which have worked, but there is always that niggling awareness in the back of the mind that if anything goes wrong in one's obliging friend's own life, such as illness, or a family crisis, or their car breaking down, that they might be unable to spend the week looking after our cats and chickens and pots.
Realising how few people we had to call upon made me feel quite socially inadequate, but there it is. My parents live a quarter of an hour's drive away, so that would be an hour's driving each day. My father is in his eighties and has been ill, and my mother doesn't drive, and they are already looking after their grandchildren before and after the school day. The Systems Administrator's brothers live in Northamptonshire and Kent. Our nearest neighbours are in their seventies at least, and the people next door to them are usually in London half the week. Our next neighbour is in his eighties, and the people down the lane look fit and energetic but we don't know them well enough to ask that big a favour. It is a lot of work, including watering the pots if the weather's warm. A close friend offered to step into the breach one time when it looked as though we might have a last minute problem, and I was deeply and eternally grateful, but she lives a good ten minute drive away and works in London four days a week, so how she'd cope I don't know. Other close friends live at least half an hour's drive away (in the SA's case in Hitchin and the Lake District), or have enough on their plates looking after their own families and homes, without being lumbered with mine for a week.
So the agency it is going to be. Even if the booked sitters have some crisis of their own, the agency will find somebody else. The cost is eye-watering, but peace of mind is assured. Or at least, it is as long as the sitters do what they're told. We once had a dreadful man who took it upon himself to cut back various shrubs wherever they overhung hard landscaped areas, and faced up the Chaenomeles under the kitchen window with an electric hedgecutter. I was younger in those days, and more inhibited about employing staff. Since then I have learned to be very explicit about the fact that all forms of gardening are off-limits, except for watering.
Part of the routine (and the expense) is that prospective sitters who haven't stayed in the property before come for an initial meeting when the sit is booked. This gives them a chance to back out if they can't stand the place or don't think they could cope (we did have one elderly couple who jibbed at the steps and the watering) and us a chance to reject anyone we think unsuitable. We haven't, yet, though I said I would never have the hedge cutter man again. If you reject the proposed sitters you still have to pay their travelling expenses and go through the whole process a second time with a fresh candidate, and we never have turned one down, though with hindsight I should have acted on my initial bad vibes about the hedge cutter vandal. As well as the pruning incidents his wife managed to tread chicken shit into the house as soon as she arrived, and when the main electricity switch tripped while we were away, they couldn't find it (it was right next to the fuse box) and they ran us up a bill calling out the electricity board, and when they went home they forgot a rice steamer they'd brought, which I had to post to them. Really they were not fit to be left in charge of someone else's house.
The form the agency sends you to fill in is rather daunting, since it asks about alarms, and swimming pools, and all sorts of things that our house doesn't have, and I used to feel that we weren't really grand enough to be using an agency. After the hedge cutting episode I had a long talk with them about what the house was actually like, and what we really needed, and since then they have been much better at sending us bookish people who aren't worried by a bit of mess, don't expect antiques or a swimming pool, and genuinely like animals. So tomorrow's candidates will probably be fine. But we still felt the need to make a good, or at least vaguely sanitary, first impression, hence the cleaning blitz. Now we are about to have a Chinese takeaway for supper, because the SA said it seemed a pity to cook on the clean Aga.
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
partially good advice
The rain, that a couple of days ago was forecast for all of today, by this morning was not forecast until mid afternoon, and still has not arrived now, which as I type this is nine minutes to seven. That meant that I got lots more done in the garden than I was originally hoping or expecting, which was good. The flip side is that I got nothing at all done in the house, and we do have to clean the place up before mid morning on Thursday, because some people are coming round then. Also I need to get to grips with the beekeepers' treasurer's stuff as a matter of urgency. I put it off after the handover meeting because of the lunch party, and then we went to Oxford, and it was the Systems Administrator's birthday, and I had to go to work, and I was waiting for a wet day...Enough. It has to be done, on a fine dry day if there isn't a rainy one.
