Magazine style - all inclusive

[alp]

We also have occasional snow flakes. Been to Aldi, Asda and Morrisons. No more salmon for the festive season! Too far to go to the big Asda and Tesco is too expensive.

Come home with a leg of lamb £13 and a duck! QUACK!

 

[alp]

Been so busy! I remember this man complaining his son arranging the stuff on his computer. SAME HERE! Normally, the macbook pro opened very quickly, but this morning, it opened to Windows 10 and I just couldn't sign in as the laptop couldn't recongise the alphabetical input and after half an hour of fluffling around, I switched back to Toshiba.

The wind had blown one camellia sideway. Other than that, everything seemed to be OK.

This pieris is doing very well. Have been in this pot for one whole year. I have found out plants like Pieris and camellias tough cookies. Confined in a pot and steeped in water, they will flower even after taking in a lot of abuse and neglect.

The flowers are quaint dainties!

It's going to be freezing again on Friday. Fortunately, I live in the south where the prolonged sunshine has mitigated the chill factor as the soil should be warm enough. Bad news for sowing.

Before I go, please watch this episode in which the man explains very well why we should sow direct (not in this weather). Great programmes, but a tad too long. Better than watching repeats in GW.

 

[alp]

It's freezing cold here. No prize guessing how cold you two were. Wonder how cold it is with DrCase. Wish he would copy and paste his weather report. Actually, I don't even know where he lives and my US geography is not much good. All I have learned is from Ice cold murder and it can be very cold even in some southern states.

Went to Clockhouse. All the crates were empty and only 2 racks of bulbs. Very sad. It's like they had been raided. Bought some grass to add to the NOIR theme. The only place that was busy in Enfield was MacDonald. No prize guessing what I had for lunch!

This is an awful month to sow or transplant anything. Comes Friday, the temperature plunges again.

 

[alp]

Now, do you add milk before adding boiling water to your tea? I definitely pour hot water into the cup, wash it and then add some hot water, chuck teabag in and then more hot water and then milk. But I have found out that drinking PG is no better than not buying teabag. What a foul tasting "teabag"!

Yesterday, people were out en masse to attack the selling of bamboos as if there were only ONE kind of bamboos. People generalise so much that it's unfair to the poor plants. If you buy Fargesia, you wouldn't have that problem. Chusquea culeou is equally good.

Time to make a HOT cup of tea! LOL! So frigging cold! Cheers, everyone!

 

[alp]

Used a fleece tunnel to cover some of my plants outside. Hope it hasn't walked home with some thief!

Watched AT's Spring to Summer and it was a bit of rubbish. Not much about gardening, apart from making of an arbour from scratch, which was commendable, not flogging for big suppliers! Very little gardening content. A bit of Australian gardening. Very rich content and a tad too long.

I was useless taking photos with this camera - always focussed on the wrong bit or blurred. Took this photo because it's so unique - silvery leaves and lilac flowers £20!

Apparently, all the burners were sold out.

Kangaroo Paw

Isn't she a beauty?

Every thing now is a standard

My Theme Noir

Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’
Dark purple star surfinia petunia
Angelica Giga
Black double hellebores
Black single hellebores
a Rusty codyline (perhaps wrong colour)
a Honka dahlia or 2.
a black aeonium

More sowing and tidying up today.

 

[Zenj]

Morning all still very cold here but the sun is shining , a lot of the plants and shrubs have had there new growth frosted ,Yorkshire tea alp is the best we always take a box when we go on holiday abroad ,forgot what holidays are!

 

[alp]

Yorkshire lad doing his bit. I have actually tried Yorkshire tea, but didn't think much of it. I will ask my posh friend who bought cut roses from Kenya via Holland, Ipswich for £70 what tea she drinks. Meanwhile, I will go to a decent place, and not places selling tea dust to see if I could buy some decent Yorkshire tea and give it another try.

I bought some hedgehog food and as soon as we were home, I thought it a bad idea - another temptation for rats. Difficult this one. I will give it a go.

Been dithering about buying Trillium chloropetalum giganteum Rubra. £12 including delivery. After visiting another site for £10 delivery, I changed my mind a bit. But gmail kept saying they couldn't verify the source and that the site could be suspect, I just couldn't make up my mind. Also the woman said it wouldn't flower this year. When I wanted to buy, the woman was annoyed that gmail and I should think she was suspect. So no sale.

So apparently, all the glorious double daffs that I was supposed to see are nothing but trumpet daffs. I won't buy any daffs again. I'm sick of seeing so many trumpet daffs.

Just hope the weather is wrong. Sunshine makes a lot of difference to the temperature.-1 on Sunday!

Were thinking of buying some primula auriculas, but all of the exciting ones were sold out, not to mention £10 for delivery. I remember sowing auricula seeds. The seedlings were simply pathetic, no roots at all.

 

[Perki]

Wet day today but its stop for the moment and the sun out until it rains again .

