We're Going To Need A Bigger Pot

My Parents' Problem Patch

2011-10-22T22:36:00.000+01:00

Two years ago, my parents had their garden completely redesigned. Some sections of the garden look lovely - there is a swathe of lavender in the middle of the garden, and the colour is gorgeous. The west-facing border has taken off so well that my mum probably has enough Alchemilla mollis to supply every garden in Nottinghamshire. However, some of the designer's ideas were, umm, bewildering, to say the least. Where Mum said she loved every colour of flowers except yellow, she now has a load of Euphorbia and the aforementioned Alchemilla. The ground underneath the lawn was not levelled properly, and it will never be able to double as an impromptu croquet lawn or putting green, as my grandfather's lawn used to.

We don't talk about the chamomile lawn. It used to be where the recliner now sits:

And in an east-facing border, we have a Camellia. As far as I remember, it's pretty much the only advice given on the label when you buy a Camellia: Don't plant in an east-facing border, and don't feed after midnight.

The east-facing border is a bit of a problem though. You can probably spot it from here - it's the ruddy great big copper beech tree. So it's shady, dry and really crappy soil. My mantra when talking to my mother has become "More manure, more manure, more manure", but it's clear that the plants need to be sorted a bit.

Doesn't look great, does it? The Cotinus hasn't grown at all in the two years it'd been in, nor, really, has the Mahonia. Fatsia japonica seems happy enough, as does the Buddleja, but there's a lot of miserable looking soil.

Both Rob and Victoria have made some suggestions. Sarcococca could be a winner, as could Brunnera - I think Mum would like some bigger shrubs though, to hide the fence a bit. I also mentioned Liriope muscari, and perhaps many of the plants listed on the Plants for Shade website, but she might prefer to hear it from you lot.

Any more ideas? I know what's in the books, but personal experiences are always something my mother takes notice of. They live just outside Nottingham, so it's pretty much USDA zone 8, and the house is on the south side of the garden.

With Fronds Like These Who Needs Anemones?

2011-10-18T09:30:00.000+01:00

Just over two weeks ago, Hubster and I went over to visit Victoria, accompanied by Rob. There was an ulterior motive - the presence of two Big Strong Boys was requested to help move some pots, and one of those pots contained a Cycas revoluta that Victoria was giving to me.

We were also able to meet Mario and Luigi the kittens (who are as adorable as they look in the photos), and eat scones and clotted cream.

So here is Bastard III, resplendent in the garden:

Thank you so much, Victoria - it is a marvellous specimen, and looks very happy in between the Wollemi pine and Halocarpus bidwilli.

Signs Of Spring

2011-10-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

What glorious weather! There are new young leaves on Liriodendron chinense:

There are buds on Magnolia x soulangeana:

There are flower buds on Acacia pravissima:

And new leaves on Grandpa's Geranium plants:

Even Podocarpus salignus is getting in on the act:

So it's a pity really that it's October and the frosts are going to nix all of that any week now...

A Reason To Be Cheerful

2011-09-19T21:17:00.001+01:00

Watering the garden this evening, I noticed a small patch of green at the base of my presumably very dead Cunninghamia lanceolata, languishing in the ICU. I lifted up some of the brown needles, and saw new growth. I grabbed the secateurs and hacked back the dead bits to see this:

I'm so delighted that it's come back from the dead - I was sure it had carked it over the winter (although it should be able to cope with USDA Zone 7 type winters!). One thing that has surprised me is that it has grown up from the base. I don't remember where I read it, but I was under the impression that conifers did not regrow from the base (although angiosperms will, as my parents' knackered bay trees demonstrate).

Any of you have any examples of conifers regrowing from the base? Is it a lot more common than I realised?

Il Faut Cultiver Notre Jardin

2011-08-29T17:52:00.000+01:00

Voltaire didn't write about allotments, but I bet he'd have been none too impressed with my own allotmenteering skills. I have neglected it terribly. It's in the grounds of Hubster's Quaker Meeting House. The plan was that I would tend it while Hubster was in Meeting, then come in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Of course that only works if Hubster is a good Quaker and goes every week...

