Frary's Fresh Flowers

Having reread my Ajuga post I realised that I came close again to getting the bug with Fuchsias - it might be the little boy inside me (and you don't have to scratch more a nanometre to get down to it) that wants to pronounce it Fuch-See-AH - Hold tight!!! (and thank you scarey, ginger, smelly, bashful, dopey, beaky, mick and titch for that word misassociation that plays in my head - does anyone still say thumbs in- pardon - checks when they break wind apart from me mentally)... oh aye I forgot... Fuch-sia.

Didn't like them until I started to grow them - see a previous posting - and then when a couple of plants were successful last year then it's suddenly - gimme, gimme, gimme!!! more, more, more (How do you like it, how do you like it... Was Andrea True Connection really a transexual - and I know that connection wasn't part of her actual name?) What did people do before they were bombarded with the media to fill their brains with fluff? Probably they ran a constant commentary of bible associations or fairy tales quotes or folk tales quips through their heads - or maybe they actually had thought or maybe - and this is something I have heard espoused several times - people weren't conscious until relatively recently - I've heard of around 3000 BC as a likely date that human consciousness actually became conscious - push it back a bit and you get the supposed day of creation - maybe the date of creation was actually the date that humans became conscious - no I don't believe that either but can you imagine the ancient Egyptians wandering around with all the free-associations going off in their heads every time some one said "the Nile" - he's in denial, no he ain't he's fallen in the water... or Neanderthals having a head full of " mammoths, Mammoths - we ain't no mammoths - I don't have to show you any stinking mammoths!!!)
Fuchsias - so there are well over 1000 commercial varieties of fuchsias - there is no way I can even get close to a complete collection of fuchsias so I am thankfully already cured of any collection envy starting to pump there - but then there are hardy fuchsias - hardy for Scotland? hardy for Northern Scotland? Hardy for Aberdeenshire? Now there is a collection that is quite possible. Thumbing through the catalogues there aren't many commonly available hardy fuchsias for the UK - maybe two or three dozen - there's a possible collection. And for Tipperty I bet that doesn't extend to more than 24 or so... Hardy Fuchsia collection here I come... Delta Sarah is my favourite based purely on the photos of what it should look like (blue and white) - here is what it actually looked like in our tubs this year in September before I returned to sunnier climes - pregnant with the possibilities (and intertwined with a  nice cambridge blue lobelia)
 
And this, gentle reader, is what I expected to see  - or rather something similar to this - with different colours of course - yes I know I'm obsessed with colour - it's the painter in me - swoon, swoon.

And this, dear reader, - look away now if you can't take horror pictures - is what I saw (gulp) when I got back in last day of October after the frigging frost got to my preciousesesss.
 
SHRIEK! Shriiek!
The frigging frost destroyed all the flowers before any could open - so much for hardy. It was actually the frigging snow in October but that doesn't illerate as smoothly - fortunately I had moved the tender fuchsias into the greenhouse before I left mid September - precognition eh? - the half hardy or tender ones survived and continued to flower well into early november . But really this is the sort of thing I was truely expecting to see when I got back in November - a late summer bloom of delicate blossoms from my Delta Sarahs, my lady thumbs and my Dollar Princess. 

And now I realise that all my piccies of fuchsia look pretty similar - straight forward half face portraits from the side. Ummmm - David Bailey moment - note to self - stop the stream of consciousness crap and try editting your comments for a change  and then try to photo fuchsias from a different angle.
And check your spelling before you post.
Anyhow - there are now maybe 8 or 9 different "hardy " varieties of fuchsia in the Frary Family F.......... Photo album (can't think of a word for garden that begins with F) but I need to see if Sarah recovers for next year before I can truly decide whether I can switch the adrenal gland on and go all out for a Hardy Fuchsia collection.

