ruminate vb. to chew (the cud)
If we had a well defined winter in this country I imagine there would be months of nothing at all happening followed by a relatively quick transition into full on growth. It seems that one season starts before the last one has finished and the acceleration into full growth runs at about 0 to 60…
If you wanted the clearest possible indication that not a lot is happening in the garden it's the fact that I've spent most of the last week decorating. Hanging wallpaper and painting. The last few days have been cold though we've mostly escaped frost. Nevertheless I scurried round on Wednesday afternoon tucking things up, then…
There must be gardeners who never grow things from seed, just like there are gardeners who don’t compost stuff. If gardening is about growing stuff you simply cannot get more engaged with the process than by sowing and growing seeds. I have a list of the seeds I hope to be sowing in 2019. It…
Last six of the year. Taking inspiration from Jane's king parrots last week I have been trying to take pictures of garden birds. We hang a couple of feeders of sunflower seeds out for them and mostly get flocks of goldfinches hoovering them up from dawn to dusk. I started taking pictures from the house, through…
I have to admit I'm not highly motivated to get out into the garden at the moment. My task for the week has been to sort out the 18,500 photos of Camellias I took in 2017. Done, phew. Now for 2016, not so many, just under 10,000. It would not be true to say that…
In Greek mythology a creature with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a snake. In plants, and indeed animals, it refers to an organism which contains two or more genotypes. In plants this is typified by variegated plants such as Box or Pittosporum, which may have a…
After this there's just two more sixes to go and we're into a new year. It's cold and there's not a great deal happening in the garden, though I have camellias flowering, three sorts outside and four in pots. Some I have used before and don't want to repeat for now. For two of them…