So, before we went on holiday to Cornwall, it looked like this:

Hubster went once the week after we got back (I can't remember why I didn't go to the allotment - maybe I was tutoring that Sunday morning), and said it was pretty much wild. It evidently stayed wild until I finally got back to it yesterday.

This is what it looked like two years ago before I did anything with it:

I didn't take any photos of it yesterday, but it looked even worse. The borage has evolved into a new species, Borago triffidus, and whilst I can just about see over the top of it, we could lose whole classes of schoolchildren in there.

The oddest thing is the disappearance of vegetables. I put in a bag of first earlies, a bag of main crop and some onion sets. There are no onions. I got maybe a dozen main crop potatoes. Fortunately my first earlies are quite a bumper haul:

I'm assuming that onions have been dug up and eaten by squirrels/pigeons, and that the main crops were irresistible to slugs. Suppose that's a consequence of abandoning the plants for four months!

One of the other Quakers suggested sowing spinach, so I think I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks' time. This coming Sunday, however, I have an awful lot of digging to do.

In other news, I finally made it to Victoria's open garden yesterday afternoon. It looks even more gorgeous in real life than it does in her photos. And even Hubster was happy - he proclaimed the carrot cake the best in the world and was seriously considering another slice (the first one was massive!).

My crappy phone camera did not do this border justice. But I think it was my favourite part of the garden - the combination of reds, maroons, purples and oranges was bright, bold and damn sexy. As you know, I don't really do flowers in Jurassic Park, but I do have a massive soft spot for dahlias.

So two gardens yesterday, at opposite ends of the care-and-attention-given-by-the-owner spectrum. And mine languishing somewhere in between...

Reasons To Be Cheerful

2011-08-12T21:16:00.000+01:00

The great thing about a garden is that, even when you have lost plants (or bits of plants), and when you're feeling very pessimistic about the world in general, and wondering where you're going and why you're in this handcart, there is something to cheer and inspire. Bastard the Cycad is still in recovery, but Bastard II has decided, almost as a means of comforting me, to start a flush:

And despite being written off as a winter loss, Doodia media is alive. I did buy another one, but presumably you can never have too many Doodias...

I have lots and lots of Pelargonium cuttings taking root, ready to brighten up my new lab, which I move into on Monday:

And as well as some Chlorophytum pups that I've finally potted on, having got my GCSE students in 2009 to make them root to demonstrate asexual reproduction, I have my parrot plant (Impatiens niamniamensis) cuttings doing well:

Despite growing all these plants, I'm really not that confident at propagation. Dividing I'm fine with, and I've done that so many times with ferns to give chunks away. But cuttings, and - heavens! - sowing seeds brings me out in a cold sweat immediately followed by a deep sense of shame for my lack of confidence. So I know that Impatiens and Pelargonium are about the easiest genera to propagate evah!!, but it's impressive for me anyway.

Needless Vandalism And Destruction

2011-08-11T15:26:00.000+01:00

You've probably all been watching the images of riots, looting and criminal damage. It was shameful and disgusting to watch. Hubster and I joined in with the Ealing cleanup on Tuesday - we couldn't just sit back and do nothing. It was a reminder that there are people in this country (and no doubt around the world) who manage to be materialistic and greedy while putting no value on belongings.

I wouldn't dream of comparing damage to my plants to the losses faced by the poor families I've seen on the news. I would give up my whole garden without a second thought for the sake of my own family. And yet the sense of perspective didn't make this any easier to deal with on Monday night:

This was Bastard the Cycad. Less than a month ago he started flushing, and by the time we went away this time last week for my brother's wedding, he had a good six inches of growth. I came back to find all his fronds snapped off and laid in the pot next to him.

I tried to think whether it was a strong gust of wind, or an animal. But wind would have sent the broken pieces across the garden, and an animal would have eaten the bits (hopefully getting the staggers afterwards). The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this was human. We have guys who work next door to us, but they are lovely friendly chaps who know how much my garden means to me, and I am sure that if one of them had knocked Bastard accidentally, they would have said something. So I'm discounting them.