While I'm thinking of rabbit resistance it seems that Dianthus are rabbit resistant (pity that most aren't slug resistant) but I wish someone would tell the rabbits in tipperty too. I'm certain that some of the pinks have been devastated by the young bunnies. That would be the bunnies who are too young to read the same books as me or surf the net. I think the older bunnies know that they aren't supposed to eat the carnations - but the youngsters - they just come in to the garden and chomp on anything that's looks edible.
The slugs - they're just too thick to know so they get the organic pellet solutions - bright blue - spread liberally around the patio - looks like an explosion in a plastic factory at times.
Anyhow, back on track here's a picture of some pinks that tick all my right boxes -
Rockery - tick - though 1 from 2 planted died thanks to being over shadowed by my rampant blue leuco... thingymummum
Flowers - can be picked and dumped in a vase therefore classed as a cut flower in my book in full flower during early Sept - and I was home to see them - Woo Hoo!!!
Smelly - tick - absolutely reak of musk to high heaven - gorgeous (though I don't know why musk is supposedly a sexy smell - maybe it's a gender thing - who wants to smell like deer testicles... I know the musk glands aren't quite the testicles - I do have some biology ((and, more importantly access to wikipedia) and now this aside is turning mathematical with brackets within brackets within brackets - FOCUS!!)- but they're pretty damn close to either the balls or the bum - so who wants to smell like a deer's nether regions) - and for me to be able to smell them you know how strong they have to be (have I told you about my terrible sense of smell?) I wish you could smell them they are divine - in fact I can actually recall the smell now as I type and that is extremely rare for me - being able to remember a smell (cue for a written reflection on the last 47 years of my life... nah! The only other smell I ever seem to remeber is yellow fish (laughingly called smoked haddock at school but his is from when I used to wash dishes in the hospital .... effing focus mannnnnnn) - it really is a great smell which is probably why they come into the next category
Rabbit and slug resistant - tick - I'm assuming they are by default seeing as how they have lasted over a year without being cut to ribbons.
On sale - tick - £1.50 from B&Q at the end of the season - should have been £2.99 so got two for the price of one - and maybe it is cosmic Karma that one of the two died so in the end they actually cost me the price of a full one - but I would have been well peed off if I'd paid full price for one and put in the wrong (shady0 place and it had died. At least with 2* half-pricers you've got 2* as much chance of getting the right place...
Piccie time - say hello to my little Musk Pinks.
and in situ en rockery so to speak...

And here, just to squeeze in one more piccie, are the pinks (on the patio) that the predators didn't get to

Rabbit resistance - for the first three year rabbit resistance has been high on the selection criteria for Chez Apachenf. I need to get some piccies of the little buggers - well big buggers actually. We have had to dispose of a couple of dead 'uns from the garden but I can virtually guarantee that they were poisoned by us (though we do have a list of plants poisonous to rabbits - very tempting). What may have happened is that they ate so much of my expensive plants that their stomachs exploded ala "Seven". I have definitely planted many, many plants that rabbits seem to love and decimated overnight. So you could say that the rabbits may have been killed with love. (Aprart from the one with the spade - it was like a cartoon - I almost heard the boing!!!!! as the eytes came out on stalks). Definitely need a piccie to get rid of that imagine.
This is Ajuga reptens (and I always want to chant "Ajuga, Ajuga, Ajuga" while thinking of Red Dwarf when I mention this plant.) also know as Bugle. By coincidence I am actually listening to "the Bugle" now (a Times Online Podcast by John oliver and Andy Zaltmann - here's the link http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/the_bugle ) - probably not coincidence - more suggestion. This is the variety  "Braunherz"  (I think) and has already taken over half the bog garden. (though the verbascums and Knifophias fought back valiently as shown above) Suprisingly it hasn't spread into the surrounding moss  but is managing to fight off the creeping buttercup. - The Moss garden (i.e. the front garden sprayed repeatedly with glyphosphate - but that is for yet another post). It looks like Ajuga will only spread vertically if given a choice. Also will be a good source for the hanging baskets - that's a project for the spring. If anyone has Ajuga at home then you will know how easily it spreads. It grows by runners - very very similar to how strawberries spread. At the moment I also have 2other varities doing okay in the front garden they are "Burgundy glow" and "Caitlin's giant. THe burgubdy glow was one of the very first plants in the rockery and thriived for two years until it grew scaggy and the other plants bedded in and fought back.

