Arch

We went to buy bird-food and came back with an arch. I can stand upright underneath it, its a metre wide and has a planter at each side. Back for a membrane (which I have filled with the sand Mike gave me a decade ago) and three paving slabs. Dug out the ornamental grass and transplanted a piece of each on the grassy knoll against the fence.
Also bought an Aconitum Hemsleyanum and a Lonicera x Tellmanniana which have gone into the planters.
While in the buying mood got parsley, welsh onions and spearmint. These will go in the remaining barrel planter together with the chives and coriander from pots in the front window.
The lettuce and tomatoes in the propagator have only managed to grow mould. If there is no sign of life by Sunday I shall dump them and try again.

Dotar Sojat

Safety is often approached asymptotically.

Bulbs and herbs

Apart from the paper boy and the postman blazing a trail across the crocuses and anemones, the bulbs are now doing well. The cold set them back about a month but there have been some good shows. Latest to appear are the little daffodils around the holly, at the top of the bank and in front of the black bamboo.

Even more pleasing, some of the plantings from two years ago have obviously increased because they are now forming dense clumps. Also the late plantings in pots have produced some blooms; the cauldron has made a spectacular show of white which folows the sun and closes at night.

Two plastic "half-barrel" tubs for the price of one. Now one is planted with a sampling from all the Suttons herb seed collection together with an embedded pot of mint from the Windowsill Kitchen Herbs pack - the same as is in the sunken bucket at the side of the house.

We've got next week as leave so I plan to do some work every day.

Dotar Sojat


I only read eighteenth-century newspapers of which I have an enormous stock, for the news in them is just the same as it is today. You merely have to substitute the names of countries occasionally, and not invariably.
Professor Sir Albert Richardson

Greenland block and NAO

Frosts every night, snow every day, wind chill severe; it is still winter.

Everything has stopped growing.

I think it is time to do some pruning.

At least the feeders are bringing activity. So far today I have seen magpies, blackbirds, starlings, sparrows, blue-tits, great tits, coal tits and, of course, the squirrels.

Dotar Sojat

Become a mystic - help stamp out reality.