Which means I'm led back to our nasty new neighbours and their builders, and I reckon this time it was deliberate. The fronds were put back in the pot. But because I was away I have no means of proving this. I just feel gutted that I'd spent all this time nursing Bastard back from near death, and now he won't have this lovely full flush of seven fronds that he was growing. If he's lucky we'll have two full ones.

I'm fed up of people who vandalise other people's property. I hate these builders, and the criminal tenants employing them. I'm disgusted by the far, far worse destruction and wrecking of people's lives that has gone on in the past week. And I'm angry because I am absolutely powerless to do anything about it.

Death From Above

2011-07-31T19:51:00.001+01:00

People who have kept up with the saga of us, our landlord and all manner of dubious prospective tenants for the flats above us via Twitter will be aware of this. Cutting a very long story short, we have some dodgy builders in the upstairs flat who will think nothing of working from 7:45am to 9:00pm, hammering loudly and incessantly the whole time. They may well be putting in internal walls (illegally, as it's a listed building and no planning permission has been sought), and they're sticking a new back door on at the top of the fire escape.

On Thursday they dropped their drill. Into Jurassic Park. Hubster saw one of them come down the steps, reach in and pick it up, and go back upstairs. Then he went outside to check on my plants.

That used to be Euphorbia characias "Black Pearl". I doubt it is anymore. There are a few things about which I am incredibly protective. My family, my gecko, my students, and my plants. Not only did the builder smash the plant, but he did not own up to it. If he had tapped on the back door (which is almost always open when we're in) and said "I'm really sorry, I dropped the drill and it smashed the plant" then we could have had a civil conversation about it.

But ask any one of my students, and they'll say that not owning up to things is one way to really piss me off. So by the time I had got together the pieces, I was seething with rage. I absolutely screamed at the builders, all of whom denied it, until one of them said he'd dropped the drill "so I think maybe it was me". YOU THINK??? Hubster, by this point, was more concerned for the safety of the builders than he was for my distress.

Eventually they asked me how much it was, and I plucked £15 out of the air. Perhaps a little more than it would normally cost from a garden centre, but I'm happy enough to factor in a replacement pot, compost and the several stiff margaritas I needed to calm down. However, I'd bought it from Burncoose Nurseries on holiday in Cornwall this year, so if that proved to be the only place selling it then delivery charges alone would be £13. I don't think "Black Pearl" is too unusual a variety, but it's not really the right time of year to buy euphorbias as they're all finishing up their flowering (I deadheaded "Robbiae" today). The plant itself may not be lost - I shall repot it and put it in the ICU to see if I can breathe some life back into it.

One thing I did manage to impress on them is that they were jolly lucky the drill did not fall a couple of feet in either direction. Whilst the guy who appeared to be in charge seemed to have more money on him than we have in our bank account, I don't think they'd appreciate replacing what is now a 1.5m tall Wollemia nobilis, or Encephalartos princeps (could I even get another one of them?). And I doubt replacing my £300 fountain is in their budget either.

Jamie Oliver And Peat-Based Compost

2011-07-25T18:35:00.000+01:00

I enjoy a good Jamie Oliver-bashing, I do. I restrained myself when his Dream School took over the airwaves for all too long, but many others didn't. Not content with trying to tell me how to teach "kidz wot da system's let dahn innit", he now wants to tell me how to grow my own vegetables, and he wants me to use his compost to do so.

Firstly it's a bit over-priced, compared to what I pay for New Horizon at the garden centre. With any luck it'll simply attract the idiots at the bottom of the economic food chain in that case. But worse is the composition of the compost:

That's well over 50% (maybe getting on for 60%) peat in the fruit and vegetable growbag.

Same with the potato compost. At a time when the pressure should be (and is?) on compost manufacturers to reduce the amount of peat in their products, Jamie Oliver goes right in with more than 50% peat.