Also out there (and in the "propogation area" - the back yard) are some struggling varieties such as the golden Varigated variety - "Golden Beauty" struggling - probably too dark for it - time for a move? Also "choc chip" - struggling - probably too wet this year, "metallica crispa" - struggling but sending out runners so fighting for survival - died in the garden last time I planted it so probably again too wet or it's leaves are so small it will need protecting in the rockery  - also this is Ajuga pyramidlis so not quite bugle, more of a cornet as it is small, squeaky and struggling to hit the high notes - and a reptens variety "multicolour" that is definitely strugglingin  - I think it may be rabbit resistant but not slug resistant. I leave long grass to encourage the beetles (which eat the slugs). That's the public reason - organic view - long grass for wildlife refugues to keep down pest by encouraging natural diversity. Actual reason is - too lazy (and overseas too much - honestly!!) to pull up all the weeds and especially the auntumnal leaves. You may be able to pick out the odd sycamore leaf in the above pictures (or pick out the Ajuga between the sycamore leaves) which - again is a natural mulch so to be encouraged... yeah - lazy again. perhaps "modern" gardens are supposed to be too clean (like modern kitchens are too hygenic) so that they are not getting tested enough to be immune to pest and diesease attack. 

So why so many varieties - two reasons - first that the rabbits don't like them (which is where we came in) so they survive and second - I am still afflicted by the collectors bug that affect so many little boys. The desire to be completist. (there is at least two common varieties out there that I don't have - "Artic Fox" and "Varigated") is difficult to fight when you have grown up, and are naturally, a collector/nerd.  Fortunately a decade working in the tropics at various times - has cured me of the super intense collectors instinct - the one where it takes over your reason and becomes an obsession compulsive disrder.  At times I have been very close to that (e.g. as a teenager and also when I actually earned more than I was spending - a brief 12 month period) and I can easily appreciate where some do become obsessive. But I am constantly fighting against it. Is it an empty life being a collector - from the outside yes I guess that looks empty and lonely but from the inside there is the thrill of the mission. I don't know about you but I have always been very envious of people who are driven to be the best - the very best.. I know that when I have been obsessed by things these have actually been some of the happiness times in my life - e.g. when I have had to crawl off to bed at 5:00 in the morning and then laid with video screens still playing out against the back of my eyelids - the feeling of obsession is close to addiction - may even be the same as addiction - may even release the same endorphins? - and the chance to be obsessed for a living must be brilliant.  And I guess that that is what i am looking for again - I want to be obsessed again - every so often there is a spark and I rush off and focus on something - other times you have to pull back and think - is this realistic and can I afford it - and answer yourself - nah! so go back to day to day drudgery. I guess it's like being in love for the first time - every single time you get an obsession.... and that's why I like Ajuga reptens - rabbits don't eat it and there is the chance to collect without breaking the bank or the life.