Charlie Dimmock was on the Today programme, talking about how we should adapt our gardens to drought conditions. That was a blast from the past. I think she has been signed up by Thames Water to help their customers cope, or at least make it sound as though Thames Water cares, as it presides over its colossal leakage rate and hosepipe ban. I quite like Charlie Dimmock, or at least I don't mind her, but the trouble with making your garden drought resistant is that you needed to start doing it months or years ago. The advice to make sure that your soil is in good heart, with lots of organic material incorporated, is excellent, but takes a long time to achieve. If Thames Water's gardening customers haven't been adding organic soil improver every time they plant something and mulching regularly over the past two or three seasons, there isn't a lot they can do now to improve the state of their soil before the hosepipe ban starts in two days time.
I felt a sort of seeping weariness as Charlie told us that we would all need to start planting Mediterranean climate shrubs, rosemary and Ceanothus, to cope with the new dry conditions. That doesn't follow, for several reasons.
Maybe the UK is getting drier on a long term basis, though I wouldn't bet the house on that. It's not so long since the great sodden summer of 2000, and even this year parts of the north and Scotland have been torrentially wet. The midlands and southeast have only missed out on rainfall by a couple of hundred miles, which is not very much in global terms. It's true that the pressure of development in the southeast means we are all going to have to adapt to taking less out of our taps as the years go by, but there's a huge range of garden plants which don't need routine watering once established. It can't have escaped Thames Water's or Charlie's notice that we've just had a couple of long, cold winters. Perhaps they are part of climate change too, or perhaps one of those things that nature sometimes throws at us, on account of our being as far north as Newfoundland. Mediterranean climate plants have been among the top casualties in UK gardens, along with the New Zealanders. I have written whole blog entries which have been long, sad litanies of plants I had in my garden which are no more, and I have listened to many similar catalogues of woe from customers at the plant centre. Rosemary, lavender, bay, Cistus, Phlomis, Ceanothus. Gone, gone are they all, dead and gone. As well as detesting long cold winters, sogginess at the root is death to them, so if we revert to wet winters instead of freezing ones, all those Thames customers on their London clay are going to have a difficult time of it then as well.
Instead of emphasising drought tolerant Mediterranean plants, I'd try to think of normal garden plants that will tolerate dry conditions but also have a sporting chance of coming through the winter. In our garden shrubby Potentilla, holly, box, Weigela, Philadelphus, Berberis, crab apples, and yew are still looking OK after two vile winters and drought, to name a few off the top of my head. (It is not for nothing that several on this list are so beloved of municipal and commercial landscapers, which helps explain why some gardeners don't like them). Some traditional cottage garden style herbaceous plants have held up too without irrigation, including Catananche, Aconitum, Hemerocallis, some Campanula, Knautia macedonica and peonies.
Whatever you plant, you shouldn't plant it now, if you are worried about drought. Actually, I'm glad Charlie didn't say that, given my line of work, though she did say that maybe we should think about returning to the tradition of autumn planting (remember the winter, though). I am still planting now, but I'm not anticipating a hosepipe ban, and am fanatical (and fit) enough to carry cans around if needs be. Even drought tolerant species need to get their roots down before the magic starts to work, so planting them now and expecting them to survive the drought without further watering is an almost cast-iron guaranteed method of getting some dead plants fairly quickly.
Apart from fixing their leaks, Thames Water and their mouthpiece need to be looking further ahead, on a larger scale. How about building all new homes with large underground storage tanks to keep winter rain for summer use? I'd love a really big tank, but the cost of retro-fitting one would be prohibitive. And why don't all new homes have built-in, efficient, hygienic methods of diverting grey water for further use, whether in the garden or for flushing loos? Messing around with hosepipes out of the window, and pumps, and syphons, is messy, inefficient and ridiculous. A proper system should be designed and plumbed in when the house is built.