Why do I have a problem with this? Well, firstly, I'm a leftie pinko tree-hugger. I like our unique habitats. I like the endemic species of the highland and lowland peat bogs. I'd quite like them to hang around for a few million years more, until they naturally die out. I like how peat bogs are excellent carbon sinks, and how we'd be even more screwed in terms of anthropogenic global warming than we already are. Read Mark Diacono's piece for the Telegraph. See what Mr Corduroy himself, Monty Don was saying back in 2002:

Every time you use a peat-based compost in the garden, you are deliberately participating in the destruction of a non-renewable environment that sustains some of our most beautiful plant and animal life. No garden on this earth is worth that.

Whatever you think about his presenting of Gardeners' World, there is no doubt that Monty has no trouble with the yield of crops from his kitchen garden. Perhaps it's all the different compost recipes Monty uses for the plants with specific requirements.

Which brings me to my second point: peat-free composts are outperforming peat-based composts. They first did so in 2010, when Which? published their annual compost survey. They did so again this year, according to Hort Week, including my favourite, New Horizon. When I don't use my own compost, I buy a couple of bags of New Horizon. Does my garden look like it's suffering for the lack of peat?

Homebase have really disappointed in this regard. A few years ago they published a paper outlining their commitment to reducing peat in their compost sales. Their target was:

To ensure that by the end of 2009, 90% (by volume) of the growing media and soil conditioners sold by Homebase are peat free.

How can they possibly still aim for that target given that they're selling Jamie Oliver's peat-based compost? I note that there was no peat-related target on the 2009 corporate responsibility report, but it returned in the 2009/2010 targets:

Achieve at least 60% peat-free growing media by end 2009/10 and at least 65% by end 2010/11

Well, that's a bit of back-peddling and a half. It's also not clear whether this is by volume sold, by number of products available, or indeed by popularity contest. I'd love to know how Homebase are squaring their targets with their introduction of a new high peat content product, but this certainly discourages me from shopping there full stop (we were only there to buy a new toilet seat - I cannot remember when I last bought gardening products from there).

And in the meantime, perhaps Jamie Oliver could stop trying to tell me how to teach and how to garden? I promise, that if he goes back to just cooking stuff, I won't tell him how to do it properly.

Bastard Lives

2011-07-21T10:15:00.000+01:00

I truly thought that Bastard the Cycad had carked it over the winter. All his fronds were yellow and crispy, and he looked very sorry for himself. But you should never write off a cycad, so he was moved to the ICU and put in a bucket of water. A few weeks ago, there were signs of life:

Two weeks later, we are well and truly in a flush!

That's probably a good 3cm in 15 days. He's in a pretty sunny spot now, and he's still sitting in a bucket of water. I'm not moving him until the fronds have fully formed, as movement would result in some twisting of the fronds. I really must investigate the physiology of this more. Angiosperms grow to the light, but conifers don't seem to have much of a phototropic response - I didn't need to turn my Sequoia seedlings on the windowsill. I don't know whether conifers aetiolate either (I've seen it in cycads, ferns and of course angiosperms).

It looks like I might get as many as half a dozen fronds off Bastard, so I will try to post regular updates on his progress.

Wordless Wednesday: Hail Damage

2011-07-20T21:01:00.001+01:00

Meeting Carol

2011-06-20T19:55:00.000+01:00

Bloody hell - two months without a post on here? That's not good! Anyway, on Sunday Hubster and I decamped to Birmingham to visit BBC Gardeners World Live, a first for me (I've done Chelsea, Hampton Court and plenty of the smaller London-centric shows). It was nice to see the gardens, and do a little bit of shopping (I replaced my frazzled Doodia media and scored a Selaginella uncinata, which I've only ever seen at Kew Gardens). But the one aspect I was most looking forward to was Carol Klein's talk about container gardening at Glebe Cottage.

I wondered out loud on Twitter whether she might be able to sign a book, and the superb @BBC_GW_Live responded to say she would be doing a signing immediately after her talk. Brilliant! Grabbed my copy of "Grow Your Own Garden" and we hit the road.

Carol's talk was fantastic. Her enthusiasm is utterly infectious, and anyone who doesn't smile when she talks about her garden has a heart of stone. And I have to admit, as I was queuing up to have my book signed I got all nervous, worried that I would babble away like some kind of sycophant with verbal diarrhoea.

