Magazine style - all inclusive

[Zenj]

Morning all bitter cold here and heavy frost ,forecasting real feel of -9 tonight .Perki I remember when most of televisions were rented and remeber the slot metres at the back.

 

[alp]

Gee! Even when I was a child, we never had to pay money to the TV machine and we NEVER have had to pay TV licence. Now, here they promote the BBC as a sacred cow, deigned to be put on a pedestal to be preserved as a holy cow! 2021! Police can take you to court for not paying TV licence. The BBC is already advertising trust funds companies for RHS shows anyway. We need some adverts to make a cup of tea anyway!

Here, we are warmer and drier! The flood water has dissipated, probably to resume tomorrow. Keep warm, Zenj and must catch anything dodgy and that's FOR ALL OF US!

 

[Zenj]

I think there was a radio licence and a tv than one to cover both and a dog licence if I remember right , every thing we bought was on hp money was tight,and remember as a family we would run out of coal regular and seeing the patterns of Ice on your windows this was internal we are too soft now.the tv slot machine you used to get a rebate when the man came to empty it.

 

[alp]

We are very lucky, especially with All4 free streaming. I hope they're not going to charge. Imagine what I am going to do at night. Cold and miserable and not allowed to go out.

Left a pot of snowdrop inside the warm kitchen and kerching! All the tepals flung open! Now I don't need to turn up the skirt to see the markings.

A teaser for tomorrow.

Snow Fox

Diggory, I think!

Trump! There should be markings on the tepals. So far, not that I can see!

My lighting is not good enough. A nivalis with leaves facing each other, as if praying.

 

[alp]

Snow was predicted, but not that I can see.

Yesterday, I left a pot of Snowfox on the kitchen table. The warmth inside the house apparently helped the tepal do a pirouette. I then realised that if I want to take good snowdrop pics, I should take them indoors where it would warmer and the tepals would yield up its secret. Of course the lighting was never as good outside. Here are a few taken indoors

The above was taken outside. The lighting is much better though it was a glommy day yesterday!

Here the greeish ovary is more obvious.

Bill Clark

See this beauty above, I knew it wouldn't be Wendy's Gold as it should have a fuller marking inside. I have lost the label and I thought it could be Sprindlestone Surprise or Primrose Warburg. It had a greenish ivory. So I labelled it SS or PW with ??? I suddenly found a label on the ground. It turned out it could be Madeleine as the label said it had a greenish ovary. LOL! That find spared me a lot of misery!

Snowfox.

 

[alp]

Snowing and sleeting!

 

[alp]

It was bright and warmer later in the afternoon, about 2pm, but we didn't go out, knowing 1200+ people died. A lot of my seeds have sprouted, especially the leggy cosmos sulphureus which I will cut, chop and drop to improve soil structure. Another one is the Dicentra Torulosa. Already 3 inches tall.

You'll be surprised at how many seeds 99p can buy! 10 Ariane Asparagus and 100 Asparagus D'argenteuil! Well, I sowed the precious 10 seeds yesterday and now feel enormously relieved. Wanted to buy multicoloured carrots, but the one recommended is sold out. Seeing all the carrot tops I have chopped and kept, I think I will buy them next year. I do have some tiny coloured carrots (yes, I harvested them last year and couldn't remember where I put them. Found them 2 days ago.) but they were tiny, half the size of my little finger!

Finally, got my hands on a Chilean Guava and was very disappointed. Before, I was thinking how I would layer all the stems to my heart's content, but no. A tiny plant with 3 stems, the longest being 7 inches. I have now layered 3 stems, snapping one in the process. I will keep it in a warm bright area for it to grow faster. Very annoyed. I paid £13+including postage for this. Another costing £8+had a lot of negative feedback. After checking feedback for that item, I bought one from this seller.

Really fancy an Akebia, but I'm not sure I like its flavour and my millennial will throw up at anything meshy or mushroomy in texture. Also, it is very invasive. The idea of all the fruits splitting open at the same time frightens me.

Going to be a dry day!

Can't complain!

I have finished all my 14p carrots! Sorry, chickens! From now on, we will bake a full loaf of organic bread as we were sent the organic white flour instead of the wholemeal.I was told to keep the white flour which I had been able to buy in Tesco and Morrisons. We went round and round and couldn't find any organic wholemeal. I have decided that now that I don't have any more carrots or Brussels Sprouts (the cooking of which seems to indicate someone has a perpetual diarrhea! ), I will bake a bigger loaf for US and the chickens until we have finished the excess white flour.