Looking on the bright side, media pundits (albeit slightly faded ones) telling us to plant drought tolerant Mediterranean shrubs ought to be a powerful hex to end the drought. By late May we could all be shivering under leaden skies, like last year.
Charlie Dimmock was on the Today programme, talking about how we should adapt our gardens to drought conditions. That was a blast from the past. I think she has been signed up by Thames Water to help their customers cope, or at least make it sound as though Thames Water cares, as it presides over its colossal leakage rate and hosepipe ban. I quite like Charlie Dimmock, or at least I don't mind her, but the trouble with making your garden drought resistant is that you needed to start doing it months or years ago. The advice to make sure that your soil is in good heart, with lots of organic material incorporated, is excellent, but takes a long time to achieve. If Thames Water's gardening customers haven't been adding organic soil improver every time they plant something and mulching regularly over the past two or three seasons, there isn't a lot they can do now to improve the state of their soil before the hosepipe ban starts in two days time.
I felt a sort of seeping weariness as Charlie told us that we would all need to start planting Mediterranean climate shrubs, rosemary and Ceanothus, to cope with the new dry conditions. That doesn't follow, for several reasons.
Maybe the UK is getting drier on a long term basis, though I wouldn't bet the house on that. It's not so long since the great sodden summer of 2000, and even this year parts of the north and Scotland have been torrentially wet. The midlands and southeast have only missed out on rainfall by a couple of hundred miles, which is not very much in global terms. It's true that the pressure of development in the southeast means we are all going to have to adapt to taking less out of our taps as the years go by, but there's a huge range of garden plants which don't need routine watering once established. It can't have escaped Thames Water's or Charlie's notice that we've just had a couple of long, cold winters. Perhaps they are part of climate change too, or perhaps one of those things that nature sometimes throws at us, on account of our being as far north as Newfoundland. Mediterranean climate plants have been among the top casualties in UK gardens, along with the New Zealanders. I have written whole blog entries which have been long, sad litanies of plants I had in my garden which are no more, and I have listened to many similar catalogues of woe from customers at the plant centre. Rosemary, lavender, bay, Cistus, Phlomis, Ceanothus. Gone, gone are they all, dead and gone. As well as detesting long cold winters, sogginess at the root is death to them, so if we revert to wet winters instead of freezing ones, all those Thames customers on their London clay are going to have a difficult time of it then as well.
Instead of emphasising drought tolerant Mediterranean plants, I'd try to think of normal garden plants that will tolerate dry conditions but also have a sporting chance of coming through the winter. In our garden shrubby Potentilla, holly, box, Weigela, Philadelphus, Berberis, crab apples, and yew are still looking OK after two vile winters and drought, to name a few off the top of my head. (It is not for nothing that several on this list are so beloved of municipal and commercial landscapers, which helps explain why some gardeners don't like them). Some traditional cottage garden style herbaceous plants have held up too without irrigation, including Catananche, Aconitum, Hemerocallis, some Campanula, Knautia macedonica and peonies.
Whatever you plant, you shouldn't plant it now, if you are worried about drought. Actually, I'm glad Charlie didn't say that, given my line of work, though she did say that maybe we should think about returning to the tradition of autumn planting (remember the winter, though). I am still planting now, but I'm not anticipating a hosepipe ban, and am fanatical (and fit) enough to carry cans around if needs be. Even drought tolerant species need to get their roots down before the magic starts to work, so planting them now and expecting them to survive the drought without further watering is an almost cast-iron guaranteed method of getting some dead plants fairly quickly.
Apart from fixing their leaks, Thames Water and their mouthpiece need to be looking further ahead, on a larger scale. How about building all new homes with large underground storage tanks to keep winter rain for summer use? I'd love a really big tank, but the cost of retro-fitting one would be prohibitive. And why don't all new homes have built-in, efficient, hygienic methods of diverting grey water for further use, whether in the garden or for flushing loos? Messing around with hosepipes out of the window, and pumps, and syphons, is messy, inefficient and ridiculous. A proper system should be designed and plumbed in when the house is built.