So colleagues here comes another commercial for Thompson and Morgan I guess - I wish they were paying me commision but I have found them the best seed company so far.
Anyhow this is for the commercial growers site at http://www.direct2grower.com/. It's only been up since the start of November after taking a couple of months to go live. They did have a commercial growers site before but then redesigned it and took away the link from the home growers site and then renamed it. There is a minimum buy of £50, there is a limited selection of seeds & plants (naturally as it is only those favoured by commercial growers) and most of them are annuals, and the shipping costs are pretty steep. However I am spending my Xmas money from my Ma & Pa and you can get one free packet of seeds if you order before 30th Nov - naturally I ordered £50 of seeds then choose a free packet of snapdragons... that costs £85!!!! If I get the free seeds I'll be quids in - woo hoo!
I had originally selected £100 of seeds to get the discount which would pay for the postage but pulled out at the last minute and whittled down my ambitions to £50.
One distinct advantages is bulk buying discounts. For example - I grew the sweet pea "sugar and spice" -discussed on another posting - with some success. They cost me £2.25 for a packet of 25 on the home growers site. This year I bought a packet of 100 seeds for £4.11 - i.e. the commercial is 1/2 price of the home seeds. Similarly Knifophia - traffic lights or torch lilies - home price is 20 seeds for £2.69, commercial price is 250 seeds for £5.29 - that's 1/10 of the price - way hey quids in. Same for Ipomoea and most others.
However there are a few with little or no difference and I'm sure that there are one or two commercial ones that are more expensive than the home ones. And the choice is definitely limited.

The second photo here is of my transplanted knifophia - I've ripped out half a dozen from the bog garden and trying to grow them out near the burn. If they die I'll try to blame Alan Titchmarsh because I'd just read his memoirs - Trowel and Error - he's lived my life already - or rather the one I should have had - so I was inspired to do a bit of transplanting - basic dig up, thrash apart and lob into a hole. I bet the latest snowfall will do them in while I'm away
Anyhow back to the seeds - that's 10* the number of seeds for only 2* the money - has to be a bargain. Especially when you consider that my seed "trials" have a high rate of failure - either at the germination phase or more commonly at the aftercare stage.
But if I'm gonna make a go of it I have to get the system and the experience going and much better to do it with £50 of seeds from the commercial site than £150 from the home site (as I spent last year...)

grow the roses of success."
That's a special phrase for me - for two reasons - maybe that's why the first line is repeated...
"Up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success.!"

Actually there's more than 2 reasons.
Let take the first - it is one of the songs I played repeatedly as an pre-teen (pre-punk, and even pre-glam rock so maybe 1971/1972) - from the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack. The other big favourite of mine was P.O.S.H. both mainly sung by Lionel Jeffries - maybe POSH is why I'm a snob... nah - I'm probably attracted to the song because I'm a snob - I think I always have been and always will be - deep down I believe that I'm better than anyone else at almost anything - and that my kids are better than anyone's else, and even that my wife is better than anyone else's (though I don't claim to own her in any sense of the word - I'm only 10 lines in and I'm already two topics off from what I wanted to write)- backtrack - yeah Roses of Success - I loved the song even before I saw the film (there are another couple of good songs - musical hall songs like "Me old Bamboo" - (I never could understand everyones fuss about Dick Van Dyke's British accent in this and in Mary poppins - until my early twenties I thought that he was British and had made a great success of being a Brit in Holywood on the DVD show and the MTM show) then a few slushy ones which really turned my stomach - then and now).
Second reson - Roses of Success - a truely inspiration song in which there are a couple of lines sung by the actor who played Mr Davenport in Rentaghost and he always appears in my head every time I hear the song - now I don't know why that should be relevant or meaningful to me but it is. I thought the jester was really annoying - what was his name... I keep thinking of Mr Mumford but he was the guy who set up Rentaghost - you either know what I'm talking about so are roughly 40 to 60 and British - or have absolutely no idea what I am wittering on about - Timothy Claypole - that was the creepy jester - maybe he was just crosseyed or something but his childishness really irked me.
Once Mr Mumford and Mr Davenport left (after the second series when the actor Michael Darbyshire who played Mr Davenport died and Mr Mumford didn't return) and Mr Meaker took over and all those other ghosts and witches came in I stopped watching probably because I went off to University - I was 18 by then afterall - or because everything centered around Timothy Claypole - Thank god for Wikipedia so you don't have to think about who played what and when anymore you just look it up.
Anyhow Michael Darbyshire played one of the inventors in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang who sing the song "Roses of Success" and I can always pick out his line to remind me of Rentaghost.