One day I will learn that when I'm just so damn excited I could burst I need to keep my shit-eating grin in check. I did start off saying how much she had inspired me to garden, even though my little patch is difficult, to say the least. And then I asked if she would like to see a photo, and whipped out my phone. I'm utterly proud and a little overwhelmed to say that she thought it was "lovely" and indeed "absolutely gorgeous". And that she took down my contact details to pass on to the GW production team.

I suppose it is looking rather nice in Jurassic Park. I told her what I was growing in there, and she seemed really pleased that it was just what she had been talking about. We had a little chat about teaching in West London - she taught art. She must have been a phenomenal teacher with that personality and enthusiasm. So I told her that I was so impressed with her "The Science of Gardening" show that I had ordered it from our college library and that I showed it to my students at the start of their unit on plant sciences because it was just so well explained, and it had been an amazing way to introduce the topic, with photosynthesis and seed storage and plant anatomy.

I feel like an utter fangirl, but it really was one of the defining moments of my gardening life. I'm sure all of you who know her well will find my excitement at having met her highly amusing, but I'm so thrilled, and even more delighted that she liked my garden. I told Hubster that was like him meeting Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett and having them say they were a fan of his writing. I know you lot all comment from time to time to say how awesome Jurassic Park is, but having heard Carol say it, I believe it just a little bit more.

A Much-Needed Holiday

2011-04-25T21:14:00.000+01:00

Hubster and I have just got back from a week's holiday in St Ives, Cornwall. We visited two years ago with friends, and decided to go back this time just the two of us. The aims were:

To visit a load of gardens
For Hubster to paint a lot of watercolours
To restock from some of the great nurseries
To read a few books (me) and write some more novel/short stories (him)
To relax

I did naff all reading and Hubster did naff all writing, but we managed pretty much everything else, and especially the latter.

So where did we go? Well, we visited The Minack Theatre:

And then we went to Penjerrick, and if you have never been there then you really, really must:

We walked across to St Michael's Mount:

We had a stroll round the gardens at Burncoose Nurseries (where, yes, I might have bought one or two things...):

And we spent an afternoon at Trebah, where the tree ferns seem to have done a lot better this year than they had two years ago:

We were wholly disappointed with the Barbara Hepworth Garden, a reaction which appears to be a mortal sin in Cornwall, but neither Hubster nor I felt that the sculptures and the garden were right for each other:

It was suggested to me that I could not expect very much given the small space, to which I say bollocks, and I imagine the owner of this front garden in Newlyn would agree:

I'm now trying to brace myself for the horror that is heading back to the chalkface tomorrow, so I'll leave you with a tantalising glimpse of my haul:

Wordless Wednesday: Blood, Sweat And Tears

2011-04-20T11:19:00.006+01:00

GBBD: Acacia pravissima

2011-04-15T10:06:00.001+01:00

I don't have much flowering in Jurassic Park (for obvious reasons) but I was persuaded to part with a little money a few years ago for a small Acacia pravissima specimen. This year I have been rewarded with some gorgeous little flowers:

There have been some enormous bees around recently, but they don't seem to have located the flowers yet. A pity, as I gather they go pretty crazy for acacia nectar.

Wordless Wednesday: Ta-Daaaaa!

2011-04-13T12:01:00.002+01:00

Wordless Wednesday: Signs Of Spring

2011-03-02T10:17:00.004Z

Snow On The Ground

2011-02-28T20:17:00.000Z

Last week was half-term, and because it's February the weather was almost entirely rainy. Absolutely miserable. Except Thursday.

So, having read about it in The Garden, I dragged Hubster out to Welford Park in west Berkshire. It's only open for a month every year, specifically for its snowdrops.

The owners get you to drive quite slowly as you approach, and this is probably a good thing as the primary response is to gawp open-mouthed at the woods as you pass. I'm sure there have been the odd shunts and rear-endings.

Of course, the photos don't really do the snowdrops justice. It has to be seen in person, so you should put a note in your diary for next February.