Looking on the bright side, media pundits (albeit slightly faded ones) telling us to plant drought tolerant Mediterranean shrubs ought to be a powerful hex to end the drought. By late May we could all be shivering under leaden skies, like last year.
Monday, 2 April 2012
an ideal job
Now that it's April our working hours have altered again, so that we finish at 6.00pm. When I worked in the City eight until six seemed par for the course. Nowadays it feels like hard work, especially on day one when it comes as a shock to the system. There again, I am older than I was then, and while sitting at my desk looking at the collapsing share prices of companies my clients were invested in, when they came out with rubbish results, was highly stressful, it was not as physically exhausting as dragging hoses around and lifting dozens and dozens of pots filled with compost. Also, working in the City I was habitually tired most of the time, in a low level sort of way, and learned to ignore it, helped by the knowledge that I was being paid ten times more for my efforts than I get nowadays.
One customer asked me if I'd worked there long. I replied that I'd been there since 2003, which she declared to be a long time. I asked whether she had been shopping there for a long time, and it turned out that she lived in the village and so had, although, as she said, our paths had never crossed. I explained that I was only part time, and she said what a wonderful part time job it must be, since it would be so tiring to do it full time, and there were so many other things that needed doing, like running one's house, cooking, and ironing. Ironing has truly never loomed very large in my list of things to do, but I agreed that it was indeed a very nice place to work part time, if you liked plants.
I don't have a good feeling about the tea room. The owner has gone on holiday for the week, leaving a rota of staff members who are supposed to do the tea room each day. Today's co-opted Nippy was not overly pleased, having already got a full workload before being given the additional task of running the tea room. Nobody knew how the dishwasher worked, and nobody could work it out, not even the gardener, who is good with machinery. The tea room conscript lacked any sense of ownership of the task, so trays tended to linger on tables or on the counter beside the cake, and her efforts to do all her other jobs as well meant that there wasn't always anybody behind the counter. That doesn't look inviting. If I'd been a customer wondering whether to have a cup of tea and some cake, and saw dirty crockery and no staff serving, I'd probably have decided not to bother. At one point I found myself obliged to dispense bottles of apple juice and chocolate cake to two customers who promised they were not environmental health officers, in the course of which I managed to knock the cake tongs on the floor. We need a dedicated staff member, at least during the hours when the plant centre is open.
I felt on safer territory with the plants, which are doing all sorts of delightful and interesting things at this time of year. There is a Cytisus called 'Porlock' which flowers in a bright, soft shade of yellow, with a fresh, vigorous scent, and the yellow flowers of Magnolia 'Elizabeth' are just opening. We have Japanese flowering cherries in almost every shade of pink, and a bright pink, double flowered peach which I think was got in as a special. I held off buying plants, since I have a little backlog to plant out already, and can only do so much at a time, and the weather forecast is iffy for the middle part of the week. Still, I was very tempted by a violet with white flowers speckled with blue, and the tray of Primula bulleyana. They are not doing anything yet, but there is a damp patch down at the bottom of the garden that might support some candleabra primulas, once I've hauled the nettles out and the Systems Administrator has built the new deck at the back (to give a sheltered, shady place to sit on hot afternoons when there's a breeze from the southwest).
Addendum The SA failed totally in the search of white Sandtex exterior gloss paint in Colchester. There was none to be had in B&Q or Homebase, but an awful lot of tins of Parisian Pink.
One customer asked me if I'd worked there long. I replied that I'd been there since 2003, which she declared to be a long time. I asked whether she had been shopping there for a long time, and it turned out that she lived in the village and so had, although, as she said, our paths had never crossed. I explained that I was only part time, and she said what a wonderful part time job it must be, since it would be so tiring to do it full time, and there were so many other things that needed doing, like running one's house, cooking, and ironing. Ironing has truly never loomed very large in my list of things to do, but I agreed that it was indeed a very nice place to work part time, if you liked plants.