Well I never knew that - Max Wall was one of the inventors too!

Where was I... Roses of Success - don't know why the inclusion of Mr Davenport is important but it is.

So I don't think I can quote the lyrics or put the music on the page because they are copyrighted - quite rightly so - but I do find it inspiring especially at the moment as I've just not got the job I was relying on (for the last two months ) to get out of Libya and get back to the UK fulltime so I can get down to some serious growing and some selling of flowers. As long as I am away there's nothing practical I do above dreaming to make the dream happen . So I keep up my moral by listening to songs like "the Roses of Success".
What was the third reason that the song is special... I guess it's the roses part.
For some reason my wife wants a rose garden. Well I beg your pardon, but I never promised her a rose garden. Along with the sunshine, there's got to be a little rain sometime - but too much has fallen in mine.
The roses in Tipperty have not done well at all. At least half have died and rotted away - or rather - dried up into expensive twigs. But it can't be the area because Cockers of Aberdeen seem to be one of the big Rose breeders in the UK. What has happened is that I have tried to grow them where it looks good for the plan in my head and not where would be good for the roses - ie tried tgo fit the plant to the place not choose the place for the plant. Son I think I have put them in places that were too shaded and/or too wet. Of the six climbers we bought 3 dried up and died within 6 months (too closed to the fir trees so the gound was bone dry) but I moved the remaining three in spring into full sun, between pollarded rowan trees and the roses seem to have shot up this year. The distance I moved them is all of three yards but the difference in the soil is huge.

The climber in the front - well the jury is out while the 'rose bed' in the back is gradually being shifted into full sun. Maybe half the roses seem to survive the transplant so I'm still on the steep part of the learning curve there - but hope springs eternal.
For every little failure I'm grateful - cause that's one mistake I'll not make again (though I do)

For up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success - OH YES!!!

As the rockery develops the plants along the top continue to thrive - these are tree heathers - Erica arborens - bought over ebay - one of the best buys I've had so far from eBay. Other successes from eBay are wild Ransoms and dog tooth violets but on the whole it has been a disappointement - seeds rarely arrive with decent instructions and don't give a good germination rate (compared to T&M though I guess T&M may be treating with anti-fungal chemicals, or growth accelerators or something else to increase success whereas most eBay seeds will be organic and untreated - i.e. collected put in a grease proof packet and sent off) - so not too good an iunvestment overall.
So we have 4 types of tree heathers with three of each apart from "Albert's gold" of which we have six.
As with most perennials they have taken a year to bed in - settle in and spread their roots - during which time they became a wee bit bedraggled. Now they are settled the original three have definately added a few inches over the last quarter and almost doubled in size. The other 12 flowered but are still in the bedding-in period so next year should get them going - or send the way of half the shrubs we put in.

Now one of the ways I know that my Mrs are on the same wavelength about the garden and the plant business prospects is our reaction to certain situations.
For example we went to a friend's wedding six months ago and spent several minutes identifying the flowers in the table displays and discussing how they were arranged and how we might have done it different.

But the biggest incident that showed we were on the same wavelength was when I was home 3 weeks ago. In the brief week we had together we went to see Quantum of Solace - about 1/3 of the way in, after all the car antics and the rooftop chase and so on Bond goes to see an old mate to get help to get to S America (Bolivia i think) he walks up the stairs and then there is a shot of him walking in through the door. There a container at the top of the stairs just by his left leg and my wife and i tourned to each other at the exact same moment, in the middle of the cinema and both said exactly the same thing.

"Rosemary".

A real Citizen Kane moment. Who needs to look at Daniel Craig when you can look at the background foliage. Sad - or what.

Other plants I was dismissive of until I started to grow them were gladioli - but now I love some of them. me and the Mrs particularly like these pure white ones - they are like flowers made out of tissue paper - so delicate.