 

[Perki]

A dull day today but at least its not raining or snowing . I washed my pots last night and cleaned my label the night before . Organise the pots and sowing station in the GH so I can sow some seeds today - Begonia - Verbena pendula - salvia hastata which I am having problems with germinating they're going in the fridge along with the Crassula which doesn't want to germinate either , also sowed some Veronicastrum Album .

Rake one the borders surprised the mess I lifted from cutting back so chucked that on my shredding pile , got the lawnmower out and proceeded to shred all the garden waster for the compost heap.

 

[alp]

Perki: Must be cold washing pots. I did that too. 3 days ago, I was transferring water using a short hose. Steam coming out and I was perplexed as to where the steam was coming from as it didn't feel that cold. Turned out to my my hand and the way I was holding the hose. This morning, proper bin day, back to normal Monday and there was a hard sheen on the road surface, only the bits warmed by vehicles showed no sign of hard frost. Glad that I asked son to turn on the GH heater, but it stinks when it has been on. As it was so nearly 80 feet away from the house, nobody is troubled.

Must turn on the GH heater again tonight and in fact the whole of the week.

Went to GC and bought some very tiny surfinia petunia and they were like a tiny stem on a jiffy pellet without membrance. Very dry as well. Any way, went to pay and the discount 8 for £7.99 was not applied. The supervisor had a look and came back to confirm the price. The cashier said that they were delivered the day before. I bought a proper Cornus Controversa Variegata for just under £30. So fed up with buying tiny twigs via mail order. It's just not worth it. Very pleased and will make baked potatoes with various branches as soon as it's March ie air layering.

Lovely seafood and I had a raw oyster inside the shop. Costly though. Oyster £1.50; without chilli sauce, or pepper, it's not the same.

Little wagtail hunting for food

Fascinated with these long inner tubings!

I have 2 x Diggory
Plicatus - where the leaves fold round one another. quote this from Alpine society

plicatus is larger than the common snowdrop (G. nivalis). Its foliage is broader and characterised by the plication (folding under) of the leaf margin when young. It is this folding and the residual 'fold lines' on the mature leaves that give the plant its name: 'plicatus' means 'pleated'.

Also, one can see the heavily textured chiselled lines on the outer tepals. Diggory is a most interesting snowdrop and its tepals form a bowl shape. Very distinctive.

2 different Diggories here!

Trump with inverted sharp green v shapes!

Very interesting centre.

Have a lovely and productive day!

 

[Perki]

Couldn't eat that makes my feel sick just looking at it , I don't eat any seafood . Dull wet day again I've been round to my mums and smashed some concrete up and moved some stones around to start making a base for the stone flags. I need to use the SDS drill to smash up the large pieces of concrete, saves me from buying a skip to get rid of it and save on not having to buy any or as much hardcore .

How big is your Cornus alp ?

I did the pots in the sink well in a tub in the sink with hot water, I just bang out the excess compost and swill them around I am not to fussed , I only wash the small pot for seedling as well.

 

[alp]

A very heart-warming news story

Hahaha! i love seafood. My mum fried them and she was ever so good. They were delicious. The batter was crunchy and it melted in your mouth but not hard. More like the Japanese tempura. I have never had any success with my Japanese tempura. Always ended up throwing away a saucepan as the flour stuck to the bottom.

I washed all my pots in the cold water outside. I have about 15 containers of water. Once it stops raining, I will be crying as it's so dry in summer and all the aphids will be having a field day. It took me 5 trips and a tiny Chilean Guava from ebay to make up my mind. I will measure the plant and upload a pic. It's well worth it. 5 trips and their after-deliberation and I took the plunge! It has quite a few branches and I will defintely air-layered 2. If successful, I will send you one, Perki! And Zenj one if he wants it. Should be end of the year. It will not be sent Royal Fail!

Wish I had bought the Styrax Japanese Snowball though £12, but it went to my friend and she was like my sister, "Oh, no! Can't take a cutting!"

Oops! Need to take cuttings of the gooseberry. I have a standard red hominica gooseberry in the allotment, but it have done nothing, not a fruit! I won't buy any more bare root sticks. It will have to be a standard and the red gooseberry is one of the best soft fruits!

Perki: How much is your SDS drill? Could you upload a pic please? Do you know how to cut bricks? I want to make a gate at the back. I want to invest in some good tools, not too heavy though.