I don't have a good feeling about the tea room. The owner has gone on holiday for the week, leaving a rota of staff members who are supposed to do the tea room each day. Today's co-opted Nippy was not overly pleased, having already got a full workload before being given the additional task of running the tea room. Nobody knew how the dishwasher worked, and nobody could work it out, not even the gardener, who is good with machinery. The tea room conscript lacked any sense of ownership of the task, so trays tended to linger on tables or on the counter beside the cake, and her efforts to do all her other jobs as well meant that there wasn't always anybody behind the counter. That doesn't look inviting. If I'd been a customer wondering whether to have a cup of tea and some cake, and saw dirty crockery and no staff serving, I'd probably have decided not to bother. At one point I found myself obliged to dispense bottles of apple juice and chocolate cake to two customers who promised they were not environmental health officers, in the course of which I managed to knock the cake tongs on the floor. We need a dedicated staff member, at least during the hours when the plant centre is open.
I felt on safer territory with the plants, which are doing all sorts of delightful and interesting things at this time of year. There is a Cytisus called 'Porlock' which flowers in a bright, soft shade of yellow, with a fresh, vigorous scent, and the yellow flowers of Magnolia 'Elizabeth' are just opening. We have Japanese flowering cherries in almost every shade of pink, and a bright pink, double flowered peach which I think was got in as a special. I held off buying plants, since I have a little backlog to plant out already, and can only do so much at a time, and the weather forecast is iffy for the middle part of the week. Still, I was very tempted by a violet with white flowers speckled with blue, and the tray of Primula bulleyana. They are not doing anything yet, but there is a damp patch down at the bottom of the garden that might support some candleabra primulas, once I've hauled the nettles out and the Systems Administrator has built the new deck at the back (to give a sheltered, shady place to sit on hot afternoons when there's a breeze from the southwest).
Addendum The SA failed totally in the search of white Sandtex exterior gloss paint in Colchester. There was none to be had in B&Q or Homebase, but an awful lot of tins of Parisian Pink.
Sunday, 1 April 2012
getting on with stuff
Gardening is a bit like holidays, in that the disasters are much more interesting to write about than the days when everything goes smoothly and you trundle around, having a nice time. Today was a beautiful sunny day, not too hot, not too cold, and in this Goldilocks world I dug, weeded, mulched, planted and picked up two sorts of stones, the rough and the smooth, without anything exciting happening at all.
White flowers are about to burst upon the garden. After the white of snowdrops it all goes yellow, with daffodils and primroses, and the chrome yellow flowers of Euphorbia, and blue and mauve, with hyacinths and grape hyacinths, violets and pasque flowers. Now the Osmanthus delavayi on the corner of the island bed in the back garden is just opening, and the buds on 'Taihaku' and the wild gean are, as the suppliers' weekly lists put it, showing colour. The trees are studded with knobs of white, and very soon will burst forth in a cloud of whiteness.
Three buzzards circled over the next door field for a long time. They often seem to occur in threes, and I wonder what the group consists of. Rival males and one female? Last year's chick still flocking with its parents? I need to find somebody who understands the habits of birds and ask them.
The Systems Administrator was all set to get the next coat of gloss paint on the section of barge board the scaffolding currently reaches, as the thermometer had hit the vital level of 15 degrees, but discovered that the new and unopened tin of paint bought last autumn and never used as the weather got too bad for painting, was not white, but Parisian Pink. The SA must have picked up the wrong tin from the DIY store shelf, and six months on, with no receipt, there's not a lot we can do with it except think of something we would like to paint pink. It looks rather a nice shade of pink, like a squashed strawberry, and I fancy a little pink summerhouse, but there isn't anywhere to put one.