The other early spring plants were not to be outdone, so there is a vibrant display of crocuses and winter aconites near the house:

They don't take credit cards, and they're in the middle of nowhere, so I highly recommend taking plenty of cash, as the smell of the bacon rolls they serve in the tea rooms is almost irresistible. Also stout boots or wellies and someone who doesn't mind pushing the car when it's stuck in the muddy car park will be helpful. All absolutely worth it!

A Weekend Of Plants

2011-02-13T21:11:00.000Z

It was my birthday today (having turned 30 last year I now plan to tell everyone I am 29.95 plus shippling and handling), and Hubster has learnt well over the last year - this means that at some point I will drag him to a botanical garden.

This year, the poor sucker had to cope with two draggings: Chelsea Physic Garden on Saturday and Kew Gardens today. Chelsea Physic Garden is still very much a hidden gem in London, although I am sad to see that the rule about close supervision of children is not as strictly enforced as in previous years - somewhere with Ricinus, Digitalis and Atropa belladonna is probably not suitable for use as a children's playground.

Depressingly enough, the first thing I saw when I went in was a display on plant fibres and their use in rope, which I thought would be perfect when teaching the final AS Biology topic on use of plants.

The lichens are amazing, and at this time of year were some of the most vivid organisms in the garden. Oh yeah, and there were some snowdrops too...

Kew Gardens was all about the tropical extravaganza.

It seemed a little less "extravagant" this year, and it was unusual not to see the waterlily house in use this year. However, it was a great opportunity to get stuck in with my tripod again, and snap some orchids:

And a first for me - a jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) in flower:

The colours were utterly amazing, and I think I managed to capture them pretty faithfully even with my little digicam.

Next weekend sees the start of half-term, so I stand a chance of being able to a) see my garden in daylight, b) dig over the allotment and c) sow some of the gazillion or so seeds that I ordered over the past few weeks...

Dead Or Alive

2011-02-03T17:02:00.001Z

Since our neighbour died, I've had temporary custody of some of his pots. I hesitate to say I have custody of his plants, because I'm not entirely sure they're still alive. They may not have survived last winter - I can't say I paid much attention to whether they were alive over the summer. They look like they've carked it, but before I consign them to the compost heap I want to check.

First one is/was a clematis:

And the second is/was a rose:

These are two genera I have no clue about. Roses are up there with orchids in the list of Plants I'm Too Scared To Grow, and other than reading that if you pretty much look at a clematis the wrong way while holding secateurs it will die, I really don't know how to look after one. It would appear to the extent that I cannot tell whether this will come back from the dead.

Are clematis plants that will regrow from the roots if pruned right back?

I also have a poorly looking Magnolia stellata. The one down the road from me has flower buds ready to go. My M. x soulangeana has leaf buds. M. stellata, not so much...

There are categorically no buds on it whatsoever. Which would really suck as my mother bought me that one.

Kew's Herbarium

2011-01-30T17:34:00.000Z

Today, we had a rare opportunity to go behind the scenes at Kew Gardens to see their Herbarium ("London Fire Brigade's biggest fire hazard in the Greater London area").

Having been up to the reading room in the new wing, and marvelled at how it appeared Benedict Cumberbatch had been manufactured purely with a view to playing Joseph Hooker, we headed to the older wings.

Each of those cupboards is stacked up with papers and specimens:

The specimens are arranged in shelves:

And the curators are going to be moving many of the specimens before cleaning the old wing and replacing their material in APG III order.

We were specifically told not to touch anything, but Hubster and I are dying to know what this is all about:

Any ideas?

Roll On Spring

2011-01-22T14:19:00.001Z

Like Victoria, I've been absolutely enthralled by Carol Klein's "Life in a Cottage Garden" for the past three weeks. I think she's superb, and her enthusiasm is definitely contagious.

The day after her first episode, "Winter", I ran out into the garden to do winter chores, sweeping out the dead leaves from between pots, cleaning the fountain and the ponds, rearranging pots and topping up compost. The day after her second episode, "Spring", I audited my seed collection and looked through the Chiltern Seeds catalogue, before ordering from eBay a dozen Welwitschia mirabilis seeds to try out, on top of everything else.