Double snowdrop

Trump has these bright inverted V markings n the outside.

See the extent of the virus!

You might think these are the same flowers, but I am not sure.

I know this is a beauty! Just wait and see!

 

[alp]

Cornus Controversa Variegata About 30 inches in height

As you can see, there are quite a few airlayering possibilities on this tree and it's not 7 inches!

Snowdrop Trump

1. hybrid
2. sharp green inverted v markings on the tepals and also inverted v in the inner segments.
3. Early flowering

photo from Avon Bulbs below

Iphone photos not very good!

Link for Appreciation

From Judy's

Diggory

1. Plicatus
2. honey scented
3. Very unique seersucker texture or groove-like embossed texture, making it very uniquely distinctive
4. Latern or bowl like tepals
5. Flushed green inner markings
6. Tepal won't flare up as the tepal bottoms look pinched.

The Diggory above: Tepals won't flare outwards like Trump as the tepal tips are "pinched"

Could be Godfrey Owen

Above:
Could be Godfrey Owen

Details about Godfrey Owen

1. Named after plantswoman, Margaret Owen's husband
2. Elwesii
3. unique symmetrical 6 outer segments and inner segments.
   
   Images from Avon Bulbs
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Are snowdrops too expensive to acquire! Surely, yes. But they multiply rather freely, usually with very little effort on your part. You can surely sell and buy. Check all the specialist nurseries online to compare the prices before you take your plunge as some of the famous supplier can cost you £8 more for the same item. Also, watch out for per Pack or per bulb. You can buy them as resting bulbs or during sales.

 

[alp]

Just when you thought 2020 was bad, 2021 is no better. Christoph has displaced a lot of people.

This once beautiful house is more or less inhabitable because of the flood and there is more rain water to come!

Thousands of homes in north of England are EVACUATED as Storm Christoph lashes Britain with snow after torrential rain

Saw on C4 catch up news the night before that Yorkshire, Doncaster and Cambridgeshire were ther first places to be hit with terrible floods. Now the human tragedy continues. And then there is the Covid plague. I saw a photo of a teacher with all limbs amputated. How can one not cry forsuch a terrible plight visited upon this innocent lady?

Trump has a marked OUTER inverted v marking.

First Camellia of the year - a double pink beauty.

 

[Perki]

Its been raining here for two days non stop then turned to heavy snow last night for hours covered everything all the main roads, A lot of it has melted now this morning its gone back to rain / hail . Rivers are high but I've seen them a lot higher in the past .

My snowdrops were showing a few weeks ago , I think they have retreated back under ground not seen them or noticed them since then. I need to tidy the rest of the garden now , the weather has flattened the rest of the perennials I haven't cut back yet they're laying across the lawn now , don't know when i'll be able to get out into the garden may turn into a mud bath.

 

[alp]

We actually had a glorious day yesterday. Very bright and only turned cold when the sun retired 3pm. I lingered on indoors and potted up 5 more strawberry pots and 3 more hanging baskets of staws. They had become very invasive and gone everywhere in my garden. The horrible thing was that they had a faux ami which looked nearly the same and then there is the weed which mingled with the straws with their feelers, aided by their nasty long roots, like a nightmere. I needed to rehouse the straws so that we can have early straws and I could weed the garden a bit. Because of that, I still haven't sown delphinum seeds. Those from last year were languishing in the greenhouse.

Contrary to myth, snowdrops will do very well in sunny areas, especially up north as they need February sun to shine on them for them to do their pirouette, emit their perfume and attract bugs. Yesterday was ideal for taking photo, but alas the winds ruined the prospect of having any decent ones. The winds were seriously bashing the other unfinished greenhouse.

A trip to the greenhouse showed me one little sweet surprise.

This hellebore was in full flower. I planted it in the ground straightaway, in the hope of seeing some seeds.

Diggory - famed for its balloon shape tepals and the crinkled cut textured tepals which look like embossed paper.

Godfrey Owen in a darker corner! I think I have about 4 of them.

I have about 4 of these red edged hellebores. No way to distinguish them and yet they are all different.

When the sun is out, this beauty is very accommodating and will lift its visage towards the sun or even upward to show off its secret.

This seems to be the same as the one above.

Another sweet surprise is that one penstemon is constantly in flower - Mount Edna and the Blackbird has already thrown out buds. Do they know something?