We are starting to be able to tell the new little hens apart. One has yellow legs, which are very distinctive, and another has a row of dark feathers down the outside of her legs. One of the last two is lighter coloured than the other, so that we can tell them apart when they're side by side, but not necessarily identify either one in isolation.
I ran the hose on recently planted trees and renovated areas of the border while working. Digging holes to plant out hyacinths that have finished flowering in their pots, as I suspected the soil 25 centimetres below the surface is dust dry. A rose in the back garden, that was struggling last year, has suddenly died off in great sections. It is supposed to rain hard on Tuesday, which will force me to clean the house and get to grips with the beekeepers' treasury stuff, both of which urgently need doing, but quite apart from that we desperately need the rain.
About the only exciting thing to happen in the past 24 hours was that the big tabby set his ruff on fire. He has never done this before, and I thought he was more sensible than that around candles, but now know differently. He decided to march straight across the dining table just as I was snuffing the candles out after dinner, and suddenly I had a flaming cat on the loose. I managed to extinguish him before it could burn his skin, or he could set fire to the curtains, but the smell of burning fur was terrible. I don't think he understood in the least what had happened, so was bewildered that I'd suddenly hit him with the candle snuffer, and gave me a wide berth for the next couple of hours. Excitement is frequently greatly over-rated.
White flowers are about to burst upon the garden. After the white of snowdrops it all goes yellow, with daffodils and primroses, and the chrome yellow flowers of Euphorbia, and blue and mauve, with hyacinths and grape hyacinths, violets and pasque flowers. Now the Osmanthus delavayi on the corner of the island bed in the back garden is just opening, and the buds on 'Taihaku' and the wild gean are, as the suppliers' weekly lists put it, showing colour. The trees are studded with knobs of white, and very soon will burst forth in a cloud of whiteness.
Three buzzards circled over the next door field for a long time. They often seem to occur in threes, and I wonder what the group consists of. Rival males and one female? Last year's chick still flocking with its parents? I need to find somebody who understands the habits of birds and ask them.
The Systems Administrator was all set to get the next coat of gloss paint on the section of barge board the scaffolding currently reaches, as the thermometer had hit the vital level of 15 degrees, but discovered that the new and unopened tin of paint bought last autumn and never used as the weather got too bad for painting, was not white, but Parisian Pink. The SA must have picked up the wrong tin from the DIY store shelf, and six months on, with no receipt, there's not a lot we can do with it except think of something we would like to paint pink. It looks rather a nice shade of pink, like a squashed strawberry, and I fancy a little pink summerhouse, but there isn't anywhere to put one.
We are starting to be able to tell the new little hens apart. One has yellow legs, which are very distinctive, and another has a row of dark feathers down the outside of her legs. One of the last two is lighter coloured than the other, so that we can tell them apart when they're side by side, but not necessarily identify either one in isolation.
I ran the hose on recently planted trees and renovated areas of the border while working. Digging holes to plant out hyacinths that have finished flowering in their pots, as I suspected the soil 25 centimetres below the surface is dust dry. A rose in the back garden, that was struggling last year, has suddenly died off in great sections. It is supposed to rain hard on Tuesday, which will force me to clean the house and get to grips with the beekeepers' treasury stuff, both of which urgently need doing, but quite apart from that we desperately need the rain.
About the only exciting thing to happen in the past 24 hours was that the big tabby set his ruff on fire. He has never done this before, and I thought he was more sensible than that around candles, but now know differently. He decided to march straight across the dining table just as I was snuffing the candles out after dinner, and suddenly I had a flaming cat on the loose. I managed to extinguish him before it could burn his skin, or he could set fire to the curtains, but the smell of burning fur was terrible. I don't think he understood in the least what had happened, so was bewildered that I'd suddenly hit him with the candle snuffer, and gave me a wide berth for the next couple of hours. Excitement is frequently greatly over-rated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)