I am not a fan of PG tips , I've got tetley at the moment and I am not happy with them either . I do like yorkshire tea which we get now and again, I have another brand don't know if they are nationwide but ringtons is quite good , the biscuit are even better . You never make tea milk first and it should always be boiling hot water , I let it stew for a couple of minute and then remove tea add milk.

I've been up most of the night couldn't sleep and I've been coming down with something sore throat etc, Thought it were covid at first but no the Common cold. My nose is running like a tap and I am sneezing symptoms you don't get with covid apparently, I haven't got any of the 3 covid symptoms so I am not eligible to get a test even if I wanted to.

The frost has been turning thing to jelly , I've been covering one of the Dicentra with a bin and not the other next to it, the one not covered is on the floor bent stems etc not stand up again might as well cut it back at the end of the week when the worst of the weather passed.

These were facing downwards this morning but they stood back up , good job a put some stakes in.

The frost has turned this brown now. It were nice while it lasted.

 

[alp]

This weather report is depressing as there is NO rain again. It said there would be rain, but no; after a day, the rain icon disappears and my rain water supply is getting lower and lower.

That a very nice camellia, Perki!

Cold is very debilitating and depressing and I always take paracetamols when I feel it coming. Never heard of Ringtons. I think I will go to B&M to buy Typhoo again. People have always been dissing Typhoo, saying that it was so awful that supermarkets don't want to store them. It seems to be true that supermarkets don't store them. I will give it another go.

I like tea which is very, very, very hot and I will leave the teabags in. When I worked in a posh shop in Bayswater many moons ago, they stocked nothing but Twinning and I always had 2 teabags as I wasn't used to that kind of weak teas. The manager teased me for having 2 teabags in one go! The singer, Alison Moyet, came into the shop, but I had no idea who she was at the time.

Helper came and realised that the base was too short as the plank of wood he used was too short. In the end, more cement and sand and he did it within 3 hours and now we will have to wait for the new bit to dry and carry on with the greenhouse on top and fix it into position.

Had our leg of lamb and it was delicious. Shame I squeezed the lime juice onto it. It didn't marry well. 2 and a half hour in the oven and it was very tender. Little Emperor missed the connection and was home nearly 8pm. I wish he would try Deliveroo. The boy up the road who studied music in Goldsmith works for Deliveroo and I think he's quids in as it's to be floated on the stock market.

I'm still dithering about getting a Trillium Chloropetalum giganteum rubra.

 

[alp]

A bit later than usual. The sun is smiling - I just couldn't help it.

White Beauty

Could be Pagoda!

Milk bottle to protect a dahlia

Hepatica

The grate is to stop the cat dancing on my plants. Could be a Pagoda or Kondo! The poor beauty is is buggy. I can see 3 bugs all over her!

A very nice day here! Hope to share it with you and you to share your rain with me!

 

[Zenj]

Very nice alp took a few this morning but hail started coming down,seedling is meconopsis pink eye onse at this stage should be ok but they are devils to grow from seed..

 

[alp]

That's it. I'm not posting pics any more. I reckon you've put even Monty to shame! Such a marvellous clump of blooms. The Fritillarias certainly love your soil or your floods. You really amaze me with your great results, Zenj!

Meconopsis seeds can germinate very well if the are fresh and newly harvested. I bought some from ebay and they germinated in no time, but it was around winter time. This year, only the grits are staring at me. I might be a bit late.

Hens each laid an egg yesterday. And one of these is this giant one - 79g! I wonder if I had bigger one. Anyway, this is the record holder so far! Apparently, I was one month behind - must be because of all the seeds that I hadn't sown! It should have been April, not March!

White Beauty Erythronium?

Just like a ballerina

Most impressive Lutea

Love this lilac colour

Orange Emperor - very striking colour

Macropetala clematis

My annual screamer tulip

Brown Turkey Fig tree with fruits

From Farmer Gracy

Pagoda?

It's quite grey here, but no rain.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

Before I leave, Harts nursery is having a sale and some of the lilies are reduced to £1.50.

 

[Zenj]

Morning all another white frost last night but sun is out now another one due tonight and Sunday through to Monday morning doh.Yes meconopsis germinate depending on which ones some takes months than it’s keeping them as they easy damp off Very easily .Trial and error with them.

 

[Zenj]

Forgot to say alp that tulips a beauty.

 

[alp]

Your flowers are amazing, Zenj! Thank you for gracing my thread with them. I just can't get over how many blooms there are in that group.

I wish meconopsis would flower here! No chance. Even trillium will do something here. Very sad. I love meconopsis, but I can only salivate.

Even here, I can't plant stuff out. It's so dry, windy and chilly. I just don't know how you and Perki can cope with such a obscene amount of rain.

Thank you for the tulips. They are quite different. Orange colour always has a place in my heart. That's why I was stunned to see the variations in colours in your troillius. That lilac is quite charming, not too strong.

You should take more photos as your flower quality is superb!