Unfortunately they don't seem to come up well the second year - and especially not the third year. I guess that they are half hardy for Aberdeen. I don't think that this is because of the cold winters, I think it is mainly the wet summers. I read of recent research that showed that for many plants the summer conditions were much more decisive than the winter conditions which makes a lot of sense if you think about it. The plants are growing in summer so if it is wet the roots can't breath - gladioli are dormant in winter so, as long as the condition are not super extreme, shouldn't care too much if they get the odd touch of frost. Hardiness is an issue for another blog.Back to gladioli... do I have much to say about them? Not really - if you can get back the association with Dame Edna then they are a nice space filler for a year but nothing I could get enthused about - apart from the white beauties.

Oh my god - I can see a crocheted doilly in this photo - I bought a pack of 50 off eBay for my wife - and we have them all over now - we used to have loads at my parental home in Grimsby because mmy Granny was into crochet - at my Gran's house they had huge ones hung over the backs of settees - big anti-macasars - which were lovely - and now - here they are - crocheted doillys in my house... sorry - our house... for why? At least we don't have them over the back of the settees but we do have settees not "suites" or "divans" (aren't they beds?" or "Sofas" - sofas are for softees - we have settees because we're 'ard as nails - even our doillys are 'ard.

When pottering around the internet I came across a site called "Plants for a Future" http://www.pfaf.org/index.php (which is a brilliant resource) and surpringly they have fuchsia's down as an edible plant. I was dubious until this last trip home. Looking round the greenhouse for something to photograph I spotted the berries hanging from the fuchsia. My wife was in there with me so i picked one and gave it to her to eat. She nodded and said "nice" . After a minute she still hadn't dropped down writhing in agony so I picked another and had a nibble. Lovely, real nice fruit - like a fragrant grape. I could really see them selling well in posh shops
Yes - idea bells did tinkle around my head and I swear that you could have seen a light bulb go on over my head. Either fuchsia berries are real tasty and hallucinogenic or there is a possibility there - if they are hallucignogenic then - whey-hey!!! Yachts, cadillacs and pink fur coats here we come. Bada bing, bada boom....
Anyhow - I think it was "Black Rossey" variety - (though it may have been "Dollar Princess") - which is a tender variety (boo hiss) so they'll be no acres and acres of fuchsia vineyards spreading across Aberdeen in the near future (unless I got the variety tottally wrong) but there is a germ of an idea there.
Fuchsias are one of the many plants I was entirely dismissive of until I actually started to grow things. I thought they looked ugly and, well dare I say it, common - yes I was a gardening snob. In a similar way I was very dismmissive of daffodils, pansies and kniphofia (torch lilies/red hot pokers). Far too common for my refined tastes. And then you try to grow some uncommon plants.
And you find out why they are uncommon.
And you find out very quick why the common plants are common. They are tough - they grow despite the gardener not because of the gardener. And you really start to appreciate these tough plants which can survive all the chemicals you throw at them, the stony ground, the awful weather - especially the cold wet winters - and still come up smiling and beaming every spring. Even more so those flowers which will continue flowering into winter. It stops you feeling like a total loser in the garden. My wife seems to think that I have green fingers. She doesn't know quite how plants I have put into the garden to see disappear without trace - usually beneath a mound of grass, or literally disappear when the slugs and rabbits get to them, or soften, darken and fall over to dissolve into a wet patch. And I really don't want her to find out how many packets of seeds have disappeared into thin air. I reckon I'm lucky if one in ten attempts has been successful. Fortunately with plants anything that does survive grows so successes look much bigger and better than they really are.
But back to fuchsias - I really didn't like them but now that we have grown a few I'm starting to love them, the wee beauties. For some reason blue ones really do it for me (strange because my favourite colour is red and most fiuchsias are red - very few seem to be fuchsia though I doubt I could identify the colour fuchsia if placed in B&Q paint department without a colour chart - taupe? ecru? they're french sauces aren't they? - fuchsia's a pinky purple isn't it... Wikipedia here I come... it's purplish red... kinda of shocking pink without the shock - close to cerise which is a make of Korean car I think)... where was I - oh yeah - blue flowers - don't know why Delta Sarah - a white and blue fuchsia - still amazes me - or why there is succh a quest for a true- blue rose - or why black flowers are all the rage too... focus, nearly went into a rant about black tulips - yeah Delta Sarah is a lovely fuchsia - in the pictures but never seems to be the same colours in real life as the frost always seems to hit just as it's ready to burst into its full glory in living blue and white.
Anyhow - fuchsia grapes - look out for them, coming to a deli near you soon - courtesy of Frary's Fresh Flowers (and fruit... but the tale of Fabulous Frary Fresh Fiji Fruit Farm will have to wait for another post....)