Today is the day after "Spring into Summer", and I feel melancholy. The promise of the late spring and early summer seems so far away. Jurassic Park looks miserable, soggy and chilly. The thermometer on the window says 7.3°C outside and 19.4°C inside, and it feels like neither. I want to curl up with Jabba the Gecko in his warm hide (which is at 32.3°C!) and eat raw brownie mix.

However, there is hope. This little frond (I imagine one can still call it a frond if it's on a cycad) belongs to Encephalartos princeps, which has been stuck in my back hall since mid-November. I presume if it can cope with the lack of warmth and sunlight then so can I.

Zombie Apocalypse

2011-01-11T11:41:00.016Z

Before Christmas I killed another Blechnum. This one was B. gibbum. Ah well, I have a history of killing blechnums - it's astounding that Blechnum tabulare is still kicking. I brought the pot indoors and dusted the soggy rotten core with sulphur, figuring at least it couldn't become more dead, and I was bringing in the hens and chicks fern and the Very Rare Cycad.

And I rather forgot about it, until I came out of the bathroom one morning and saw this:

So B. gibbum aten't dead. However, it does look rather like this:

Expanding Jurassic Park

2011-01-09T21:39:00.003Z

My in-laws bought me a hammock for Christmas. It's just for one person (sorry Hubster), and I've been wondering where to hang it. I'm not convinced of the sturdiness of the various maple branches overhanging the lawn, and the apple tree (and the blasted evil Tree of ~~Heaven~~Hell) are pretty unreachable.

However, the upstairs fire escape is perfect.

Our upstairs neighbour, Kel, died very suddenly in October. He loved plants, especially big, bright, bold flowers, and often his fire escape was overflowing with red and orange blooms. The week before he died he complimented me on the colours of the dahlias I grew in the front borders. So he'd probably have been delighted to see me taking over. The flat is vacant at the moment, and I have reason to believe that, if it does not stay vacant, any new occupants will not be concerned with outdoors horticulture...

So I figured no one would mind too much if I expanded a bit. This would enable me to accommodate the hammock, put the Magnolia x soulangeana and Magnolia stellata somewhere I can keep an eye on them (they were eaten to bits last year), and add in another mini-pond. I'm limited by needing to keep space free to access the three gas meters (grr).

I moved the greenhouse, and have put it behind the hedge at the bottom of Kel's fire escape. Then the bit of trellis has been moved around through 90° to form the back of the extension. I've taken down the two Athyrium ferns that were hanging off the pillar. I'm going to wrap wire around there and get a vigorous climber to fill the gap there.

And I have a small walkway to connect the two sections. I have plans for some hanging baskets off the fire escape, and I am determined that this shall be the year I grow a water lily in a glazed pot pond.

New Year's Resolution

2011-01-02T21:32:00.000Z

This year, I resolve to not ignore my garden blog...

Teaching has rather eaten into my creative time - I guess the nurturing of 100 young human lives a year has the potential to take away some of the energy I used to have for nurturing 100+ plant lives. On the plus side, I learned that a college biology lab is the perfect place to overwinter more delicate plants, and I may well have what is getting on for the largest Impatiens niamniamensis in the UK (dare you to prove me wrong...) on account of this.

Jurassic Park has rather looked after itself. I haven't bought too many plants this year, possibly because I have so many specialist criteria for plants - when you have every single fern species sold by the majority of garden centres then nursery visits are much more fruitful (and sadly quite rare at the moment). Possibly suffering some garden centre ennui, I'm looking more towards kit and hardware than new plants.

Despite getting down to -7.8°C, I don't seem to have lost very much yet, but I won't unfleece everything for another two months at least. You will be pleased to know, however, that I continue my talent for killing anything of the genus Blechnum, and Blechnum gibbum is not nearly as hardy as one might think (i.e. not at all).

My parents bought me a tripod for Christmas, so I was out in Kew Gardens today trying out the macro with a rare steady hand.

If nothing else, I hope I'll be able to bring you at least the odd Wordless Wednesday of cool close-up stuff from Jurassic Park. Because that's new and original and nothing like anyone does on garden blogs, isn't it?