Life, the Universe and Everything

Back in May, I visited the Giant Echium growers at Hidcote so yesterday, I popped along to see how they were doing as Winter approached. I couldn't find the growers themselves but I did find the plants. Here's the planting just south of the Hydrangea corner: They're under a metre high which isn't as big as I sometimes manage. The site is semi-woodland and what with that and the rainy summer we've just had it's understandable. (I have one plant in a very shaded site and it's only grown a foot this summer.) I found another one nearer a large west-facing wall in the "Fuchsia Garden". This is a sunnier spot and the plants were more bushy. The location by the wall is a lot better although I'd have planted even closer to the wall - that way you have an even better anti-frost-pocket and you can show off some smaller plants in front of it. However, it's even less tall so I'm not sure if it will flower next summer. I have a "pure...

Chiltern Seeds who sold me the seed are lyrical about these . Strangely enough they're pretty lyrical about just about all their thousands of seeds so is the praise justified? my answer has to be "Yes, in part". They certainly throw up  a good number of pink, blue and white flowers and some of them change colour as they age. They get quite bushy although definitely dwarf. If you look carefully, you;ll see a dandelion being smothered. They are inclined to wander - if you expect your plants to be self-tidy, don't grow this one - it's more a "cottage garden" sort of plant. Here's an example of an escape bid.  Flowering started in early June and hasn't stopped yet. The flowering "system" is a bit unusual - some plants work on what I call the firework rocket scheme - stems shoot up, explode and quietly fall back to earth. The Echium system is to grow a stem,open a pink flower, change it to blue and then grow a bit more of the s...

A friend was recently telling me about some research done on slimming and smoking cessation that showed that if  people got  an early "win" of some kind, they were more likely to continue (slimming, cessation, etc) This is just like me and growing tomatoes. I first grew them in 2003, the summer was very hot and sunny and I got a magnificent early and long lasting crop. I've been trying to repeat the success every year since.   Some of the plants in subsequent years were small and weedy possibly due to my poor sandy soil. Then, last autumn, I dug out an exhausted raspberry bed,  gave it plenty of manure, visited the physiotherapist several times and planted tomatoes in the spring. I got some really leafy plants that tried to take over the garden but the fruit is very late and sparse. It's been a dull wet and not especially warm summer which may be part of the reason. Sprawling plants on rich soil but fruit is green Some of the crop, I planted out in an ord...

Back in the days before mobile phones, the cool way to phone your friends when out and about was called a "telephone box". They were bright red and this picture shows four of the eight that still stand rarely-used on Cheltenham's Promenade near where the Post Office used to be before it became part of WHSmith This rare "dual" post box got re-branded for the Olympics or something

Found this near Hazleton on the Cotswolds

This is sometimes paraphrased as "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" and I saw this in demonstrated recently at the Bromyard Folk Festival. What they did was to hire the same polished wooden dance floor they and other festivals used a few years back. So, in one sense you could say they had remembered and even celebrated the past - as you might expect for a folk festival. What they'd forgotten was how difficult and dangerous this floor is to dance on. Basically it's as slippery as several eels and those who didn't fall over had to curtail their exuberance. Even a fairly sedate North West Morris side who danced in one of the intervals in the ceilidh had several falls. So, why does this failure to learn from history happen? In some organisations, people turnover may mean that the decision-makers simply don't know about past disasters (or triumphs for that matter). Related to this can be the arrogance of the "new broom" ...

Just round the corner from where I live is my favourite alley - a narrow tunnel under a bed room leads to a pedestrian shortcut between two streets Today, it was "guarded" by an impossibly fluffy white cat with pink ears  In the middle of the alley there are two ancient cottages with no road access but a garden full of Japanese Anemones. A tranquil spot less than 1/2 mile from the centre of town.

You might think this festival involved two-tier beds but the local preserved railway line. in Wallingford is known as "The Bunk" and the festival is intended to raise funds for it. The festival takes over a large green space called The Kinecroft in the middle of the town Here there are all manner of stalls and entertainments... I'm not sure that all these flags are for actual countries. An interesting challenge for the insurance industry .. but there are no precautions to address the health needs of the donkeys!  For a moment, I thought the local buses had entered into the colourful spirit of the occasion Street entertainer There was dancing of course or I wouldn't have been there.The local sports centre has quite a decent floor although it's not too large. The organisers cleverly put the better known band on the Friday night and the local hopefuls on Saturday to balance the numbers.  Unfortunately, I didn...