Another success we had this year - grown from seed - was the carnations for the hanging baskets. They were the trailing carnations from T&M and did well for us. Here are a couple of the flowers.

Fortunately I put the baskets into the (newish) greenhouse before I left for Libya in September. The cold snap in October didn't get to them so the carnations are still blooming. Nice big flowers - much bigger than the "Florist's" carnation I planted this year in some of the tubs - but the hanging basker carnations don't have long stms with a single flower at the top. They would make good buttonhole flowers but wouldn't be any use for a vase or a bouquet so we tend to put the carnations as single flowers in those little jamjars (that you get in hotels) on the windowsill above the washing up sink.
Okay - I admit it - it's my wife that puts them there. She's the flower arranger - my arrangements (so far) tend to be grab as many flowers as you can and then dump them in a vase. Her's are much much better - different heights, greenery and all.
This is one of my typical arrangements, grab it - cut it - shove it - dump it... :

Sorry for the two weeks plus of silence - I was back home in the UK getting in a final break before the runup to Xmas. I only had two weeks so it was go-go-go all the time and I managed to squeeze in a trip down south to Grimsby (and to Kirkby where our HQ is).

Something I do as soon as I get home, even before I even walk in the house and meet or greet my kids (if they happen to be home), is walk round the garden. Even when I get home at night. Thanks to the security lights at the back and the street lights at the front I can still see enough to check out the current projects. I used to do exactly the same when I stayed in Grimsby (and still do) - go out and check what's happening in the garden. It is even more weird hat I do it in Grimsby because it must be nearly thrirty years since I had anything to do with my parent's garden and yet I still want to check out what has changed - strange.

In Aberdeen this is what I see - well these are daytime shots - only in high summer can I look round in the light as I get back from the airport around 10pm.


This is the back garden and the "patio" - the patio has basically been turned into a plant propagation area while the back garden is still largely grass for the grandson to play soccer and for the wild rabbits to chew. As I am in the UK only 3 months a year (for tax reasons) then I can't tend plants across the whole area - in fact I have to go in for very low maintenance gardening - rockery, grass, trees, bulbs, cottage garden plants, perennials, container gardening. Where I have tried to grow annuals and more high maintenance plant - eg veggies, the weeds have defeated me. Even the seeds I plant have to be tough - if they can'y germinate and survive in 8 weeks then they're stuffed. My annual/veggie patch is in a fenced off area (or rather chicken-wired-off area) to keep out little bunny fufu and all her hordes of ravenous beasts - which I guess you can just about see in the picture - but isn't worth a close picture as it is so embarassing to look into - the grass and dock leaves are battling it out between themselves over 90% of the area.

In the front then low maintenance gardening really comes into its own - the rockery - the lavenders and the bog plants - and the ajuga... and the roses... and the butterfly bushes... and the raspberries - a whole host of subjects to witter on about. But let me just show an over view of the "rockery" and the Lupin bank. You don't really get much of a clear view from these overall shots but over the next few weeks I'll try to keep to a schedule of postng twice a week to build up the resources - especially about my belo ved heathers and the rockery -