Frary's Fresh Flowers

Rained everyday so far - in the mid to high twenties that means that it is green, green green here.
Everything that isn't tended is covered with vines.
Tokyo is very big on container gardening
more later

How did I know? I made two predictions for my return to Aberdeen -
the weather would be cold wet and dark - correct#
my fuchsia cutting would all be dead - correct#
Ho Hum - Tokyo tomorrow and take photos today...

I've one more week left in Tripoli before I go home for my off break. My wife tells me that absolutely everything is blooming in the garden - Roses, Lilies, sweet peas, tomatoes, fuchsia - pratcially everything - and I miss it all by spending 8 weeks in Libya on the dry season... grrrrrr - kicking my heels trying to find ways to progress the flower business... reading websites, reading business books - dreaming instead of doing. These are again piccies from Mary Ellen madden Frary - nice pinks and a

This is another nice one from Mary - a Calendula - also known as pot marigold or scotch marigold. This is a perennial version of the familiar French and African marigolds and ADYD - another damn yellow daisy. There are a wide variety of yellow and orange composite flowers - so many that it becomes hard to tell them apart.
Anyhow - Annual or Perennial - which to choose. I think most people - okay me - initally go for perennials because they seem to offer better value for money - you get years of flowers for just one purchase and so, once you've planted it, you can forget it and go on to fill another part of the garden. Then after a couple of years you notice that some of the nicest flowers are annuals and that growing from seeds is so much better than buying a plant - the nuturing instinct comes out - seeing a plant grow from a tiny seed (e.g. a lobelia seed) or even a huge seed like a bean or a sunflower all the way through to flowering is a true test in paitence.
I feel that annual seeds tend to give a better success rate which is logical as they only have a one-shot chance - the big bang of reproduction. Then once the seed is up and running the plants sprint ahead - they have to get to flowering size within that one growing season. Many perennials don't flower until their second or third year - so that can mean two or three times as many chances to kill them (cold winters, droughts, heavy rains, heavy frost) before you get the reward of a flower.
That means that perennials are not always the bargain they seem - e.g. I have lost so many lavendar plants that the remaining ones have cost a fortune - but that is a moan for another day.
So the other advantage is death - annuals die straight after flowering and that's it. You don't have to feel guilty about pulling up dead annual marigolds or dead sweet peas because - well - they're dead. However I always feel guilty about pulling up and trying to move any sort of perennial because they are still living - I am killing a perfectly good plant just for the sake of my vanity.
So - to sum - annuals seem easier to grow from seed and rush through to the money shot quicker - and then you feel less guilt afterwards.

Just to let you know I'll probably only be updating once (or possibly twice) a week. This is mainly because I'm trying to bang out 1000 words a night on my latest novel (The Princess and the Porpoise - but I think I'm going to change it to "Julia Islands") and that takes 2 to 3 hours a night - so that I can get it finished. It's the third draft so has taken around a year at the moment - which I know is too long which is why I'm banging it out to get it over, get it editted and then get it out into the wrold. I haven't had any of the novels published yet (though I did earn money from a play once) but it will fit in with the gardening. I read somewhere that many writers have great gardens because when they get stuck or blocked then they go and potter in the garden while they think - a distraction - that is where I want to get to. Either the gardening will be the main business and I will write late at night as a second string or the writing will take off (after 15 years how likely is that?) and the flower gardening becomes semi-professional.
One or the other would be the ideal.
So once or twice a week and I'll try to put more photos in to make it visually appealing.

This is a photo from my daughter-in-law - Mary Ellen Madden - from our garden - it looks like a cornflower to me - but (to be honest) I don't remember planting any cornflowers this year - the ones I put in the garden last year were cut down by... yeah you got - the effing rabbits. It's areally nice photo though.

Anyhow back to the main post
Which podcasts would I recommend?
I work in Tripoli, Libya for 3/4 of the year (after 3 1/2 years doing the same rotation in Angola) so don't get to listen to Radio 4 Gardeners question time very often or the other radio programmes I used to listen to - the 18:30 comedy on the drive home from work was always a highlight for the day and a great timer for the working day. Many a time I would arrive home early and still listen to the end of the programme till just before 19:00.
Regarding Gardeners Question Time - I find I can answer some of the questions which is great and always used to be amazed that the panel could name species and varieties off the top of their head - and then I found out that they get the questions before hand to research... hmmmmmmmm... that's a topic for another time as it isn't a podcast - don't know why but it isn't.

Anyhow which podcasts do I listen to?
For gardening there really are only two I regularly listen to and would recommend - the Alternative Kitchen Garden - discovered on itunes - I particularly like the AKG as Emma Cooper has got a very gentle voice and spends the whole programme on one topic. There is a supporting website http://coopette.com and she is writing a book so plenty of background if you find you do like her style.

Another podcast I usually listen to is Gardening with GLT's Dean of Green, - the Dean of Green is a biologist from the University of Illinois - but I can't give a link at the moment thanks to the Company's web policy - the GLT website is an "Internet TV and Radio site" - big no-no for us. Any how the format is usually a long answer to one (or sometimes two) questions emailed in. The Uni is up North so they have winters of zone 5a/5b so colder on average than ours - (sound like really hard winters compared to our winters in Aberdeen - US zone 8) so the plants are pretty relevant to us.

The Hedgerow (TM) for passionate Gardeners was okay but seems to have gone quiet over the last months and it can be a bit bitty.

Other aural podcasts: I have tried the Wriggly podcast but it wasn't for me - very chatty. I know a couple of people who subscribe to the Wriggly news.

For visuals - there are a couple of video podcasts I enjoy but neither are really useful because the video format means that they can only be a couple of minutes long. This makes them snippets so that they become pleasant asides rather than a good source of info.
Anyhow the two are:
"Flowerpossibilities.com" is a once-a-month flower arrangement podcast - nice for new ideas.
"Flower gardening - the anxiety cure" is a couple of minutes of video usually about perennials - interesting.

The other essential podcast is "Farming today" but I will leave that for another blog entry - it is such a great source of ideas.
Now there are a lot of business ones I listen to and also science ones which often include general background on either ecology or botany or pest control etc. - but that's for another post.